One of the things I notice a lot with company pages on Facebook and other social media sites is the poor resizing of logos and other images so they appear correctly.  Logos unfortunately comes in lots of sizes and unless they are resized they just don’t fit and instead only display partially or zoom in on one part of the image or logo.  In general the photo editors on social media sites are pretty basic and only really allow you to move around an image.

Many people I speak to complain they don’t have the software but there are free online resources available.  Here is a quick guide on how to make your images fit.

First up you first need to know the exact dimension that are use.  This cheat sheet from HubSpot is a very handy guide but you may need to double check with the social media site for any changes.  For example although Facebook Page profile pictures are square and displays at 160×160 pixels you upload must be at least 180×180 pixels.

Essential Cheat sheet to Social Media Cover Photos. http://blog.hubspot.com/social-media-cover-photo-sizing-cheat-sheet

Next you need to resize the images.  There are lots of online photo editing sites but Pixlr.com allows you to edit without signing up and is pretty slick.

Once in the service you have options of what level you wish to use.  I used the advanced function as it had extra functionality built in.

Ensure you unclick Constrain Proportions

From here select the image you are going to edit.  If on your computer then Open Image from your computer.  Next click on the Image tab at the top and click Image size.  Then input the image size you need as per the exact measurements – normally in pixels width and height.  In this example its 180 X 180 for the Facebook’s Page profile picture.  The real important part here is to make sure you unclick the Constrain Proportion box as otherwise it will either default to the proportions measurement and you will be left with the wrong size or you get a zoomed in section of the image.

Finally just save your photo and then upload as normal on your Facebook page.  As you maybe doing this a number of times for Twitter to the various Facebook dimensions its worth saving the file name with the social media platform name and the dimensions used in it.

This can really save a lot of time and present you company image in the best light.

Since we changed focus on the start up I cofounded (www.knudger.com) at the Dublin Web Summit from an individual focus to fundraising for clubs, associations and charities, the funding gap for these organisations has become even more evident.

Many over stretched themselves in the good times, many just have big overheads and most have painful decisions to make.  Many GAA clubs we have spoken to are facing deficits of over €30,000 and raising subscriptions at best gets a very negative reaction.

Fundraising takes time and anything that can generate money and take the least amount of members time is likely to fall on receptive ears.

Slides on Knudger.com homepage

Knudger.com helps to solve part of this problem for clubs but a lot of voluntary organisations we spoke to were still finding getting donations and collecting money from fundraising events a real drain and disappointing.

PledgUp Logo

With this in mind we have built a prototype crowd funding platform (www.PledgUp.com) where people can use their networks to fundraise for almost anything.  We have tried to make it as simple and painless as possible for people to set up project they are passionate about and want to raise money for.  Once they are set up they can ask for straight forward donations via credit card or link it to a fundraising initiative such as a sponsored walk.  We have built in lots of additional functionality and now looking for early adopters to try it out for us.

Scoil Mhuire Tidy Town Clean Up - rights BallyMore Bugle

We are trying to broaden the range of things that people could fundraise for by making it simple.  Obvious areas are sports clubs or schools looking to raise money for new premises/equipment or who are running a 10K and want an online way of collecting the money.  However how about the couple getting married in a recession who want guests and friends to help fund the wedding rather than buying them another toaster.  Or the Tidy Towns committee looking to fund a town makeover through their large group of potential donors who have emigrated.  Quite often small organisations or people who have little resources have very connected networks.  We are trying to help them leverage that network and make it easy for people to donate.

 So if you are a sports clubs or an association or individual looking to raise money for a project you are passionate about we would love to hear from you.

The prototype is on www.pledgup.com but if you are interest please drop me a line at eoin at knudger.com (put in @ instead of at – trying to avoid spam) and I would be delighted to support and help you through the process.

eoin@knudger.com

Longford Chamber of Commerce have launched a really interesting initiative called 12/12/12 to help encourage people to shop in the town on the 12 of December 2012.  They have organised for retailers in the town to offer special discounts on the day and also to stay open later.  New offers are being added every day but here’s a snapshot of what’s on offer.

As part of the campaign Knudger.com is helping to promote the message and also to fundraise for some local groups and charities.  Once the registered groups share the campaigns via social media or email and their network click on the links to the 12/12/12 campaign they are paid 1 euro per visit.

To see the other organisations involved and the fundraising system in action visit Knudger.com.

More details of the Longford 12/12/12 Christmas Shopping will be posted on their Facebook event page over the next two days.

What a year since I left the PR industry to set up a start up with a web developer.

Multiple test platforms, revisions of business plans, financial spreadsheets, revenue modelling, investor presentations, navigating the support maze, pivots and all the heart ache that goes with a start up but finally a product to launch.

I have learnt a huge amount, met some incredible people and made many mistakes along the way but finally we are launching a product at the Dublin Web Summit today.

Knudger Logo

Knudger.com is a social promotion service that pays people per click for posts on their social media profiles.  The product we are launching is a social fundraising product called Knudger Groups.  The idea behind the product is that clubs, charities and organisations are struggling with fundraising and their members are cash and time strapped.  In addition people will do extraordinary things to help a local club.

With knudger groups we get a local charity or sports club to set up a group on knudger.com and to ask their members to join and connect their social media accounts.  We find a symbiotic or matching company that would benefit from promoting itself through the club.  Take a GAA club and Club Energise or O’Neill for example.  A campaign (suggested text, link, image and description) is generated and the advertising company upload how how much they wish to spend and how much they would like to pay per click.  The club member then click on the campaign on knudger.com and the text/link appears in the social media networks they have picked.  Everytime one of their friends or followers click on the link the club is paid a donation.  Each club member gets to see what the other members have posted and the revenue they have generated.

At the end of the campaign a cheque is written for the club.  The advertiser gets referred traffic to their website, social media seeding (people talking about them in social media) and social signals (search engine benefits).  They only pay for visits to the site rather than posts so all highly transparent.

To launch Knudger Groups we are teaming up the Dublin Web Summit to raise funds for their designated charity Movember.  For the duration of the summit visitors to Knudger will be brought to the Dublin Web Summit – Movember Group.  Once people join the group and register their accounts they will see the campaigns promoting Movember.  Knudger will post to their social networks with the text they wish to use and Movember gets paid for every click generated.

Movember Campaign on Knudger

The link for the campaign is www.knudger.com/dws and I would really appreciate it if you would help me and the charity by registering and posting and sharing the word.

All anxious moments as we put the service live and will let you know how it went for us after the event.

Final tip: most people find registering with your twitter or facebook account is fastest.

Here is the flyer for tomorrow and about Knudger Groups.

Knudger Groups Flyer and Movember Campaign Knudger Groups Movember Campaign.

http://is.gd/sFSfq3

If you are running a big event this year it would be well worth contacting the IIA (www.iia.ie) to see if they can include it on the schedule for its Digitise the Nation roadshow. Great to see www.bonkers.ie as one of the sponsors.

Not long ago I spoke to some education course directors about the skills we would like to see from students as they enter the communications industry.  One of the areas that was discussed was the inclusion of blogging and other social media presences on their CVs.  These would really help give a rounded view of a candidate and their writing skills/knowledge of social media/ability to converse.  The response back was that students were too shy.

Recently I also had a unusual experience with CVs and social media.  I was asked to sit on an interview panel for a social media position.  The CVs were all very articulate and impressive.  Some were standard layout, some html and some were designed by a graphics designer and very pleasant to read – similar to a magazine format.  However the one thing that they all lacked was a link or url for their social media sites.  I managed to find most of them through search so they all had reasonably robust presences.  I expected that the candidates would rationalise that these sites were personal but interestingly all put it down to an oversight.  One candidate pointed out that she has a fake and real twitter account and so had risked interviewers getting a very different perception of her.  All reported that they include their social presences on their email signatures but it appears that the strict adherence to the CV format produces some curious holes in peoples presentation of themselves.

I have seen some really nice CVs that incorporate some slick Web 2.0 design and I think I would be impressed to get one of these infographic Resumes/CVs.

If nothing else please make sure you include links to your social media sites – it will save the interviewer a bunch of time and means they will at least find the real you.

Update 21 August.  Met Jordan McDonnell at a Digital Marketing Institute course last week where he shared the trajectory exposure experience he had with an unorthodox CV/resume he loaded on to SlideShare.  Really worth a look for inspiration and a fantastic story behind it.