Bruce and Celeste Mannis of Pacific Merchants

Pacific Merchants has been importing and distributing fine kitchenwares for over 18 years, with their earliest days spent operating out of a garage. Now, after many years of hard work and dedication (and subsequent growth), they have clients ranging from major chain stores to restaurants and hotels. Recently, Pacific Merchants decided to make their products available directly to the consumer through the use of a redesigned website and optimized e-store, as well as a targeted Social Media Campaign.

DigitalEYE is excited for the re-launch of the Pacific Merchants Trading Company website, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for its debut in the coming weeks, and for now, become their fan on Facebook or follow them on Twitter!

What is Reno Youth Bridge?

Reno Youth Bridge is a non-profit organization that teaches students in Reno how to play Bridge, which has been shown to develop critical thinking skills and helps students learn how to work as a team. Furthermore, Bridge is a card game that develops critical thinking skills and builds important life skills (such as inferential reasoning) not taught in schools.

RYB is run by Kathy Lane, Grace Martin, Molly Rakestraw and Bud Brewer (father of DigitalEYE’s president Gary Brewer). It has received generous gifts from notable philanthropists such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

How DigitalEYE Helped Reno Youth Bridge

DigitalEYE created Reno Youth Bridge’s new website and blog. Our Lead Developer, Kanate setup hosting for WordPress, SEO configuration and a Flickr gallery. The website features a custom theme by our Graphic Designer Jamie; she also created a custom Twitter background and avatar for Reno Youth Bridge’s Facebook page.

Want to learn more about Reno Youth Bridge?

Go to thr Reno Youth Bridge Facebook page to learn how you can contribute to their cause. You can also follow them on Twitter.

The Reno Youth Bridge redesign is only a small example of what we do at DigitalEYE. We offer a variety of services available in order to establish and improve your company’s online presence including web development, Internet marketing, e-commerce solutions, print design, branding and more!

Digital Eye’s in-house web developer, Kanate helped created the FBML (Facebook Markup Language) landing page which presents users with a promotion for free coupons. After filling out the fields you will receive coupons for Panda Express, Knott’s Berry Farm, Weinerschnitzel and Wahoo’s. You’ll also be helping a great cause by having the opportunity to become a BigBrother or Big Sister and contribute to the local community.

In addition to the FBML graphics, Walter designed windows clings for Wienerschnitzel and Knott’s promoting The Big Brothers Big Sisters of OC campaign.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County was a pleasure to work with and we are extremely happy to create their Facebook marketing campaign which aims to raise awareness of such a great cause.

All of us strive for something when it comes to music, whether it’s performing for hundreds of thousands of fans at the year’s biggest festival or playing your heart out to a couple hundred die-hard fans in a small, overheated club in downtown L.A. For now, you’ve got your first album recorded, have your bandmates ready and a ton of gear to play your hearts out in your first gig to a few hundred people. First live performance. Nervous? You should be: you don’t even have a Twitter account yet!

1. Get Social And Interact

Engaging fans using social media is critical for any band; it’s the new MTV. Gone are the days when your band hopes to get play on the local music channel because YouTube is your new video outlet. Radio playback? Last.FM, Pandora, Facebook and word-of-mouth are all your promoters. That doesn’t mean the old school channels are obsolete; they’re just not as effective as they were a decade ago. Getting social will help promote your band through local channels as well as the national (or international) scene. The basics will be needed: Facebook music page, Myspace page (if you’re in to retro social networking), official band Twitter account, YouTube/Vimeo channel, SoundCloud/bandcamp profile, Flickr profile, iTunes/Amazon/Tune Core account (to distribute music) and of course, your very own official website. Sound daunting? Social media may come off as a huge undertaking but it’s more than worth it in the long run. To have a massive social presence, it would be wise to hire an ad agency or independent just to manage it all.

The more social media outlets your band connects to, the easier it is to engage fans and promote new work. It also creates a more intimate experience knowing anyone can send an @reply to get some sort of feedback. In the era of Prince, KISS and Van Halen, such a concept would seem ludicrous and would tear down the veil of mystery that enhanced their image. Today, social media outlets are tearing down the curtains and bringing artists off to the stage right in to the crowd. John Mayer, Pearl Jam, Cold Play, Taylor Swift and even Snoop Dogg have all taken up Twitter and often Tweet about random musings, concert info and music releases.

2. Interact With Your Community

So your band is on every social media outlet known to man and actively engaging fans. You can’t just stop at the occasional fan who leaves a comment on Facebook saying how great your latest single is. Bring them into your band’s community. Social Media should be the tool you use to bring in fans and potential fans to your band’s website. If you’re not sending out that .com or, worse, you don’t have one, this leaves fans sprawling for info across all these outlets you don’t own. If you’re lacking a site for your band, invest in a good website design company to code up something great. Twitter is awesome for sending out updates, Flickr for posting live shots, YouTube for hosting your next video but when your next release drops, are you going to inform everyone through a Facebook status? All of these social networks should tie in to your band’s main website and work together. Create a gallery of live concert shots that streams appropriately tagged content from Flickr; catalog music videos through embedded YouTube and Vimeo videos; add a media player courtesy of Sound Cloud or create a flash equivalent. These networks will bring in fans, allow them to interact with your content and spread it by word of mouth when they leave.

Your website should prominently display concert information and be the “go to” place for ticket info and other offers. When a band announces their new tour, misinformation can spread across blogs and other news outlets, rumored ticket prices often confuse customers. You’ll need to take control of how ticket information is disseminated before other outlets do. Same goes for media distribution. If you don’t have information on your newest release and Amazon is already showing a track listing complete with description while Pitchfork has a scathing review in the works, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Even if it’s leaked out piece by piece from any of your channels, your website needs to be the go to place for ANY information concerning media distribution. In short, if you created it and I can buy it, it needs to be acknowledged by you in some form. Amazon shouldn’t be the one giving me the only details.

Maintaining a blog adds additional content that goes far beyond what Facebook and Twitter can do. By having a central location that transcends the 140-500 character limit of Twitter and Facebook, you can get in to more details about any aspect of your music or band. Sending out a Tweet saying “New release – September 15th!” then linking it to a blog post with a full track list, release information, retail specials, digital download opportunities and recording information is the icing on your social media strategy. It is key for your website and social media outlets to interact hand-in-hand to bring in fans, engage with them and give them a reference for ANY information on your band. If you’re leaving discography info and a bio to Wikipedia or Facebook and not your website, this will create fragmentation of your band’s image. How Facebook sees you, how Twitter sees you, how Myspace sees you and how your website portrays you should be uniform.

3. Document And Archive Your Content

If your band has been around for a decade or is looking to stick it out in the long run, all of your content—whether it be photos, music, live shows, anything—needs to documented in some way. You can loosen the reigns and let fans have some control of this. This might sound contradictory to the hardline stance of taking command of every social media account you can get but this approach has worked. I mentioned in my previous post how Nine Inch Nails is innovating in the social media space and that they’ve been one to let fans have a significant place in their online presence, one of them being a fan run wiki dedicated to archiving the band’s concert dates, live recordings and information hard core fans would be interested in. The reason this works is that it’s maintained by truly passionate fans. The casual fan may not care about finding an obscure live recording or information on an ultra-rare release that only had 400 copies put out but there are people who do. These people will be dedicated to maintaining wikis and live recording catalogs online, they should be embraced as they are an essential part of shaping your band’s community. Other fan run sites should be credited in some way on your band’s website and receive some interaction on your end.

Bands such as The Grateful Dead (or simply “The Dead”) have garnered a massive following of fans that actively tape and distribute their live recordings online. While others have taken stricter stances on concert recordings, it’s still an area that needs to be acknowledged whether it’s shunned or embraced. Even if you ignore the taping community and try to instate restrictions, fans will always find a way to circumvent these bonds and sites that embrace the tradition of taping will flourish. While I can’t say which approach you should take in regards to this, you should at least do something about it. If you’re not willing to host or extensively catalog live material, at least let the fans take over in this area and assist when you can. Bands such as Metallica and Dave Matthews Band not only embrace live recordings, but monetize them through officially run websites that allow you to download any recorded performance in lossless form for the cost of an average CD.

4. Interact With Your Channels

You have your social media accounts set up, your website running and eager fans listening to your latest release. The next thing is to utilize your social channels. Fans are always looking for the latest information on their favorite bands; they’ll search through social channels and it’s very important to keep these organized and give them a definitive purpose. Keep all video content contained to one channel on YouTube/Vimeo and create playlists for music videos, interviews, fan interactions, teasers and trailers etc. Your Flickr account should be organized the same way; sets for live shots, album artwork, promotional images, original artwork, etc. When using Twitter you have more wiggle room. You will need an official account for your band to send out updates such as ticket info or other important tidbits. Individual members could have their own Twitter account but that is an optional decision. If you decide to go down that road, make sure each account is properly identified and differentiated from the official band feed. The same goes for Facebook: ensure each member’s profile (fan page or personal) is differentiated from the band’s page.

5. Use Tune Core

If you’re looking to expand how your music is consumed, you’ll want to set up an account at Tune Core, a company that handles online distribution of music through a variety of outlets. Tune Core does the one thing every band needs a record label to do: getting music out to the masses. Tune Core deals with the most popular online services such as iTunes, Amazon MP3, Myspace music, Zune Network, Emusic and a bevy of other online retailers. The upside to using Tune Core is its ease of use and affordable rates, something the modern day record label giant can no longer claim. While mainly used by smaller independent artists, Tune Core’s repertoire includes notables such as Zack Gross, Aretha Franklin and Trent Reznor (see the social media pattern?).

This concludes part 1 of the 10-point strategy your band should be using to promote themselves online. Part 2 will be coming shortly but in the mean time, tell us YOUR experience in using social media with your band.

With more than 9 million posts and comments in two days, Google Buzz has stormed the web like a swarm of locusts. An array of strong features, integration with Gmail and lots of press have turned Buzz into an overnight phenomenon.

If you’re like a lot of us, you’ve suddenly found yourself using your Gmail even more than you already were. Spending so much time in Gmail and Buzz, though, inevitably takes away from your Facebook () and Twitter (), and who wants to sacrifice their tweeting and Facebooking?

Luckily if you’re a Gmail user, you don’t have to sacrifice either, even while you’re browsing your e-mail or your buzz.

Gadget Integration Is Your Friend

“The key was using Gmail Labs feature at the bottom of the list called ‘Add any gadget by URL’. This allowed me to add these 3 features to my Gmail sidebar.”

By utilizing third-party gadgets, he transformed his Gmail into a place where he could access his Twitter, Buzz and Facebook straight from his Gmail. Here’s how:

Step By Step: Integrating Your Social Media into Buzz

2. Now go to Settings –> Gadgets. Here you’ll find a place to add Gadget URLs.

3. Add the TwitterGadget App. Any iGoogle gadget will do actually, but the best one in our opinion is TwitterGadget, a fully-functional Twitter service for iGoogle and Gmail. This lets tweet from the sidebar or open up your Twitter with all of your tabs intact. It even supports multiple accounts.

To add it, copy and paste this URL into Gmail’s Gadget settings: “https://twittergadget.appspot.com/gadget-gmail.xml”

4. Add the Facebook Gadget. In the same way you added TwitterGadget, you can add Facebook to your Gmail. While Google has an official Facebook gadget, it doesn’t play nicely with Gmail, so we suggest using the app Ari Milner users: Facebook Gadget by iBruno. It will expand into the rest of your Gmail for easy Facebook management.

To add it, copy and paste this URL into Gmail’s Gadget settings: “http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/104971404861070329537/facebook.xml”

5. That’s it! Google Buzz, Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail are now all wrapped up into one. Pretty nifty, no? Let us know about your experience in the comments.

With a social media resume, you’re able to paint a completely different portrait of yourself for hiring managers and customize it to reflect your personal brand. With the inclusion of various multimedia elements, sharing options, integrated social networking feeds and the same elements you’d find in a traditional resume, you are better equipped for success.

Social media has allowed us to reverse the recruiting process. Instead of submitting our resume, it becomes a billboard that can be shared, distributed to hiring managers, searched and more. In one sense it showcases your talents and what you’re looking for in a job and in the other, recruiters become attracted to it and will approach you with the opportunities that you desire.

Here is the social media resume process:

1.  Start With A Website

Depending on who you are, how much time you have, how you deal with criticism and your technological competency, you’ll either want to start a website or a blog. With both, there are free and easy to use services out there, as well as services that cost money and require experience.

Options for websites

Free: Bravenet.com is a free solution with many different tools, such as a polling feature and guest book to help you get started. They’ve been around since I started building web pages in middle school.

Paid: I recommend you use Bluehost or Godaddy to host and build your website. You can also use Microsoft Expression Web (), which is an easy to use website building software program, much like using Microsoft Word to build your website.

Options for blogs

Free: I recommend WordPress.com or Google Blogger. Both are easy to use and don’t require much web knowledge. I would touch up your skills in HMTL before even getting involved with a blog. There are various sites such as W3 Schools that can serve as tutorials for you.

Paid: I recommend loading WordPress.org into Bluehost. I just went through this process and Godaddy can’t comply, but Bluehost is easy to work with and understands how to install WordPress () blogs onto their hosts. Another option is using Typepad.com, which costs money and is great for the beginner blogger.

2.  Your URL is Key

Depending on your strategy, your URL is going to be extremely important. Of course I would recommend that you purchase your domain name, yourname.com. If that isn’t available, try for yournameRESUME.com or the .net or .org equivalents, in that order.

The objective of the URL is to have something you can freely promote and that people can remember.

- Use the URL on your paper resume.
- Use the URL on all of your social networks.
- Use the URL on your business cards and any other marketing materials.

You can get free domain names when you sign up for Bluehost, Godaddy and others. They typically come in a package with the hosting space.

3.  Decide on Format and Design

Depending on what job you’re looking for, you’ll want to change the blog/website format accordingly. I think it makes a lot of sense to take your paper resume and break it apart into its different sections. Once you do this, you can have separate tabs and pages for each, so it’s easy to crawl, navigate and makes a lot of sense to the recruiter.  Depending on how you want to brand yourself, you’ll want to design your blog accordingly. Using a color wheel to choose colors that match is very important, especially if you aren’t a graphic designer or artist. Remember to use a consistent font, headings and colors, while keeping your frame/format intact.

4.  Enhance Your Resume with Multimedia

Traditional resumes can’t include multimedia because they are on paper. Multimedia makes your website/blog much more interesting and interactive. It allows you to emotionally connect with recruiters and all other observers. It also puts a resume to a face and is another great method for people to consume your content. We’ve discussed video resumes before on Mashable, but you do have other options.

As WebWorkerDaily explains, you can enhance your multimedia resume in the following ways:

- A video or MP3 of you answering basic interview questions.
- Video of a talk or seminar you recently conducted.
- Photos of you meeting industry celebrities or business people.
- Audio testimonials from previous clients and coworkers.
- A podcast you’ve started.

Out of everything, I think a basic introduction to the brand called you is the most valuable for the observer. I would give a thirty second pitch for why someone should hire you. Depending on the company you’re targeting, you’ll want to dress formally or informally. Don’t act like you’re reading from a card and try to have a natural sounding voice. You can upload your video or audio to sharing sites, such as Vimeo or YouTube and then embed them on your website or blog. This typically works the best because then the video can have movement, going from one hiring manager to the next.

5.  Integrate Your Social Network Platforms

Before you think of even linking to any of your social networks in your webpage or blog, please consider how the profiles would appear to recruiters. For instance, if you want to highlight your Facebook profile, ensure that it doesn’t have profanity or explicit pictures on it first. You should review your wall postings, picture, profile information and more to see if it would be appropriate for hiring managers.

If your Facebook profile passes your examination, then feel free to build a profile badge that you can embed on your website.

Other social networks you may want to crosslink with:

LinkedInYour professional profile on this social network is extremely important because it takes into account everything a recruiter would desire from an applicant: cover letter, references list and resume. You can use a LinkedIn badge on your website or blog as well.

Twitter: Your Twitter stream can be a huge asset to you on your social media resume because it’s easy to update and recruiters can get a better feeling about who you are from reading it. There are Twitter badges you can include on your site as well.

YouTube: Storing your videos on YouTube makes a lot of sense because it’s easy to embed on your site, organize your videos into playlists and you can even have your own YouTube channel widget.

This is important if you want potential clients and employers to get a feel of what your personality and work ethic is like. The most important thing is to use social networks that people are most familiar with, such as the ones above and to keep them all fresh and updated. They HAVE TO best represent your personal brand to be included on your social media resume.

To read the other 5 ways to build your social media resume, read on Mashable

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Learn how to post blog articles on your blog or website. This instructional video by Ian Ray of Digital EYE will hold your hand through a step-by-step walk through the WordPress administration dashboard and interface.

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How to add and edit pages on your blog or website. This instructional video by Ian Ray of Digital EYE will hold your hand through a step-by-step walk through the WordPress administration dashboard and interface.

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How to format text on your blog or website. This instructional video by Ian Ray of Digital EYE will hold your hand through a step-by-step walk through the WordPress administration dashboard and interface.

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How to login and manage a WordPress blog or website. This instructional video by Ian Ray of Digital EYE will hold your hand through a step-by-step walk through the WordPress administration dashboard and interface.