Social Media | Webdesigner Depot

11 Jan
Win a Wibiya Pro plan for one year!
Contest, Contests, Social Media
Tweet View Comments

Social media and web app integration is becoming a vital part of any successful website. You need to interact with your visitors on a variety of platforms is you want to create loyal, return visitors and fans.
The Wibiya toolbar lets you integrate a variety of social plugins, free apps, games, video and image galleries, and more into your website to increase page views, increase visitor engagement, and better promote your content.
Wibiya is giving away two Pro Wibiya Plans, each for a full year! A value of $119.40 each! All you have to do to enter is comment on this post! Read more
22 Dec
Infographic: the best education websites by the numbers
Infographics, Social Media, Websites
Tweet View Comments
Surprising as it may sound, colleges and universities seem to have finally figured out social media. Long berated for giving only the most modest efforts at developing an online presence, higher education is, at long last, taking the Internet seriously.
As a higher and higher percentage of high school students spend more time online (and on social media in particular), colleges have made the realization that they stand a far better chance of attracting new applicants if they come visit them on their own turf.
The big social media sites have all become darlings of academia, and students seem not to mind one bit—the most successful schools rack up thousands of Twitter followers, hundreds of thousands of Facebook likes, and millions of views on YouTube, likely in large part from current, prospective, and former students.
And though a great many academies remain dinosaurs of Web 1.0, a few prestigious institutions have truly evolved into social media mammoths.
This Infographic from Best Education Sites breaks down the academic web space with some hard numbers, calling out the schools that are doing the web better than anyone else. Read more
8 Dec
10 Twitter tools for better social networking
Apps, Social Media, Twitter
Tweet View Comments

Above all the social networks out there, I found that Twitter is by far the most powerful to build and grow a personal brand around yourself. Having yourself established online can be very helpful in many circumstances.
It makes it easier to amplify your voice and get help and feedback with your ideas and projects. Naturally it also allows you to connect to like minds faster and leverage existing connections with a higher impact.
Oftentimes, although many want to establish themselves as authority, we can’t spend hour and hours each day doing this. So here are 10 tools that I am using to make my online networking more efficient. Read more
5 Dec
Social media for creatives
Marketing, Social Media, Tips
Tweet View Comments

I’m amazed at companies, especially marketing firms, that stop their social media. It’s usually a blog that hasn’t been updated in a year or the proud display of fans numbering less than ten, eight of them being employees at that firm. What does that tell potential clients? It says that firm has no idea about social media. As someone who deals with social media on a daily basis, I see the value and I see the mistakes. It seems easy, in my mind, but I know it’s not or companies wouldn’t make so many mistakes.
Certainly social media has taken business by storm. People are still in a quandary about how it works, despite proven stats and ROI. Some companies do it on the cheap and some throw millions into it. It seems odd that so many people can’t see what social media is all about – being social!
When I hear someone say, “I don’t like Facebook,” I think, “enjoy the rest of the 20^th century and I’ll catch up with you later…maybe!”
It is, of course, more serious than that. If you’re not keeping in touch with old friends and former coworkers, you are letting your network die and, as many articles keep pounding into our heads, your network is the most important way to get work. As with the occasional phone call to a close friend to see if they’re still alive, sharing some news and laughs and just showing them that you care, social media is the new phone call—it’s how we are social now. It’s important and cannot be ignored.
Read more
22 Nov
25 Google+ tips and tricks
Google, Social Media, Tips
Tweet View Comments

Google+ unveiled itself to the public amidst a chorus of praise and adulation from techies all over the globe. Unfortunately, it also earned a good amount of scorn from individuals who were not ready to grasp the unique philosophy Google+ was promoting. That philosophy is one of openness.
Unlike Facebook, Google+ is designed to connect strangers, and inspire collaboration and contribution. It has proven to be an amazing platform for promoting ideas, brands and people.
Since its early rollout, Google+ has forced competitors to begin evolving, inspiring platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to develop new ways of thinking about social media and the functionality they offer.
When used correctly, Google+ is a unique and powerful opportunity to widen your reach, professionally or personally. From making your profile pop to mastering your stream, I’ll share 25 of the most useful Google+ Tips and Tricks to get you going. Read more
11 Nov
10 awesome social sharing plugins for WordPress
Plugins, Social Media, WordPress
Tweet View Comments
Social sharing options are pretty much a must for any blog.
You want to make it easy for your visitors to share what you’ve written with their social networks so that others can discover your content.
And the best way to do that is to include a button or two that puts the idea of sharing front and center, and makes it incredibly simple for your users to post your link to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or elsewhere.
Below are ten great social sharing plugins for your WordPress blog. Most are free and all have sharing options for multiple platforms. Some even include upwards of a hundred or more services you can implement. Read more
19 Oct
20 websites that engage users with social media icons and links
Compilation, Social Media, Web Design
Tweet View Comments

The topic of social media is all over the web, and it is important to consider it when designing a website.
The way you display social media icons or links has a direct effect on user engagement.
You have to consider many details when laying out a page, including the layout, the flow of content and the main area of rest on the page.
Whether you end up with typographic links in the header or icons in the footer, you should test out colors, shapes, typography and iconography to ensure that your social links are thoughtfully combined, engaging and well designed.
Here, we’ll show you some examples of how websites display their social links so that you can see the variety of options out there. Check them out, and let us know what you think.
Read more
25 May
Simplito: A free social icon set
Freebies, Icons, Social Media
Tweet View Comments

The awesome folks at DesignDeck has designed a cool set of 24 social icons which we’re calling “Simplito”.
The icons are provided as JPGs, PNGs and a master PSD file for easy editing.
You are free to use the icons for personal and commercial projects as per the licensing terms attached in the file.
Please do not distribute these icons. If you want to share these with your friends, simply direct them to this page so they can download their copy from here.
The download button is right under the large preview after the jump. Enjoy the new awesome icons! Read more
5 May
How Facebook Comments is changing commenting on the Web
Facebook, Opinion, Social Media
Tweet View Comments

Facebook Comments is a recently released plug-in commenting system by Facebook that allows commenters to use their Facebook identity to post comments on content around the Web.
And as simple and innocent as that sounds, it has caused an uproar throughout the Web.
You’d think it was the end of the Internet itself! But people must realize that the Internet will still function as it always has, with or without Facebook Comments. It just might be more civilized place, which isn’t a bad thing.
So, why all the drama? Well, it’s because Facebook Comments eliminates something that quite a few people on the Internet clamor for: anonymity. It’s important in many ways. But anonymity comes with a price, and that comes in the form of an overall poorer experience in online interaction. But does that alone justify the elimination of anonymity?
It’s complicated. But the real question of the matter is simple: will the Web be better or worse with this new commenting system? That is what we are trying to figure out. Read more
22 Feb
The Art of the Facebook Page Design
Facebook, Social Media, Web Design
Tweet View Comments

Everyday more and more businesses around the world are creating presences on Facebook.
Some companies opt to bring users directly to the page wall or other tabs (e.g. info, photos, RSS/blog, discussions and links) and use product images or company logos instead of more elaborate landing pages.
Regardless of where a user lands when they first arrive, something needs to capture their attention.
As we’ll see in the examples of pages from the 50 Top Facebook Pages of Brand’s Worldwide represented below, some pages may come right out and ask for the “like”, some may have a variation on the call to action with a contest, gift, upload, sign-up now, or shop now type message. Some may appeal to emotions. Some will be memorable. And some, quickly forgotten.
In truth, Facebook is about more than the ongoing interaction between businesses and users via status updates. We believe it’s also about the art and design of engagement and a vital new component to the corporate brand identity—the Facebook page design.
Read more
26 Jan
How to Use LinkedIn for Your Web Design Business
Community, Social Media, Web Designers
Tweet View Comments

Maybe you’re already one of the 85 million users on LinkedIn, or perhaps you’re just getting started.
Regardless of where you fall on the social networking spectrum, LinkedIn has a number of new applications and features to enrich your experience.
In this post, we’ll look at ways to beef up your profile as well as use new applications and sections to optimize your networking with clients, prospects and others in the design community.
We’ll also cover how to find design-related groups on LinkedIn, exploit the new features of company pages to showcase your design work and keep up with developments on LinkedIn.
Please let us know in the comments area about other ways in which you could harness the power of LinkedIn in your web design business.
Read more
1 Oct
Ultimate Collection of Social Media Icons
Icons, Social Media
Tweet View Comments

Social media integration has become an important part of modern web design.
And icons are one of the most useful methods of adding social media links to your site, whether you want to add only a service or two or dozens.
In this post we’ve collected over 100 of the best free social media icon sets available. Although we’re sure you’ve seen many of these before, we’re also pretty sure that you’ll discover some great new sets here that you can use.
Included are icons to fit virtually any website design style, from sleek and modern to vintage or grungy.
This page may take a while to load, so please be patient. Have we missed your favorites? Please share them in the comments area… Read more
19 Aug
“Buddycons” – Vector Social Media Icons
Freebies, Icons, Social Media
Tweet View Comments
Today we’re giving away a wonderful set of social media icons designed exclusively for WDD by Orman Clark, a web designer from the UK.
The icon set is called “Buddycons” and includes 126 vector social media icons. Included in the set are PNG versions of all 126 icons in both circular and rounded variations as well as a vector source file for easy resizing.
The icons are free to use for personal and commercial usage, however, redistribution is not allowed, so if you’d like to share these icons with your friends, please direct them to this page so that they can download their own copy from here.
See a full preview of the icons and the download link after the jump. Thanks to Orman for this fantastic set and we hope you enjoy the new icons! Read more
19 Jan
Woven Fabric Social Media Icon Set
Freebies, Icons, Social Media
Tweet View Comments

We absolutely love icons and today we have another exclusive great set available for you.
This woven fabric set of social media icons was created by Jan Cavan from Dawghouse.
Although not suitable for every type of site, these icons will look wonderful on websites that use texture and have an organic approach to their design.
There are a total of 26 icons available as transparent PNGs and they are completely free for personal and commercial use, however, if you’d like to share them with your friends, please refer them to this page so that they can download them from here.
The download link and a full preview is available after the jump… Enjoy… Read more
23 Nov
The History and Controversies of Digg
Digg, History, Social Media
Tweet View Comments

Most people have probably heard of Digg by now.
It’s one of the unofficial poster children of Web 2.0, and was one of the first social news sites to come out.
It gets millions of visitors every month (Compete says about 43 million in October 2009), and those visitors vote on thousands of stories every day.
In this article you can learn about how Digg came to be from its humble beginnings to the massive popularity it has now as well as the controversies that have surrounded it. Read more
7 Oct
The History and Evolution of Social Media
History, Internet, Social Media
Tweet View Comments

Social media has become an integral part of modern society.
There are general social networks with user bases larger than the population of most countries.
There are niche sites for virtually every special interest out there.
There are sites to share photos, videos, status updates, sites for meeting new people and sites to connect with old friends.
It seems there are social solutions to just about every need.
In this article, we’ll review the history and evolution of social media from its humble beginnings to the present day. Read more
20 Jul
The Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter
Part II
Social Media, Twitter
Tweet View Comments

We published the Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter at just at the right time when everyone wanted to know about this Twitter thing, how to start using it, and how to sleeve it into their websites and blogs.
The guide is still being tweeted at the rate of a few tweets per day, which is remarkable considering that it was published a few months ago.
We’d like to thank everyone for the excellent reception of that post and we will continue to report on Twitter as it evolves.
We’ve also incorporated all of your suggestions in the comments on the guide into this update post.
As usual, we encourage you to submit more news about Twitter in the comments’ area so that we can include them in this post or in future ones. Read more
31 Mar
30 Funny Twitter Comics
Comics, Social Media, Twitter
Tweet View Comments

As you probably already know, Twitter is hotter than ever. Everyone seems to be tweeting these days about anything and everything that’s on their mind.
If you’re still not into Twitter, check out our popular Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter that we recently posted here.
In this post, we’ll take a look at 30 Twitter comic strips that reflect on how the world is using and reacting to Twitter, the latest social media trend. I’ve also added a funny video at the end of this post.
Feel free to add links to more related comics in the comments section and if you like this article, why not tweet about it? Read more
24 Mar
The Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter
Social Media, Twitter
Tweet View Comments

Twitter isn’t just a cute way for keeping in instant touch with friends on mobile phones anymore. It has ramped up quickly to be the search engine of choice for some with its human driven results.
Applications galore allow you to find friends all over the world with similar interests and keep up with them in real time.
Businesses can form instant direct relationships with their customer bases simply by signing up and using the service regularly, and according to the models Twitter is trying out, they will soon be able to advertise to the Twitter community as well. It has grown into a behemoth that is hard to get your hands around, which is why we’ve put this article together for you.
We’ve compiled an alphabetized glossary here for you so that you can just scan down the list and find the term that you are looking for, as well as a list of popular Twitter applications and instructions for incorporating Twitter into your website and blogs.
Read more
16 Mar
Best Practices for Designing a Social News Website
Design, Social Media, Usability
Tweet View Comments
How do you get your daily news these days? Well… you may be visiting your favorite sites and blogs, but that’s inefficient since those blogs may not have any updates. Perhaps you subscribe to them using RSS, which delivers all the new articles straight to you, but in this case you’ll have to sort through all the new stuff to find what’s interesting to you. Another option today would be to visit a social news site.
Social news sites are link aggregators, which means their main function is to collect and share interesting links. This may be done through user submissions, or it may be done automatically by the system. The aggregation aspect is only part of it though because these sites also sort the links. Again, this may be done through user voting or some mechanical algorithm (although in this case, can we really call it a “social” news site?). The end result is the same however: the most interesting links rise to the top. This particular feature makes social news sites a great alternative to RSS.
In this article I’ll showcase some of the current top social news sites, will identify trends and patterns in their designs and suggest some best practices to follow when designing such sites. Let’s begin by looking at four popular social news sites and see how their designs compare. Read more
6 Jan
I’m LiveBlogging This RIGHT NOW
Blogging, Social Media, WordPress
Tweet View Comments

Liveblogging may very well be the future of traditional news media and blogging. Now you can stream information live on the internet and Twitter while an event is happening using nothing more than your laptop and free LiveBlogging software.
People have been doing it on a widespread basis for the past year, thanks to a plethora of free LiveBlogging tools that have sprung up almost overnight.
Whether you are a business striving to build a name and reputation in your industry or you are a web designer or web dev pro building a reputation, you need to be aware of Liveblogging and the tools used to conduct it.
We have moved from the “I’m blogging this” world to the “I’m Liveblogging this” world very quickly. People are no longer satisfied with hearing news after it has happened – they want access to news while it is happening. Read more
15 Dec
How to Make Money Off Social Media
Blogs, Digg, Social Media, Twitter
Tweet View Comments

Social media sites and technologies like Twitter and Digg are something that the tech savvy take completely for granted. We just automatically assume that if you are on the Internet, you are using social media. This isn’t really the case. There are some very important people that are not yet aware of social media and what it can do – your clients.
Social media is definitely a source of new income for you as you have the opportunity to go back and update your old clients to current technologies. The foundation-laying for social media came in 1999 when Rick Levine and others wrote the Cluetrain Manifesto. This manifesto lays out simple rules for online markets and social media. Read more
27 Nov
Twitter is No Longer an Option. Why You Should be Tweeting.
Social Media, Twitter
Tweet View Comments

Twitter is kind of like Apple fandom – either you love it or you find it a dreadful inconvenience to interface with. In reality, Twitter is not a time-intensive scary monster or the be all and end all of social media. It is simply another tool that you can use to interact with your customers, or in the Twitter world, your followers.
Given that everyone on here has a modicum of tech savvy, we’ll just take for granted that you can set up an account on Twitter yourselves. We’re here to help with the rest. Read more