Sometimes in the rush of getting a website live a couple of items get overlooked in the process. The polishing process of a website can seem needless at times, but I can not stress enough the necessity to make sure that these points are addressed and corrected to help your brand and your search results.

1. The Favourite Icon - A lot of websites are taken live without ever considering the favicon. It is displayed by all of the latest browsers in or near the address bar and in the bookmarks/favourites list. You can add value to your brand by incorporating your logo, company initials, or even a colour scheme of some sort into that little 16 x 16 pixel image that people can use to identify your website from their bookmarks.

2. Page Titles - Many times, websites will have the same page titles for various different pages. The title not only helps with search engine optimization, but also is used for the default text of bookmarks. Forgetting to set the page titles to reflect what the content is about is detrimental to your search results, and will confuse people who have bookmarked your site, but forgot what exactly they bookmarked it for.

3. Keywords - Not only are meta keywords important for SEO, but the content of each page should promote the keywords you have chosen for your website, or at least coincide with the products and services that you provide. If you are not using your keywords in your text, then you should consider rewriting your content.

If you take one thing from my blog today, it's this: give Twitter a shot - you'll like it.

Although it's becoming less common, I still have friends and colleagues express surprise that I use and enjoy Twitter. To a lot of people, Twitter's sole purpose is to let you know when your friends are taking their dogs for a walk (or, perhaps, when Ashton Kutcher is taking his dog for a walk); it's only there to allow the communication of inane updates from friends.

Get Creative with Twitter
The truth is, Twitter allows you to do far more than that, and many people (and organizations) are exploring new ways to utilize it. For example, the Hyatt chain of hotels is using it to allow guests to instantly communicate to customer service staff; if you need a quick answer to a question, the Hyatt doesn't give you a phone number, or even an email address, they point you to a Twitter account. Not only does this make for a great experience (guests get their queries answered instantly), but it also makes communication more efficient thanks to Twitter's 140 character limit.

Personally, I use Twitter as a news delivery service. As someone in the marketing business, there is a ton of news to stay on top of everyday, and it's nearly impossible to weed out the useful from the banal. Up until Twitter, the accepted methods for discovering content were to bookmark and visit a bunch of sites, subscribe to Google Alerts, or utilize an RSS reader. Each had its own drawbacks, and were not really perfect solutions. Now, I use Twitter as a filter to deliver content that is relevant to me, and it's worked marvelously.

Twitter as a Content Finder
Imagine you're in the magazine aisle at your local bookstore. There's hundreds of titles, and it would take forever to leaf through them all. But, standing in the aisle, there are a bunch of people; some of them are your friends, some might be famous people, others might be industry experts whose opinions you admire. Each of them are holding magazines or newspapers, open to articles they found really insightful, and they're telling you why they liked them.

Instead of having to leaf through a bunch of rags to find good articles, now you can pick and choose pieces your friends are recommending. In some cases, they might even be communicating the actual facts themselves, which saves you from ever reading the whole thing.

This is essentially my Twitter - the people I follow bring me relevant content that I can either choose to ignore, or read. Based completely on anecdotal evidence, I think more and more people are starting to use Twitter in this way, as they learn it's not all about micro-blogging your every move.

See Twitter with an Open Mind
That's how I use Twitter, but my overall point is merely that anti-Twitterists really need to open their mind to how they could be using it, as opposed to how some people currently use it. Social media is meant to be played with and shaped - don't be afraid to create something new out of it.

Want to follow Studiothink and the content we share? Find us at http://twitter.com/TeamStudiothink.

The whole Studiothink team would like to wish everyone a merry Christmas, and a safe and happy New Years. There will be some big changes coming to Studiothink in 2010, and we can't wait to share them with our fans. For now though, we've got a special holiday treat for you; sit back, grab a glass of rum and eggnog, and enjoy the Studiothink Christmas Special - Thinkin' 'bout Christmas.

Quite frankly, the concept of YouTube is brilliant. Humans love to share their creations; whether we're scrawling woolly mammoths on cave walls, or pasting our kids' construction-paper collage to our fridge, we want to put our art out there for others to see. Social Media sites like YouTube have allowed this innate need to expand globally.

But, sometimes, someone comes along that make us question whether this is a good thing. In YouTube's case, it has to be CONRADCIGARSPIPES. The standard post from Conrad is simple - he smokes his pipe listening to music. Sometimes he describes the clothing he's wearing, other times he just sits in silence glowering at the computer screen. Either way, there's not a lot going on.

But it's not his videos that make him so bizarre, it's that they're so prolific. Over the span of one year YouTube viewers have been treated to over 10,000 clips of Conrad's gruff mug. Do the math: that's 27 videos per day.

My only guess is this is some kind of absurdist or neo-surrealist art that I just can't appreciate. Either way, I give you PIPE TOBACCOS:BUTZ-CHOQUIN PRELUDE EXTRA, SMOKING, WITH BLUE JEANS HAT; AND " VAMOS CARIÑITO by CONRADCIGARSPIPES:

*credit goes to Michael Swaim at Cracked for first sharing the wonder of Conrad with us all.

If you've seen the front cover of the Vancouver Province today, you know that one of my favorite brands, Lululemon, is having a battle with the organizers of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics (VANOC) over their new line of clothing. Actually, not so much a battle as a very public scolding for coming too close to infringing on the 2010 Olympic trademark rules...but not quite.

Their new line of clothing, cleverly called "Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 & 2011 Edition" does not technically infringe on the Olympic brand, however the right to market 2010 merchandise is an exclusive right only for game sponsors, and VANOC doesn't approve of being teased to the edge of their very expensive copyright.

So, the question is, has Lululemon made a fatal marketing mistake, or found a genius way to capitalize on a piece of the 2010 Olympic marketing pie?

I had a look at the clothing line, and to tell you the truth, it doesn't look anything like Olympic wear, what it looks like, is, well, patriotic wear. A quote from Bill Cooper, VANOC's director of commercial rights management says, "Just because an advertiser finds a creative way to avoid direct use of recognizable brand elements doesn't necessarily in and of itself mean that they have avoided building an unauthorized commercial association with the Games." (insert my groan and eyeroll here).

Isn't finding creative advertising solution what marketing is? Isn't this what we want creative, successful Canadian companies to do? What do you think? Has Lulemon crossed the boundaries of our polite Canadian manners, or just found a really creative way to sell their stuff? I'd love to hear your opinions!

p.s. please add "Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 & 2011 Edition" to my Christmas list.