Starting from Scratch
Like many companies, AfterFXCustom’s Twitter feed tends to follow its Facebook posts. This gives the company exposure to the small percent of viewers that don’t overlap.
The AfterFXCustoms brand plays well in social circles with a vibrant facebook presence. YouTube isn’t yet paying dividends, but the company sees good traffic from Google Adwords.
Ideally, Acker would like to engage Internet users more through
Facebook, Twitter and other social media, but that is simply not realistic because it is so time consuming. He is the only blogger and often uses his iPhone to post blogs while also posting and managing the site from his laptop at the shop, logging in eight to 10 hours a week. AfterFX Customs has a YouTube site but it has proven to be less effective, Acker said. The site uses Google’s advertising platform Adwords and it has paid dividends.
DAZZLE FOR DRIZZLE Acker designed the site in-house at no cost, only paying for it to be coded and implemented by Catalyst Webworks. Most Websites have two basic designs: one for the homepage and one for everything else.
Afterfxcustoms.com actually has a sin- gle design, and the content called up by clicking a link shows up under the header, pushing the other content down the page. This approach simplifies the design requirements and helps deliver stable branding; however, depending on the types of content you are showing—such as Google maps on the ‘Con- tact Us’ page and wallpapers on the ‘Downloads’ page—it can look a little MySpace-ish as images and information are
stacked on top of one another in one section while creating big gaps in others. While we prefer contact information on the homepage itself,
afterfxcustoms.com compromises on this with a banner-ad sized link that takes users to addresses, phone numbers and a contact form. (A note on this: when designing your page, con- sider doing without a form. These are looked on by consumers as making a wish at a well: you drop in information and don’t know if you’re going to receive anything or not. Instead, link users to your Facebook page, where they can get the benefit of seeing other people who are enthusiastic about your brand, and possibly get their questions answered by this same group.) It’s very evident that
afterfxcustoms.com is tied into its cus-
tomers and its neighborhood. To that end, we would have liked to see even more of a personal approach, both on the site and in the blog; possibly introducing certain members of the team, or putting a name to the blog posts. This would really bring the effort home and give the site maximum impact. That said,
afterfxcustoms.com is a well-designed, logical, vibrant site that plays well with the social neighborhood, and is a great example for other retailers to follow. ■
www.me-mag.com 47
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68