Within this process, they may come across your brand. They assess you with a series of questions:

1. Does this brand understand my problems?
2. Does it fit my lifestyle?
3. Can it improve my life without disrupting it?
4. Do I trust them?

Creating a content marketing strategy is an effective way to raise awareness for a brand. By actively creating content that their audience cares about, a brand can build relationships as well as word-of-mouth and search results. Part of any good content strategy is finding the right content mix. This is where the 80/20 rule comes into play: 80% content about the audience, 20% content about the brand.

Your first goals are for the audience to approve of you and to “like” you. By measuring your content against that series of questions, you teach your audience to trust you. Keep 80% of your content centered around your audience and start to build the relationship.

80% of your content: About your audience
-Audience problems
-Audience lifestyle
-Audience trends

This is the set-up. After some time people start to trust your brand and believe in what you say. While timing can vary wildly depending on your brand and your audience, this is always a first step. The more your audience gets close to you the more receptive and accepting they become. This is your opportunity to interject with content about your brand.

20% of your content: About your brand
-Brand promotions
-Brand story
-Brand news

By starting with a content marketing strategy with an 80/20 balance of content, you can build solid relationships without verging too far into “marketing” territory. Adjust these numbers over time to find your sweet spot, but always remember that the 80% about your audience is what makes the 20% about your brand so effective.

Peter’s pedigree comes with some strong convictions about how projects should be managed, and he hit the ground running. There’s a new energy in the office this week thanks to his leadership. We’re digging his fresh perspectives on old problems and how he’s challenging the ways “we’ve always done things.”

First Erica, now Peter, and we’re not done yet. We’re still on the lookout for fresh talent to join us.

I try to avoid these types of tweets, but it is nearly 1am!! why am I still awake?!?

— Kelly Stephenson (@annaluna) May 1, 2012

You know the type. Those tweets about waiting in a doctor’s office, eating a bologna sandwich for lunch..again, or in, my case, that I was up past my bed time for no good reason. They’re usually about being bored and almost always boring. They’re the sort of tweets that make Twitter infamous and seemingly useless to your mom or to the brand manager who doesn’t understand “the power of social media”. It’s bad for business and we poke fun when other people do it, so why do we do it?

I pondered this as I finally drifted off to sleep and woke up to my answer: solidarity.

Within minutes of my tweet I had responses from a couple of timey-wimey Australian friends who were more than halfway through their Tuesdays. I had a “right there with you” retweet from a friend. The next morning, as I was skimming my Twitter feed and chiding myself for getting a mere 5 hours of sleep, I read tweets from other friends who were feeling the exact same thing, hundreds of miles away.

Suddenly, I felt better about the whole thing, boring tweet and all. I wasn’t the only one who stayed up late and regretted it the next morning. I had friends literally across the world that were happy to keep me company. That boring tweet, and the “boring tweets” that followed linked us all together for a moment. And it was a good thing.

I doubt I’ll turn into someone who regularly says good night to the Twitterverse before going to bed, but the next time I’m bored and waiting, or lamenting my disappointing lunch choice, I just might reach out and tell the world.

It’s very easy to think about Facebook messaging as an extension of other advertising: Post your specials. Talk about the features of your product. Write about your “brand promise”. It may seem like a natural fit, but it’s not what your audience wants in most cases. In most cases a Facebook page is as much about the audience as it is the owner. New studies by eMarketer and Insight Strategy Group show that audiences may “like” your page, but don’t necessarily “like” what you’re saying on it.

69% of all consumer actions on top brands’ Facebook pages were in response to personal posts while only 11% were in response to promotional posts according to eMarketer. Think of it as if it were real life. Does anyone “like” to hear people talk about themselves all day? Balance your promotional posts with a higher volume of post about things your audience talks about.

The Insight Marketing Group study helps to reinforce that position: Your audience expects you to be on Facebook but doesn’t want to feel “marketed” to.

By being more authentic and showing that you care about what your audience cares about, you can earn more than just their “likes”. You can earn their love.

You live for interactive, have a contagious work ethic with a maniacal attention to detail, strive to produce the work at the highest quality standards and absorb design knowledge and trends. If you encounter a problem, you seek out a solution rather than waiting for divine intervention.

You are a talented Art Director with the experience to conceptualize as well as translate and extend concepts into effective visual designs for digital marketing, online campaigns, web and motion-based projects. Under the direction of a Creative Director, you will work on several projects at a time and will be involved in all phases of creative development, with a focus on design execution. You may also be involved in new business projects and pitches.

Core Duties/Responsibilities:

CONCEPTING

• Contributes to the creation of interactive design concepts through active participation in brainstorms and other idea-generating sessions.
• Helps establish look and feel of concepts.
• Has a competent knowledge of client’s business objectives, brand, consumer and competitive landscape to inform insightful design ideas.
• Understands the creative direction set forth for each project and develops work that supports that direction.
• Articulates creative concepts and designs internally to team and clients.

DESIGN

• Leverages a competent understanding of technology, user interface design and visual design fundamentals and techniques in generating an effective range of designs/layouts for all elements of the creative solution that address program objectives.
• Expands personal knowledge of design and current state-of-the-art techniques and has a good understanding of many digital best practices.
• Designs mood boards, comps (with and without wireframes), concept sketches, presentation decks and storyboards under minimal direction of the project’s creative lead.
• Primarily responsible for asset creation and production.
• Performs photo retouching and enhancements as necessary.
• Researches and reviews suitable illustrations, photography or stock photos and sound.
• Prepares and presents layouts/samples to supervisor for direction and approval. Incorporates revisions per client and/or team feedback as appropriate. Ensures approved layouts conform to style guides.
• Assists project’s creative lead in necessary research and preparation of client presentation materials.
• Contributes to and maintains style guides/online design libraries to accompany final deliverables.

COLLABORATION

• Works enthusiastically, respectfully and collaboratively with other project team members, has a clear understanding of how a project team operates, their responsibilities throughout a project and what is expected in critiques and team meetings.
• Partners with the copywriter and development leads to ensure the project meets creative strategy/project objectives.
• Considers technology requirements and designs a solution that complements the technical strategy and/or partners with the technology staff to overcome implementation obstacles.

PROJECT EXECUTION

• Consults with supervisor or project’s creative lead to evaluate individual project needs and proactively raise issues that may impact quality or timing of deliverables and offer solutions
• Actively participates in team meetings to discuss assignment parameters.
• Ensures that internal deadlines, timetables and approval procedures are adhered to for assigned project phases.
• Manages and prioritizes work effectively, and proactively escalates conflicts with workloads.
• Organizes file management per prescribed process and maintain image resource files.
• Helps develop tools and recommendations to improve current processes that impact client deliverables.

TEAM & BUSINESS CONTRIBUTION

• Responsible for giving continuous feedback to peers, completing self-review, inputting time consistently, and being aware of personal utilization.
• Participates and helps plan team-building events.

Required Skills/Knowledge/Experience:

Excellent eye for design, imaginative, well-organized, good-natured, dedicated, flexible and passionate, you bring an advanced understanding of visual and experience design, typography, composition and color theory. Besides a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, Fine Arts, Multi-Media Design (or a related field), you have the following:

• Strong digital design portfolio
• 3+ years design experience, preferably in an interactive agency
• Advanced command of standard design and layout applications (e.g. PhotoShop, Illustrator, InDesign) and HTML and style sheets. Competency with at least one of, as well as experience or exposure to the following: basic Flash ActionScripting, video editing (e.g. FinalCut Pro), or motion graphics (e.g. After Effects).
• Demonstrated ability to utilize feedback/direction from creative lead to generate multiple design explorations and iterate designs to the satisfaction of lead.
• Has managed multiple assignments at the same time (including organizing and prioritizing workload, and working efficiently under pressure in a deadline-driven environment).
• Experience with CSS3 and HTML5 is a plus.
• Solid understanding of the digital landscape, including everything from e-commerce websites, immersive and personalized online experiences to online campaigns, social media and mobile.
• Creative problem solving skills that enable you to evaluate a creative approach, brainstorm, and seek unexpected, original and innovative ideas.
• Careful attention to detail and sensitivity to version control issues.
• Solid knowledge of the production process (e.g. optimizing graphics, compression settings and file size and image optimization)
• Strong verbal communication skills. Able to articulate your creative process, thoughts, ideas and a point of view about your work.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, a positive attitude, a sense of humor and the ability to thrive in a collaborative agency environment with multi-disciplinary teams.
• Basic understanding of technical and cross-platform implications (e.g. strengths and limitations of Flash, jQuery, Ajax, Flex, and other emerging platforms).
• Self-motivation – you like to figure out how to get the work done and do whatever it takes
• You have a great sense of humor
• You can work and play well with others

INFUZ is a digital creative agency located in St. Louis, MO. We are a team of creatives, producers, technologists and brand strategists who share a passion for engineering unique and lasting relationships between brands and their consumers every day. Much like buildings, offices, and communities, we develop environments and programs that allow connections to take place across all media platforms, including web, mobile, social and digital out-of home.

FOR CONSIDERATION:
Please send resume, portfolio of past work (links, pdf, etc.) and cover letter to work@infuz.com with “Art Director” and your name in the subject line.