The plan is working

Thank goodness!  So, I was pulled in to help bring some numbers this summer for the new job.  We pretty much hacked away the old plan and redesigned our social media and advertising campaigns.  It took some time to clean some things up, but we got it done and moved forward with the new structures in mid June.  The results started to come in about a month later with the YouTube and Facebook pages. So far, we've seen about a 400% increase in fanbase, an average of 20% increase on YouTube, and the website is gaining in more hits as well (about a 15% increase monthly).

Now, with a reworking of keyword phrases and such on the advertising campaign, in the last week or so we've jumped from 16 hits to 114 in a matter of three days.  It is amazing to me how MUCH tinkering you have to do with social media to get the right buzzwords and keyphrasing involved for the audience you want.

Knock on wood, as things seem to be speeding up and the increases continue for the third month now, let's see how we handle this.

Catching up again!

Goodness! Who knew ten little lines of coding would prove to be such a hurdle!  Very glad to conquered it though this morning. Now I can begin the animated ad campaigns for the book at work!  Exciting!

Finally! some results

Odd...went in and having never truly used After Effects to animate, was able to create a really fun piece. Unfortunately, the file size was too large so back to the drawing board. Working in Flash this past week in the spare time has really taught me more patience. Finally had some results last night in creating an animated ad. Certainly not my best, but at least I know there is room for improvement, AND that I CAN actually do it. Hopefully soon the link to the add can be posted for comments.

Feeling competent once more

I have to give a shout out to CartoonSmart and their very impressive tutorials. After combing books and videos for several months, I've learned some tidbits here and there; however there always seems to be a certain 'step' that is missing. My hat is off to the creators of CartoonSmart for producing very intuitive instructional videos on using Adobe Flash.

Getting back to Flash

Have to admit after using After Effects, I'm spoiled. But in attempting to finish up an animated ad, I just can't get the file size down to where it needs to be...so, back to Flash I guess. Time to switch gears from Opacity to Alpha, from smooth and easy to clunky and arggh. ha ha ha...That's ok though, it's good to get back into the swing of Flash.

Settling in

So, supervising is a different world indeed. Good and bad. Good for the people I work with, bad because there is no real time to be creative on your own. Interesting what you give up some times to get something else.

Looking to create an animated ad this week myself, which is a nice change from static advertising and mucho mas text writing and reports. It's been a pretty big challenge so far but things appear to be coming along. The old website is cleaned up, the new website is well underway (mostly in part to a phenomenal php programming intern!), the training for the social media person is also going better than expected. I've got a great team.

Tinkering around

Ok, so usually I create the layers for the animation and Dan does the animating. This weekend, with a little extra time to relax, I decided to give it a try.  I've not used AfterEffects for a long time and I see I've a long way to go. It's also obvious why someone else does the animating normally. ha ha ha.

So this is just a simple video of a fellow shaking a piggy bank. Nothing too fabulous, but it is a start. Also, having set up a YouTube channel apparently in 2006, it finally has a video uploaded (this one)! OH my. Better late than never I guess. Here is the channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ditchdigger3?feature=mhum