If you’re anything like me, the advent of springtime in Minnesota lifts up the spirits as the outdoors finally become habitable again.  Even though it seems that winter refuses to go without a fight, people are outside soaking up the sun on patios, jogging around the lakes, shooting hoops at the park, and one of my favorite activities, biking.  I’m going to go out and say it: everyone should bike. We should almost change our name to CheckerBike!

Reasons Why Biking is Awesome:

• It’s a great way to exercise
• Bicycling can reduce stress
• It’s a fun way to explore and adventure
• Bonus: Minneapolis is one of the most bike-friendly cities in America. There are so many trails for bikes to go travel in the area, plus the bike culture is incredibly friendly, welcoming, and positive.

Biking sounds great!  How do I start?

If I’ve sold you on the world of cycling, that’s great news!  It’s pretty easy to get started but there’s a few steps to  do in order to get ready for the road.

Step 1: Get a Bike

Yeah I know this is probably the most obvious step, but there’s a lot of different options of bikes depending on how you plan on using your bike.

There are four basic categories of bikes:

• Road Bikes – made for speed and riding on pavement.  
• Mountain Bikes – durable frames, thick tires, perfect for riding off the beaten path.
• Hybrid Bikes – combination of mountain and road bikes. Good for most city riding.
• Cruisers – wide tires, wide seats, easy to maintain. When comfort is more important than action.

Protip: While you could buy a bike at a discount retailer for relatively cheap, I highly recommend spending a little extra for a higher quality bike.  The cheaper bikes are made with lower quality components that will break down more frequently than other bikes. There are plenty of great bike shops in the Minneapolis area, such as The Hub Bike Co-Op or Freewheel Bike, who care a great deal about their customers.

Step 2: Buy a Helmet (and Other Safety Gear)

I can’t stress this enough: get a helmet, and make sure you wear it when you ride.  Helmets range in price based on varying features and styles but as long as you’re wearing a helmet that fits, you have that extra layer of protection which could save your life in an accident.  Getting helmet hair is a way better outcome than what could happen without a helmet.

If you’re planning on doing any night riding at all, make sure you have headlights and reflectors to increase your visibility.  These aren’t a bad idea to have even if you’ll be only riding in the day. Being visible is one of the best ways to prevent accidents.

Step 3: Know the Rules of the Road

They aren’t difficult to learn, and most of them are common sense. Check out the resources here and watch the video below.

Step 4: Go Ride!

Now that you’ve got a bike, safety gear, and know the rules, you’re ready to get out there and ride!

I joined the bike culture recently after I purchased my bike, a majestic Redline Monocog 29er, and I must say that it’s been a really fulfilling experience so far.  I love the feeling of zipping through trails and down hills knowing that my own energy is powering the ride. Biking can be quite the adventure!

Can my new site be controlled by our customer-facing staff?  Web communications should be handled by customer service and sales people, using their existing skills plus easy-to-use tools that are now available. Through our build process, we define the tasks and actions you want assigned to your staff, bend WordPress to your needs, document the process and train/support your staff.

How will my new website and social media content tie in with my current processes and routine? New content creation shouldn’t be an overwhelming task. It is smart to tap into what is already being created for other areas of the business, because tweaking it may make much of it useful for your website, social media and email programs. We can show you how to adjust your processes so that your content can be utilized in targeted search engine optimization or to stay connected with your current customers.

How can I target locally?  With the right tool set and processes in place, all you should need to do is provide good content by talking about what you do and who you serve. We can help you localize a website to your area. Hear from our customers.

Does it support a team?  The industry standard tools available today can support you, your team and your approval processes.  Make sure any new site you build is geared toward action and there is not a technical barrier between you and your customers.

Am I stuck with this vendor for the life of the site?  Maintaining code is expensive.  Unless you plan on having a full-time developer or throwing away your site every few years, I suggest utilizing industry standard tools.  We focus on marketing and lead generation. The best tool available for that is WordPress, which is widely supported.  Why choose WordPress?

Will it replace my sales force? Sadly, no.  Just as email and the phone before it, a website and good marketing program will not replace human interaction. It should, however, give you a tool set, the processes and training to utilize the new tools to stay connected with your customers and potential clients on a regular basis.

Does it work on mobile phones?  Your new website should be “responsive”, which means the content automatically adjusts to the monitor and device that is reading it. Most of our starter frameworks are responsive.  Here scan this code to view this page on your phone.

Will it grow with me? It is important to have a system flexible enough to handle your current traffic and the direction your business may go in the future.  Your ongoing marketing efforts should build on what you have done in the past.  If you are constantly throwing away your old site, you are starting over way too often.  Having a system that can grow with you has multiple benefits including avoiding complete retraining of your staff.

What happens when I want a new site? You shouldn’t have to start from scratch every time you want to refresh your approach. Every piece of content you add to your site builds your overall search profile. Erasing this data every 2-4 years is effectively starting your SEO over. Make sure that you will be able to change your site’s design while maintaining the tool set on which your staff is trained and  maintaining your search content. Our processes and tool set allow for this.

Can I or my team easily build landing pages for campaigns? The answer should be yes. You should be given the tools and training to build simple pages and forms.

Is it scale-able?  Make sure the system on which your site is built can handle more traffic.  Our highest visited customers are getting more than five million visits annually. If Ford can run its marketing program on these tools, most of our customers can use them as well. You can start with minimal hosting fees and increase your hosting program as new traffic dictates.  I have never seen increased traffic become a problem.  Having traffic patterns large enough to require larger hosting is a good thing.

Is it portable?  You shouldn’t be tied to one hosting provider. Our sites are easily moved.

How can I measure success?  It is important to discuss your objectives and how they will be measured.  This should be handled in the planning process.  We document your goals and the metrics that will need to be followed.  Each site build includes set up and configuration of Google Analytics to your needs.

Will the vendor do what they say they will? There are really two things to look for. First, is your vendor honest and trustworthy? Second, are there processes in place to define expectations before the build starts? We have built more than 100 sites on this tool set and know the questions to ask to help assure you get what you ask for.

How do I draw new customers through organic searches? Optimize your site AND optimize the process for adding content. SEO is not about a tech guy in the basement fiddling with code. It is about utilizing a tool set to communicate with your customers and prospects. That tool set should be constantly improving and building your search profile with each new piece of content you add.

Does it integrate with social media? Social media is a tool to communicate with your customers. Of course it should work in conjunction with your website. Your website should lead people to your social media, and should streamline the processes for content distribution.

When I get a customer, does it provide tools to stay connected? A website should integrate with your email nurturing/marketing program, and build a database of customers and prospects with whom you can easily communicate on a regular basis. We streamline processes to include SEO, social media and email marketing.

Can it handle the updates I would like to make? This is essential. Our planning process includes defining the types of updates you will be making and the promotional channels into which they should be funneled. Once that process is defined, we build the system around your needs, document the process, train and support your staff.

Will I be able to use it? Your website should be built using industry standard tools that allow for online marketing. That should assure there is a lot of support available. If you can handle your Facebook page or Microsoft Word you should be in good shape with a website that we build for you.

Can it help my business? Your website should be a smart business investment. Our websites are geared to our clients’ goals which typically focus on: keeping what they’ve got, growing what they’ve got and looking for more customers. We set goals in our campaign directives and make sure that the metrics are tracked.  Read how this contractor’s experience went with us.

Will it help me control my online reputation?  The Internet has given the average person a voice and has greatly empowered the consumer.  This same tool set is available to you through your Web and social programs.  It is more important than ever to fill the Internet with positive content about your business.

Will it track advertising? Our clients can.

How much time am I going to have to invest?  This is a wonderful question.  The overall time invested in building a new site depends on the route you take to get your site. You can build a very low-end site on a shoestring budget, then through investment in time get it to a place where it is making you money.  We provide our customers with a better starting position.  You get a site you can control with a lot of the basic functions already optimized.

How much should I spend?  This depends on your commitment to getting your site up to speed.  Over the last couple of years, we have built more than 100 sites on this platform. We have come to understand where most business owners and marketing managers can start on a solid foundation.  Our full planning, build, train and support packages typically start at between 8-12K.

How do I get started with Checkerboard?  Contact Alicia to schedule an appointment to discuss your needs.  We can provide a quick demo, discuss your needs and go through our set of questions so you can leave the meeting with an estimate.

If you’re not familiar with Kickstarter, it is a website where people who want to build a product or service, but do not have enough funds, can solicit donations from others to get it done. Kickstarter has been around for a little while, but has become more popular in recent years with some higher-profile projects like the e-paper based Pebble watch, the party card game Cards Against Humanity, and a movie for the critically-acclaimed tv show “Veronica Mars”.

Now, you may not have an interest in this particular project, but there is some other topic that does interest you. And, there is a very good chance that there is an online community – or “tribe” – of some kind built around this topic. In fact, you may have a product or service that you would like to have a community develop around – which can lead to an active and engaged customer base. That is the power of the internet – to reach and foster connections among like-minded people around a topic, or a product, or service. Kickstarter is just one example of this. Websites, discussion groups, and social media in general are all ways that creators of products, services, and ideas find and speak to their target markets. Sometimes, these target markets are niche (like those interested in seeing a Robocop statue built in Detroit), and sometimes they are broader (like perhaps those who could benefit from a joint supplement or those looking for a local tree-trimming service).

This is essentially what Checkerboard has been helping clients do for the past 15 years. We build websites with strategically-crafted messaging, launch supporting social media channels that help spread these messages, and teach our clients to add and build on this messaging in ways that speak directly to their target markets through these channels. Let us know how we can help you develop a “tribe” around your product or service.

(Image via Kickstarter.)

Answer:  Integrate your Facebook with MailChimp!

If you’ve never heard of MailChimp…here is a quick overview.  MailChimp is a DIY email newsletter service that was started in 2001.  There are no contracts – it is a free service (for lists under 2000 subscribers).  There are 3 million people & companies in 200 countries that send 5 billion emails to their subscribers about product updates, event invitations, announcements, and editorial content (just to name a few)!  It is a fairly quick and easy process to sign up for MailChimp.  Just a few steps to follow and in a short time, you can have your most up-to-date information sent out to all your followers (or, subscribers to use the MailChimp lingo)!

First – you’ll need to build your list of subscribers and create a campaign.  Here are two links to help:

• Marketing Campaign Features
• How to Create a Campaign

Next – you’ll need to explore MailChimp’s Facebook features and integrate the ones you will use through your personal profile. You can add your list sign-up form, auto-post your campaigns, or bring in information from your page or profile to campaigns. Before you can do any of this, you’ll need to click here to set up the integration.

Good luck!

To begin our new branding, we referenced our goals and directives, similar to what we do for our clients.  At Checkerboard, as a company, we try to make things as simple and effective for our clients, but deliver a cleverly designed website that is robust with features and packs a marketing punch.  To reflect our business ideology, we wanted a logo that was simple, yet strong.  The first big change was the red abstract checkerboard icon; it just had to go!  We felt that it was taking all of the attention away from our name and was not needed to represent us as a company.  We thought that we should reinforce the strength of our name itself so that “Checkerboard” would get the viewers attention and not the icon, so BOOM – no more icon.

You may not have noticed this if you weren’t paying close attention, but we also replaced the black in our logo with a dark gray.  While it might not be the biggest change, it’s still an important one.  By not choosing black, which would be the go-to color for many similar logos, we chose to go with a color that wasn’t like the others so that we would stand out.  On top of that, we feel that this attention to detail shows viewers that we make careful considerations to our approach and that we don’t do things the easy way, we do them the right way.

You may have seen these little guys hanging around:

Remember when I said we got rid of our icon?  Well, we didn’t get rid of it entirely.  These cubes are the same as the ones in our old icon, except now we are seeing them from a whole new perspective.  That’s another reflection of who we are as a company: when there’s a problem we will look at how to solve it from different perspectives in order to come up with the best possible answer.  We like to think outside the box – or cubes in this case.

We’re pretty excited about our new look and we can’t wait to show the world the new us!

If you are reading this right now, then that means that I have dyed, and I found that dyeing was actually really enjoyable!

On Saturday, I was able to participate in a 5k fun run called Run or Dye, where runners get covered in colored dyes before, during, and after their run, turning them into walking rainbows. It was a cold damp morning, so most of the runners were wearing a couple layers so they wouldn’t freeze, but the cold definitely didn’t stop the party train!  Harriet Island was packed with runners of all ages, shapes, and sizes; but most people were wearing a white outfit to act as a canvas for the torrent of color.  Everyone there was having a blast celebrating life through fitness and fun.

I had such a wonderful time with all of the runners.  Thanks to Run or Dye and everyone who participated for making this event possible, I can’t wait to dye again next year.

Here are some pics of me in color carnage:

Just passing the finish line, like a boss.  Yes, our team logo is a cupcake with laser eyes.

My teammate and I looking like survivors in a horror film.

Personally, writing this one day after the announcement, I have mixed feelings. From a technology standpoint, it is an exciting step forward. However, it is likely to cause some disruption in workflows with people who collaborate, and it may be an uncomfortable financial adjustment for some. As a designer working for a web design company, this is a transition we’ll have to work through eventually. With other subscription-based services like Spotify and Evernote becoming more and more popular and accepted, I think this is just one more data point in the trend to deliver software as a service in the future.

You can learn more about the Creative Cloud at Adobe’s website.

While Google Reader hasn’t been updated in some time and the writing may have been on the wall, it’s still a blow to those of us who counted Google Reader as an important cog in their daily news-aggregating workflow. I personally was a heavy Google Reader user, and we have recommended it to a number of our clients who wanted to aggregate news from a variety of sources related to their business. This change isn’t going to happen immediately, as Google has indicated they will keep the lights on till July 1, 2013. However, you don’t want to be left rushing to find a replacement when that day comes. So, what are some good Google Reader alternatives?

I looked at two possible replacements to Google Reader – Feedly and Pulse. After a quick assessment, both seemed like they would give me a very similar experience to Google Reader. After a bit more investigation, I ultimately went with Feedly, and after a few weeks of use I can say that I’m very happy. Setting up Feedly was easy, as you just have to sign in with your Google account and it imports your existing feeds directly from Google Reader. Feedly allows me to view my feeds like I did with Google Reader, but also adds some other display options to make it more visual, like a magazine. This is a nice option for design, art, or photography websites and blogs. They have iOS and Android apps, as well as browser plugins that all connect to your account and keep your activity in sync. They even have a blog post dedicated to Google Reader users to ease the transition.

If you’re looking for a quick recommendation that gives you what you had with Google Reader and then some, I’d say give Feedly a try. If you want to try out a few different solutions, I’d say try Feedly, Pulse, and, if you can wait, see what Digg comes up with too later this year.

Are there any that I missed? Let me know in the comments.

(Image by bmills)

Evan Hanson: Alicia it’s nice that we’re able to finally sit down and chat.  We’ve been pretty busy here with some new SEO and marketing projects, so it’s been hard trying to find time to get to do this. Let’s get this big question out of the way first, as it’s pretty important:  Have you seen Robocop? 

Alicia Ackerman: Yep!

EH: Good!  You’ve already passed the first test.  It’s pretty much mandatory to have seen it, because it’s a most excellent movie.  Apparently the citizens of Detroit are trying to erect a large Robocop statue.  Checkerboard approves.  So tell me a little about yourself.

AA:  I am originally from San Diego – born and raised!  I love the sunshine and landscape there…it will always be my home – but I am loving Minnesota!   I have been married for 8 years and we have a handsome 5-year old son and two step-daughters; one is 21 years old and still lives in SD, and the other is 18 years old and lives here in MN.  My parents relocated here shortly after we moved here, and my brother will be relocating here sometime this year.  I will have a big milestone birthday this year – hoping to maybe buy a house by then so we can REALLY celebrate!

EH: Party on, Wayne!  What made you want to work with us fine folks at Checkerboard?

AA: I was looking for a ’9-5′ job again…needed to get back into the business world!  I saw the position posting on Craig’s List…and the one thing that prompted me to submit my resume was the line that read, “Must have sense of humor”…I thought that this would be a place to work that values individuals and what they bring to the team!  I am so happy that I am here…I have learned so much, and still have much more to learn about this industry…very exciting!

EH: Exciting indeed! So what are some hobbies that you do outside of work?

AA:  I like to do ‘brain games’, word puzzles, play golf, shoot pool, shoot guns and play poker.  I love to watch football, funny movies and movies that let me escape into other ‘worlds’ (LOTR, war movies, etc.).  I am a bit of a science nerd too…I love to watch shows about geology and space.  I also love a good book, good wine, and great conversation with friends!  I am trying to find someone to take me deer or pheasant hunting…

EH: Well, I’ll have you know that I’m really good at Big Buck Hunter.  I’ve shot the lion and the rhino while playing in the Safari levels, so I guess I’m kind of a big deal.  So, it’s Friday after work, what is Alicia typically doing?

AA: Picking up my son from his Grandparent’s house…then either to the gym or home to enjoy some outside time and adult beverages with the neighbors!  Occasionally, I will go to Happy Hour while Devon is still at Grandma and Grandpa’s.  I love those days!

EH: If you were to have any super power what would it be?

AA: I would be like the Flash…able to be super speedy!

EH: QUICK, would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or one hundred duck-sized horses?

AA: Well – I suppose if I had a gun, I would fight the horse-sized duck…otherwise, I’ll take the 100 duck-sized horses just because I think it would be a hilarious sight to behold!

EH: Thanks for being such a good sport, and behalf of all of us here at Checkerboard, welcome to the team!

As you can see, she answered those questions like a champ and all of us here at Checkerboard are really looking forward to getting to know Alicia more as she continues to be a great addition to the team!

Alicia is ready to help your business today, and she will make the whole process fun and exciting, while getting you the answers you need.  Go ahead and give her a call (612-798-7244)!

Read more about YouTube One Channel here.

If video is an important means by which you get your message out to your target audience, you’ll want to be sure to be proactive in the change to the YouTube One Channel layout and take advantage of the new features. And, as always, Checkerboard can assist you in that transition. Give us a call at 612-798-7244, email us at support@checkerboard.com, or fill out the “Getting Started” form on our website and ask how we can help.

(Image by Andrew Perry on Flickr)