Buffer allows you to add Tweets & Facebook statuses in one go and then schedule them to be posted out at allotted times. Buffer app, whose team were based in California last year and have recently relocated to Hong Kong, has also just been named the Best Twitter App of 2011 by Wall Street Journal.

The iPhone app allows you to keep your Buffer topped up on the go. The app also includes a bookmarklet which you can add to Mobile Safari to make it even easier to share content you find on the web.

In the near future the app will become a universal iOS app allowing users to keep their Buffer topped up from their iPhone & iPad. An update to the app is currently in review that adds URL shortening, Post Now options & iOS 4.3 support.

Register for Buffer and schedule your future Twitter & Facebook statuses and grab the iPhone app by searching the App Store for “Buffer”.

So go ahead, pledge your support for Birmingham City Centre and use the #backtobham hashtag. You might even get a nice surprise from Bullring too!

With ever tightening funds available to them, we offered our time to see how design and dev skills could be put to use to both help raise awareness and increase financial support in order that the Bridge’s work could continue.

The Plan

First, we decided that there were a few things that the site should do better.

• Tell stories; This is important for every charity, and seemed particularly relevant here given the fact that the Bridge has helped an average of 50 people per year since their work started in 1999.
• ‘Fun’draising; We liked how sites like Just Giving made it simple and fun for people to set up their own challenge and raise money for a charity. We also liked the donation solutions that PayPal provided as the rates were preferable to other providers.
• Bite sized; Due to the complex nature of the services provided, and the backdrop of funding uncertainty we needed to tell fairly wordy information in bite sized pieces.

How we did it

• Build things; Just Giving’s great, but we felt the fees were a bit hefty for a small charity. As an alternative, we built  a system within WordPress with signups, page creations, gift aid and donations all tied in to PayPal. This way the fees incurred were only 1.4% as opposed to 5%.
• Change things quickly; Changing things as we went allowed us to work quickly and efficiently. The wireframes were hand drawn and lived in between our desks so we could quickly scribble down changes. Design and development happened simultaneously with bits being added and deleted as the ideas evolved. We also produced content as we designed to ensure that the Photoshop files represented a fairly ‘live’ version of the site rather than dummy copy or images.

Tips for charities

A few things that we learned that were useful:

• Figure out how your story can be told in an engaging way, rather than just providing users with huge chunks of text. We used infographics, video, image treatments and a blog to help reveal more of the individual impact that the charity has.
• Include a BIG call to action to make gift-aiding donations really easy. Also, take some time to look in to fees that will be incurred through online donations. Some tools are completely free, but we weighed up the credibility of adding a well known provider such as PayPal and were happy with the trade off vs a lesser known gateway which could have lower take up.
• Harness social and enable users to fundraise on your behalf. Most of the donations we’ve seen so far are from Twitter and Facebook – they’re particularly useful for spreading the word quickly about fund raising challenges.
• Make the most of what’s already out there. We used WordPress and a number of pre-existing plugins to get the basic framework up and running quickly.
• Think of other ways people may want to offer support other than financial. We made it really clear how people could support the Bridge in different ways. We also noticed that this was quite a common area missing from other charity sites. Are there ways your charity could benefit from skills or services that people may want to offer?

The results

The site was completed in three days and launched the same week. The first initiative to get people involved – the Yorkshire 3 peaks challenge is now live on the site and new content will be regularly added.

If you found this post useful, or just feel the inclination to, then you can also make a donation here.

The main KPI was to increase the number of fans and interaction on the BRMB Facebook page. To do this, we created a tab, which at specific times of the day revealed clues as to the where-abouts of The Shadow. The clues were hidden behind a fan-gate, which required Facebook users to first Like the page. Within the first week, new Likes to the page were up by more than 1,498% and post views up by a staggering 745% on the week before the campaign was launched.

The tab itself featured a custom design and made use of the numerous Facebook API’s in order to display the clues – which were gathered from a real Facebook profile. This made it easy for The Shadow to use the regular Facebook app on an iPhone to post status updates, photos, videos and check-ins whilst he was on the run. An automated system then collated all of this information and then presented it on the tab. We also took advantage of Facebook’s registration system to allow users to sign up for the main BRMB site, from within the tab itself. This meant that users didn’t need to enter any details manually as Facebook would automatically pre-fill all the details. Once registered, a simple click on the “Log-in with Facebook” button on the BRMB website is all it takes to be automatically logged in and be able to enter competitions, leave comments and receive newsletter updates.

The campaign has captured Birmingham’s imagination. In week 1 there were 759,905 Facebook wall post views, and in week 2 that figure rose 111% to 1,252,291. Furthermore, over a 14 day period there have been 4420 new Likes on the BRMB Facebook page. Now in the third week, engagement is on track to remain consistently high.

The use of Facebook as a tool to acquire new fans and further engage the existing fans has proven immensely successful, as it provides a low barrier to entry to drive new user registrations to the site, helping to grow the user base. The viral aspect of Facebook, is also an excellent method to reach new users as each interaction with the wall, can be seen by friends, and thus drive potential new users.

For example, we worked with Chevrolet in the UK to utilise the flexibility of the Facebook tabs we support across Europe for this campaign. There are eight current live markets in Europe, and Chevrolet’s News tab is consistent over most of them. Creatively we felt that a tab ‘takeover’ with Bumblebee (a character synonymous with the Transformers films). breaking through the American desert landscape, would be the most striking way to promote Chevrolet’s characters in the film.

Adapting the tab creative for Transformers helped Chevrolet UK in meeting the objective of promoting the film and in particular their partnership with Paramount Pictures by demonstrating the evolvement of the well-known Bumblebee character, showing that he actually transforms to a Chevrolet Camaro. The hook of the campaign is a prize draw to win Transformers: Dark of the Moon merchandise including a foldable webcam, wireless power charging mat and a poster.

The vintage vehicles Chevrolet were showing at the Goodwood Festival of Speed to celebrate their 100th anniversary were also showcased on the tab, complete with an image gallery showing Chevrolet cars through the years up to the present day.

The tab will be supported by PR and targeted Facebook advertising.

We’ve just launched the new Fountain Park website. Fountain Park is a entertainment destination in Edinburgh with a great offering including a 13 screen Cinema, Casino, Bowling alley and various places to eat & drink.

X-Leisure came to us looking for a brand new site which focused on Fountain Park’s main attractions. The site makes use of the Cineworld API to display what films are showing at the Fountain Park. Users can then click on the film time to be taken to the Cineworld site to make a booking. The cinema drives much of the footfall at the destination so it was given a prominent position throughout the site.

The site allows X-Leisure to easily add opening hours to pages and gives them somewhere to promote News, Offers and Events.

Working on an illustration of this scale presented a few design challenges. We had to ensure that the backdrop was visually engaging and took cues from the fashion trends emerging this Summer, as well as being clean and simple enough to still look great at a distance when viewed from the upper balconies in the centre. We used lots of reference images to come up with the final desired look and went through many sheets in the sketch pad to come up with a concept that we felt would suit the overall style.

Once the main elements were worked up in the sketchbook, it was scanned in and replicated in Illustrator. It was a long and time-consuming process, but all made worthwhile when we first saw it printed and set up in the Centre.

We’re working on plans with Bullring for lots more exciting events taking place throughout the year. You can sign up to Browse: Bullring if you want to be amongst the first to know what’s next!

Last week we launched the new website for Benjamin Ryan, a premium hair and beauty salon based in the heart of Birmingham.

Benjamin Ryan approached us with a brief to design a new website from scratch. They aspired to create a site that more accurately reflected how dedicated the team there are to their craft. The insight was that the staff at Benjamin Ryan are known as creators of beauty, so why isn’t their site as beautiful as their product? We set about trying to fix this.

To make sure the site really got the client noticed we decided to go with a darker, simple overall look & feel. We wanted to give Benjamin Ryan the opportunity to showcase their work and creations on their website. The content managed montage of images on the homepage allows them to do this, generating black and white versions on the fly and caching them as necessary for speed.

We paid close attention to the smaller design details in the background, and also added some subtle visual effects to the navigation, in-keeping with the site’s design.

You can take a look at the site here: www.benjaminryanhair.co.uk

It’s that time again when in classic 383 tradition things go a bit silly and we set a little Christmas project out in to the wild. This year is no exception, and so, without further ado, we give you Jumpify.me. Why? Because everyone loves Christmas jumpers.

Jumpify me allows users to pick photos from their Facebook albums, and try on a number of delightful pieces of seasonal knitwear. We hope you enjoy using it as much as we enjoyed making it. Happy Christmas.