Daily
The Egotist Interviews: Eric Karjaluoto
The problem with agency sites today, and this really goes for any static website today, is just that – it’s static. Which means there’s no reason for anyone to revisit. The thinking stays frozen in time and so does your portfolio – not a good thing for an agency that wants to appear as a mover and shaker.
In an attempt to encourage more Colorado agencies to get their own blogs cooking, we talked to the author of one of our favorite agency blogs up in Vancouver, Eric Karjaluoto of ideasonideas (the blog of interactive agency smashLAB).
Q: Ideasonideas is having a huge impact on uncovering and solving common pain points for designers and clients alike. That’s obvious, but what was the initial intended purpose of the site?
A: We simply wanted to contribute to our community and create something that would document issues that interested us. I think that when we first started the blog there was a proliferation of other ones that simply aggregated content from others. Our hope was to author something substantial, which people would find useful.
Q: What were your initial expectations and how have you measured success?
A: Our initial expectations were that we’d stumble along for a while, and ultimately grow tired of blogging. We knew that there were scads of blogs in existence and, as such, didn’t really think we’d even register a blip. In reality, however, it seems that our insights are in fact resonating with readers. Approximately 60,000 visitors frequent the site monthly, which I feel is quite amazing, given that the posts are infrequent, long, and rarely utilize any kind of visuals.
Q: How long did it take you to grow the site to the current traffic level (extremely impressive, by the way)?
A: Everything was quite slow initially, but we seemed to find a fairly substantial audience within about six months. Since then we’ve seen slow but steady growth. I think the increase in visitors is largely due to others posting about articles on our ideasonideas that they have enjoyed. We see a little unexpected spike in traffic when another prominent blog links to one of our posts.
Q: How many leads do you get as an agency from the site?
A: I don’t believe we see very many leads from the blog. That’s largely due to the fact that ideasonideas is intended for our peers more than for our clients. We’ve changed that a little as of late, and the articles have become more general in nature. That being said, I believe that some clients like to see that we have a personality, and perhaps this blog represents that accurately.
Q: What recommendations would you make to an agency regarding the implementation of social media for themselves?
A: A blog takes about an hour to create, but endless hours to maintain. Of course, there are countless blogs out there that harvest other content, or focus on minutiae. My feeling, however, is that it’s more important to create quality content than create a “me too” blog. Social media is like anything else: it’s great when used well. I think agencies would be wise to establish clear goals for any such efforts and approach them with the same rigor as they would with traditional media.
Q: What pains/pitfalls should be considered in designing and implementing an agency blog?
A: I feel that you simply have to treat the medium appropriately. Some suffer by treating their blog simply as a marketing off-shoot of their existing website. (I think this is a pretty common problem in our industry.) Thankfully, this is an easy problem to remedy: create something that exhibits your agency’s unique personality, provide good content, and spread the word. Incidentally, we just created a white paper that’s a nice introduction to social media. You can find it here.
37 days ago / / Link
“I think that when we first started the blog there was a proliferation of other ones that simply aggregated content from others.”
hahahaha, the irony
— justsayinyo · Dec 1, 02:49 PM · #