Lifestyles Prepares to Launch… 
After lots of hard work by Lingo and the Lifestyles Team, the 2012 website is complete and will go live later today!
As I write this Liz is traveling to Lifestyles HQ in Hunstanton to officially launch the website and this year’s event planning and preparations.
More details about activities, music and camping will be added to the website and Facebook page as the big weekend gets closer.
As Fresh As A Daisy! Every now and again, it’s good to have a website update to keep things feeling fresh. Sites which stay the same year in year out lose visitors and feel dated and neglected, as well as performing poorer in search engines as they age.
Elizabeth’s florist in Downham Market was due for a bit of a bit of a ‘spruce up’, and owner Kate Shipp decided she also wanted to be able to update her site herself in the future, to keep it feeling as fresh as her flowers. There’s lots of ways to achieve this; varying in complexity from a fully editable site with a CMS through to WordPress site and down to just designating a few selected areas of the site for updating such as ‘news’, ‘next event’s or ‘special offers’.
It didn’t take long to help Kate go through the options, and decide that the best solution for her business was to create a new facebook business page and for us to integrate the activity feed from facebook into to the new homepage, meaning that she could upload new pictures of flowers to facebook which would then appear on the site.
The site had a general graphic design update including a new colour scheme, new header font to match the shop signage, a new enquiry from and photography of  beautiful hand-tied bouquets, which we did here at Lingo. We love taking photos, especially when the subject matter decorates the desks as nicely as these roses and gerberas did! View the site here.
QR: Quite Rare codes 
Trish and David McManus @Lingo Design studio
Lingo customers David and Trish McManus clearly like to do things a little differently.
You only have to visit their beautiful bar and restaurant ‘The Hare Arms’ at Stow Bardolph near Downham Market (and if you havent, you really should) to find it’s well known as a place like no other; every available inch of the welcoming bar is packed with fascinating decorative memorabilia, quality objects to amuse and entertain as you sup a pint of real ale while soaking up the glowing atmosphere. Then there’s the peacocks roaming outside and a well justified reputation as one of the best restaurants around for food and service; there’s nothing ‘standard’ about it.
So, when Trish asked Lingo to assist with a promotion using a QR code, I was buzzing with ideas, excited about working with the new technology and it wasn’t long before the code was generated and we were working out promotion details.
The promotion works when customers scan the unique matrix barcode using an app. The code takes browsers to a unique url and landing page suitable for mobile devices, encouraging a ‘check-in’ via facebook. Once ‘checked in’ (the bar has free wi-fi) visitors can claim their free drink in the process!
Why not check it out…all you need to do is get to the Hare Arms and find a code…!
facebook removes reviews & discussions “We’re Making Pages Better” comes the notification from facebook as you log in to your business page.
But what does this mean? It means facebook have monitored and reacted, and I think this time, they’ve done well. None of the business pages we manage make much use of reviews or discussions, as people generally post this sort of information on the wall.
Facebook are fluid and react quickly according to user trends, so it’s clear that these areas weren’t being used, and became unnecessary, so are going to bite the dust. If you do use either of these functions, it’s worth saving or migrating your topic content to the wall, where more people will see it, and you won’t lose it when they turn the feature off on 31st Oct.
If you need to know more about how facebook can benefit your business, get in touch.
