When looking at corporate websites, you’ll see that most of them have implemented a few sharing options and that’s it. Okay, some of those company’s even have accounts on Facebook and Twitter but just don’t know what to do with them to gain market share, sell more or just getting a good brand image.

Managing social media, a daily task?

Is managing social media a daily task? That really depends on the popularity of your pages. If you’re getting a lot of comments, likes and interaction on your Facebook page for example, you probably want to check it on a daily basis.

On the other hand, filtering out the bad comments and replies would give you far less work. Except, of course, when your products have a bad name! If that’s true, it would probably be wise to use Social Media to engage with unhappy customers and turn it into something positive.

For normal companies it isn’t necessary to manage your social media channels every day. I would recommend twice a week in the beginning and more as your channels become popular.

How I would manage a company’s social media

Looking at my own firm, it wouldn’t be necessary for us to manage it on a daily bases. There isn’t much activity, we’re only at the beginning of our social media implementation. I expect it to attract more visitors and followers in the next few months.

What would be good to do, however, is to add messages, articles, product updates and company information every week. When adding new content every week it will attract more people towards the company’s website. This would come in handy when we’re launching our new product range at the end of this year!

Below you’ll find this weeks design & photography inspiration. Every week I’ll post an article which covers the inspiration I’ve found on different websites. By doing this, I want to influence my creative side and develop it even further. Hopefully it will inspire you too!

1. Sexy Logo’s

“Sexuality is important in today’s world and, let’s be honest, it has always been important. Nobody is going to question the truth of this statement.” According to the writer of the Cruzine article. After seeing this set of logo’s you’ll probably know what the writer meant.

2. Selective colour in Photographs

When using this technique, you take out a particular colour out of the photograph. The black & white gives you the contrast you want. Really cool to use!

3. New set of Nice Illustrations

Illustrating is one of the businesses that I don’t pay a lot of attention too. Why? I suck at it! Once in a while it’s inspiring to see however. That’s why I don’t want to forget about this set of illustrations.

4. Beautiful panoramic photography by Jackie Wu

Shooting panorama’s is a hobby of mine too! When browsing my Picasa Web Albums, you’ll see two I’ve created myself. This guy, Jackie Wu, is doing a terrific job at it too! Makes me want to go out in the field and create some of my own.

5. Amazing creative ads that make you look twice

Some really funny, original and creative advertisements used around the world! I like the one above most, if that doesn’t send the message I don’t know what does.

6. Amazing photo manipulations

Some creative, funny, unreal and realistic photo manipulations for you to enjoy! One of the greatest set of manipulations I’ve recently seen.

7. Nice typography in advertising design

34 perfect examples of original typography usage in advertisement designs. Words say a lot, especially when used as an image!

8. 80 striking examples of weather photography

The weather can deliver some beautiful shots, this photo set will prove that for sure! It’s cool to see how different things like lightning or a storm can create a particular ambience.

9. Inspiring collection of creative abstract wallpapers

“…abstract wallpapers are not created on the basis of any object, it is the creativity that comes out from the mind…”. Cool examples that prove this!

With online streaming services like Grooveshark it’s easy for everyone to find the music they like and listen to it from anywhere they have a working Internet connection. These services won’t let you download the music, but that isn’t entirely necessary if you can listen and even create play lists anyway.

By paying a small amount of money a user can get even more features, though it really depends on what you want as I think the basic functionality provides more than enough for many users. I only use the basic, free version of Grooveshark.

Last night I was playing with some playlists again and got an idea for these sort of web services, which in this case was Grooveshark. It’s an extra addition to the functionality it offers now.

Be a DJ

Yup, a DJ application that allows users to add their Grooveshark playlists and let them mix tracks from those lists. They can manage to do this by giving the user an interface similar to a DJ mixer, only simplified for web usage!

For example:
The user adds playlist #1 to the left and #2 to the right side of the screen. The middle part shows a simple cross fade, volume setting, pitch and even more as long technology can provide it.

Oh no, it’s impossible!

My knowledge about web techniques and programming languages isn’t that good. I can manage to implement simple scripts and programming, but for this to work it would need a lot of complex programming. Something I can’t manage.

Looking at available techniques these days and a little bit into future ones, I think a Flash and Silverlight application would get the job done partially. On the other hand, HTML5 with jQuery would also have a change to accomplish this idea in the near future. Again, I really haven’t enough knowledge to know for sure.

That’s why I would love to know what techniques are available and how you guys would approach the coding part of this website.

This week inspiration list (#12 already) is a nice one again. The resources for inspiration were available again this week on Twitter and Google Buzz. Hope you’ll find some inspiration through this too!

1. Art where you don’t expect it

This is a nice set of photo’s from common places that are featuring just the right composition which makes it more like art! Really nice to see how common things are transformed in something cool.

2.Typography Inspiration on From up North

From up North has some nice inspirational gallery’s. This one caught my attention due to the cool typography designs! I still think it’s amazing to create something like this, I certainly don’t think about it when designing. Luckily others do.

3. Creative and funny Photo manipulations

I almost laughed my ass of watching this set of photo’s. I personally like the one above, that would come in handy, wouldn’t it? Very creative thinking went into these photo’s, though I like them more because they brought fun and happiness around!

4. 20 Fresh abstract photographs

Abstract photography brings you common objects, places and people in an artistic way. It’s cool to see how things like the pencil shavings above give an entire different look and feel to the subject.

5. 15 creative and beautiful advertisements

These 15 advertisements just rock! Great designs if I may say so. I love the way colors are used in each one of them, fitting correctly together.

6. Black & White Minimalistic Photography

Minimalism yet proves again why it exists! I think these set of photo’s make my point clear. Great composition and atmosphere used.