We know what media is and we know what marketing and networking mean, but what is the “social” part that is so revolutionary? Anthony Bradley, from Gartner Research, defines it like this: “Social media is a set of technologies and channels targeted at forming and enabling a potentially massive community of participants to productively collaborate.” Social media becomes the place where people connect, relate and communicate which in turn affects their perspectives, judgments and choices in how they spend, save or invest money and ultimately influences who people choose to advise and manage their money.

Website as primary tool
Your website is still your most important communication tool. It serves as the portal to your company, it’s services, it’s people and it’s mission. “You shouldn’t be committing staff to Facebook if you don’t have a decent website home page or can’t email supporters,” says Katya Andresen, COO of Network for Good. If your website is not inviting and engaging your clients and prospects, how can you expect your social media tools to do any differently? The way that you communicate with your audience is how you will express your brand in the tools of social media, the website is still the most powerful tool in your repertoire. Get the website right, and the Facebook Fan page is a lot easier to build.

1. Making it Mobile
The website should be redesigned or maximized for smart phones. These devices are now the primary mode of communication for most of your clients. Making it mobile does not just mean making it smaller. You need to re-think the workflow of the website, minimize tabs, shorten links and offer content in a smart and accessible manner.

2. Blogging with comments
Beside making your content relevant, you need to offer frequent updates, new perspectives, and reactions to real world events. Many of this can be done on a blog. Your blog can archive commentary and link stories and demonstrate your unique approach to investing. You can add new blog posts very quickly and easily offer new content on your website. This is where you may add a “comments section” and begin real dialogue with clients and prospects.

3. Linking to Social Marketing Tools
Add ShareThis or Add This plug-ins to your website and blog so users may promote your website using their own social networking tools. For your email blasts use a social media link that adds a tiny little tag that simply grabs your email’s subject line and creates a tiny URL using bit.ly to share a copy of your email to the world. Social media links help people share and open emails more often. The “Email Marketing and Social Media Integration Report” found that email messages including a social sharing option generated 30% higher click-throughs than emails without any social sharing links. Messages with three or more sharing options generated 55% higher click-throughs. Emails with a Twitter sharing option returned 40% higher click-throughs than messages without any social media links.

4. Using Video and podcasts
You should begin using video clips and audio clips (or podcasts) from press appearances, or conferences where you or one of your executives are speaking. Post them on your blog or on your website. A simple Flip camera for $149 makes videos that you may instantly upload to your computer, edit and post. See our first Flip video.

5. CMS-Based
Your website should have a Content Management System like WordPress or Drupal that allows you to easily update the content on your website and blog…and to accept comments and feedback from your users. The days of static brochureware websites are over.

Conclusion:
Your brand encompasses the personality of your company, products or services. You must build your brand across all platforms and be especially aware of how your website relates to your Facebook page, your Linked-in profile as well as the language of your Twitter feed. Learning how to best use the new tools of social media may enhance your public image, but if handled poorly these same tools may dilute your brand and confuse your audience. Start getting “social” by getting your website right.

Here’s our first podcast. Langton Cherubino Group featured on Greenwich Entrepreneurs.

David Langton spoke with Belray Asset Management’s president, Greg Skidmore and wealth manager Pedro Ramirez, Jr. in their Greenwich office about how Langton Cherubino Group began and how understanding an organization’s goals is the key to creating work that meets strategic communication objectives.

Meet the typeface that could save the world! “Eco font” is designed to be the first socially responsible typeface. How does it work? There are tiny holes in the letters––so small that you can’t see them at small sizes like 10 point text size. (At headline sizes it’s a bit like Swiss Cheese!) The addition of these holes means that when printing Eco font uses less ink than other typefaces. Which saves money and resources. Its creator Alexander Kraaij told the National Geographic that if Eco font is used by a company with 5,000 workers it could trim $125,000 off its annual printing costs. Let us know if you’d like to use Eco font on your next project.

We create marketing strategies and communications programs for others. It was time to take a dose of our own medicine.

Once upon a time a Flash-based brochure-ware website showing our portfolio was sufficient. But now we have Web 2.0 and “Business as usual” is over. The new economy demands that we revisit our marketing messaging and the way we deliver communications.

We took on the task and committed ourselves to a self-examination that led to one thing.
Our website needed a makeover.

Why are we doing this?
Our design communications firm specializes in branding and identity. We ask our clients:
1. Who is your target audience?
2. What impressions do you want to make?
3. What information do you want to convey?
4. What does this project have to do in order for you to consider it a success?

Now it was time to answer these questions ourselves. Our clients are employee communication consultants, human resource managers, chief marketing officers and marketing and communication specialists. We want to make our best impression in design communications to a wide range of prospects. From a new identity for lani–dig your dog, a dog shampoo, to a national wellness initiative for Pfizer, the largest drug company in the world, we are there.

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When global marketing experts Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin retooled their popular business book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind,  they turned to Langton  Cherubino Group to redesign the new book’s cover. Repositioning shows you how to adapt, compete and succeed in today’s overcrowded marketplace. The authors demonstrate how to beat the competition, change with the times and manage a crisis. Steve Rivkin is a naming expert and marketing consultant who has collaborated with us on naming projects for Evaliant and Essensa.

Our design for Pfizer’s Puerto Rico Wellness campaign is featured in the Visual Language for Designers–Principles for Creating Graphics that People Understand by Connie Malamed (Rockport). Within every picture is a hidden language that conveys a message, whether it is intended or not. This language is based on the ways people perceive and process visual information. By understanding visual language as the interface between a graphic and a viewer, designers and illustrators can learn to inform with accuracy and power.

Your company’s website is the number one communications platform for promoting and expressing your brand and in turn for positioning and selling your products and services. How does this affect your marketing strategy? How will people remember your name or find your website? The survival of a communications tool from the “old media” of print will be based on how effective it is in the new digital economy. But before we send out that condolence card…or email, let’s take a look at what the different media types offer us when we create a marketing communications plan.

I like the bumper sticker that says, “If you can read this then you are too close to me.” It’s a perfect example of a communication tool that takes advantage of its unique positioning– it is being read by the driver behind you and the writer of that bumper sticker used that positioning to make a point. In the new digital economy you need to know where your audience is and where they turn for key communication. Your company’s website is the number one communications platform for promoting and expressing your brand and in turn for positioning and selling your products and services. How does this affect your marketing strategy? Gina Trapani writes in the Harvard Business Review (online—not in print) “It’s pretty simple: Google is the new business card.” Is the business card now DOA? Not so fast. We believe the business card in its perfect 2 x 3.5 size format will be the key survivor. How else will people remember your name or find your website? Letterheads and envelopes may be on life-support, but the business card offers an easy and effective way to pass along your contact info with a quick visual reference and a url. The survival of a communications tool from the “old media” of print will be based on how effective it is in the new digital economy.

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Gordon Kaye, Publisher of Graphic Design USA struggles with the meaning of Twitter and opens up the debate in the September/October issue of the magazine with this quote from David Langton’s article, “The first thought comes from David Langton of the Langton Cherubino Group in New York. He suggests that Twitter, with its strict 140 character-per-message restriction, may have the unintended effect of encouraging discipline and efficiency in communications that too often ramble.”

Click here for complete article.

My favorite saying when it comes to communication is, “If I had more time I would have written a shorter letter.” This is often attributed to Mark Twain – but he never said it. Blaise Pascal wrote in 1657, “I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short.” Perhaps it sounds better in French. The point is, it takes time to get messaging just right. Editing, reviewing and selecting the right words are skills sorely missing in fast-paced communication where this is often taken for granted.

I used to think email was destroying our ability to writer properly – or at least clearly. It often takes 4 or 5 exchanges to clarify a simple message. One phone call with instant back and forth where you can hear the tone of the caller can get the job done. Our written words lack the nuance and frankly we just don’t think of everything when we’re dashing off an email. The person on the other end of the phone often provides the questions or clues that we are missing critical ingredients.

Texting is another communication mode with its own language and rules. You must be brief – but there can be a lot of back and forth that’s part of the fun. And then there’s Twitter. The 140 character limit provides a framework that is poetry in some hands and indecipherable in others. One of the advantages of twitter is that you can’t go on and on — and I think people actually spend more time composing and thinking about their language.

Can we bring the attention to precise word usage required in Twitter to our blogs, emails, brochures or longer-form communications? How can we cut-to-the-chase? “Cut-to-the-chase” means to get to the point without wasting the reader’s time. The phrase is attributed to silent movie editors from the 1920s who were literally cutting film to the climactic chase scene. Yet as late as 1988, William Safire was writing in The New York Times about the term as a new way to express “get to the point” or “bottom line.”

As visual communicators we use imagery and words to convey meaning and emotion. We are often challenged by long meandering manuscripts or poorly conceived content that had not been subjected to edits, reviews and clarifications. It takes time and work to evaluate and improve communication. As A.J. Leibling said, “I can write better than anybody who can write faster and I can writer faster than anybody who can write better.” The most effective communications are succinct and on-target – and they only get that way after many rounds of thoughtful review and refinement. The end result is a communication project that expresses the right mood, delivers the right information and successfully engages the recipient.

As Dr. Seuss says, “My believe is the briefer the brief is, the greater the sigh of the reader’s relief is.”

2009 Apex Award, Award of Excellence
- GMHC Annual Report

Langton Cherubino Group was honored to be chosen as the designers for the GMHC annual report. The theme we developed is “The Web of Truth.” For 27 years, GMHC has born witness to HIV from its frontlines. And in those 27 years, they’ve charted a pandemic that changes continuously and profoundly.

2009 Apex Award, Award of Excellence
- Verizon Wireless Total Rewards Program

Langton Cherubino Group along with Mercer Human Resource Consulting created a video, direct mail and email marketing campaign for a contest that highlighted the commitment of Verizon Wireless to their employees. The video generated over 2000 responses in the first 48 hours.