Our take on Social

by danielle@cstoday.com

It is a fact universally acknowledged – social media is here, and it is here to stay. Regardless of what you want to think of as the ‘greatest’ social media site out there, it is clear that sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have altered the structure of our social lives to their core.

As humans, we love to communicate and, as busy busy moderns, we love to do it instantly.

Really, it’s no surprise that the thinkers and innovators of this generation have crafted a digital landscape that specially caters to these wants.

What is surprising is the fact that there are those among us who insist that all of the possible applications for socials end, abruptly, at the peripheries of our social lives. From within the safe, warm glow of their Gateway computers and mass email drip campaigns launched via dial-up they sneer and accuse us of falling head-first into a shallow infatuation with the newest and latest shiny object to tickle our ostrich-like sensibilities.

They say:

“Businesses don’t need a Facebook page.”

“Start-ups don’t need to Tweet.”

“Not everyone needs a LinkedIn profile.”

They are wrong.

If the goal of marketing, at its most basic level, is to compete – to make yourself more appealing, savvy, and generally wonderful than the all the other guys who are vying for a chance to fulfill the wants and needs of the same potential client – then it follows that you must first position yourself where those potential clients can easily find you. You want to be where they are. They are constantly on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Constantly.

Now, don’t hear me wrong. I’m not promising that every single flick, like follow, or retweet you earn will generate a phone call or an appointment. That’s an unrealistic expectation and a point that the nay-sayers out there will be sure to hit hard.

This being the case, the natural next question is surely, “Why even bother with socials then?”

I’ll tell you why you ought to bother.

Just as the digital world has revolutionized our social lives, so too has it altered the nature of business interactions and consumer patterns. The “dazzle ‘em and then hit ‘em with the big guns” philosophy of the 1990’s used car salesman has fallen out of vogue. It just doesn’t work like it used to – that is, if it every really worked in the first place.

Wants are different. People are different.

If I dared speak for the masses, I would go so far as to argue that the thing that matters most now, at this precise moment in time, is substance.

“Substance” is, however, a tricky word. Substance looks like different material in different contexts, but rarely does it have to do with sales techniques, your mission statement, or the services you provide. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the like are, first and foremost, about community. It really should go without saying that the efforts of those who choose to ignore this simple fact tend to fall flat.

You have to embrace the idea of community and accept the fact that this may successes on social media sites necessitates a different style of engagement. The “buy now/click now/ call now” mantra will get you nowhere.

Look, instead, to that which is fresh, unique, and relevant. You may find that the topics that resonate most dramatically with your audience have very little to do with you or your business at all. Take, for example, one of the Facebook page that CSToday has recently crafted for a Colorado estate administration firm.  You may be surprised to learn that two of the most popular subjects, on a page devoted to the probate process, are grandparents and stress reduction techniques. These topics, hands down, generate the greatest degree of engagement.

Why are we celebrating this? Why does it matter?

When you can connect with people, when you can engage them in a meaningful way, when you can get them talking to you, you have successfully established the basis of a community. When you establish a community, you give your potential clients a reason to care about you and your business.

Then, and only then, will the phone start to ring.

We always invite discussion in agreement or not so much.  Reach out at www.cstoday.com/#contact

What is HTML5?

by justin@cstoday.com

When considering HTML5 there are many important things to understand about how it differs from previous versions of HTML and XHTML (specifically what makes it better), and exactly what it can do for a website. This is a brief and general overview of some of its defining features and characteristics.

HTML5 has been big deal in the tech world because it represented a shift from the "web-page" toward something more dynamic and interactive.

HTML5 is, by in large, a revision of HTML4 that  creates a more complex interactive medium that works with multiple device types allowing for a deeper, faster, more accurate, and more satisfying interaction with the web. 

HTML5 allows web developers to mark-up pages with more precision with more explicit language. By doing things like, having the code language to provide video, audio, and animations, the webpage can avoid having to retrieve and send information form a third party, or a plug-in feature. Features like this also mean that HTML5 websites interact more accurately with web browsers, allowing for things like better responsiveness and rendering across devices.

With advances in hardware, web technologies, and software, HTML5 is built, more than any previous version of HTML or XHTML, to respond to rapid change affectively. Coding language, like technology, is always changing, and is hard to keep up with, so developing a language that is intuitive to HTML4, but still could meet advancing technology needs became necessary.

HTML5 is more organized and systematic than its predecessors (It was written to replace HTML2, XHTML1, and DOM level2) Where older versions of HTML and XHTML were failing to adjust and grow with technological development HTML5 is at the front of web technologies, and is built not only to work with applications, but to provide the foundational structure upon which they can grow.

It improves cross-device communication between different device types that use HTML allowing for a web experience that doesn't bias desktops and laptops over things like tablets and cell-phones. Rather, HTML5 is made to interact with multiple access devices equally, meaning that a webpage will operate across devices (i.e. desktop, mobile, tablet, etc.) without any reduction in performance related to the rendering of the page as the device communicates with the host.

 The advance of mobile access and the use of app and widget functions are supported by HTML5, surpassing many limitations of HTML4 code.

Of course, there are some existing compatibility issues with HTML5 and the internet as it stands now, such as issues with browsers not supporting HTML5 though, support can typically be built in. HTML5 has made efforts to keep as much compatibility as possible between HTML4 and itself, but it is only a matter of time before HTML becomes the preferred code source, and outdated codes, like HTML4, will be forced to update, or to find ways to stay compatible.  

HTML5 is a new force in web coding language designed and implemented to be present for at least the next decade. Over that time it will grow with the advances in technology, application and widget interface interaction and provide the basis on which many web operations take place. 

Questions? Please feel free to contact us at www.cstoday.com/#contact

Here is a handy tool for getting that uncompressed but now debugged code back into unreadable but faster compressed form.   /packer/