123Greetings Studio Artist Community Blog

Category: Guides & Tutorials

guides & tutorials

Tips To Create Attractive Thumbnails

In our last week’s post we discussed the vital role of thumbnails in attracting viewers. This week we bring together tips and tricks from visualizers’ perspective to help create perfect thumbnails that can allure users, while maintaining their dimension and size limits.

Ashu Patodia, one of the top visualizers at 123Greetings Studio shares her thoughts on the aesthetics of the thumbnails. She says, “Creating an effective thumbnail for our ecards can be challenging sometimes, but not impossible provided we keep key pointers in mind.” She also provides a great example from one of her top performing Love ecards to help fellow visualizers get a clear understanding.

Ashu says, “The most important point to keep in mind is the quality & visual content of the thumbnail. This should not be compromised. If you consider thumb 1 of my Love ecard under discussion, the first thing you will notice is that the thumbnail is the exact reflection of the ecard. The primary function of a thumbnail image is to give a visual preview of our ecard. If your thumbnail shows something that is not part of the ecard, it may lead to loss of faith that your followers have in you. To elaborate, see thumb 2 from another romantic ecard.

Thumb 2 has a similar ambience, color theme, roses as basic elements used in the ecard, but it is still not the true reflection of it. Hence, this cannot be used. Also, if we talk on the quality front we need to see that while creating our thumbnails, keeping the 8kb file size is intact, and we do not have a pixelated thumbnail which may look nasty and unclear because of the grainy elements. It’s advisable to keep thumbnails crisp, clear and precise; such that they should be able to grab the user’s interest in that one easy glimpse.”

Here is a thumbnail checklist provided by Ashu:

1. Visuals same as ecard (similar is not justifiable). Highlighting the subject is advisable.
2. Crisp background, images.
3. Clearly legible text (if any) on the thumbnail with the right placement. Overlapping text on the subject of the image/background causing obstructed viewer experience can take away the visual appeal of the thumbnail.
4. Smooth & clean animation (in case of Gif thumbnails).

Inspired by Ashu and Simpydesigns’ work, Jothi, a versatile Studio visualizer, started creating Gif thumbnails. “Gif animated images attract the viewers more as it reflects the theme of the card in a miniature form and the gif image conveys the message directly to the viewer”, says Jothi. She further goes on to explain an easy way to create a gif image. “Take snapshots of the relevant images of the card and place it adjacently in the timeline and export them in animated Gif sequence. The size of the images should be of dimension 115 by 115 pixels. You have to modify the document size also to 115 by 115 pixels.

Here is an example of creating a thumbnail in gif format:

Create a new file with dimension 115 by 115 pixels. In the first frame paste the snapshot of the image. Put the relevant text. Create a key frame on the 5th or 10th frame. Here change the image or change the text. Now insert a frame in the 10th or 20th frame. When the movie is run, it will display the output in gif animation with changing words “hugs & kisses”. This will attract the viewers as it conveys his/ her love in a direct way!”

Below tips will help maintain the file size of the thumb:

• Minimize the use of colors.
• Keep the animation in two frames.
• Optimize the thumb using the optimization tool available on Photoshop and ImageReady.
• Avoid using layers in thumbs, use static screenshots instead.
• Limit the filters.

With some great insights from our visualizers and some technical tips we hope that creating thumbnails will not be as daunting anymore! So thumb away!

September 24, 2014
Ecard Thumbnails – Why are they Important?

Thumbnails are like movie trailers. If they are not interesting and appealing to the users they will not drive audiences to the theater; without which it will fail to become a blockbuster! The trick with thumbnails is to make them attractive to entice users to view your cards. However in doing so, it must provide a true picture of the ecard and not mislead users. There’s nothing worse than misleading users to believe that it is an action flick while it only has one action scene in the entire movie.

Below is an example of Ashu Patodia’s Rosh Hashanah ecard and its thumb. The thumb represents exactly what the card contains and is further beautified by the animated text.

Rosh Hashanah ecard

Thumbnails set users’ expectations. If that is not met, then you cannot win users’ loyalty. Thumbnails should indicate the quality of the card and give a sneak peek to what the card contains. They must make users believe that they will enjoy the ecard viewing experience. Hence it must contain the same content such as images, colors and background that are used in the main card. You may select any image that you have used in the card but do not add an extra image in the thumbnail if it is not included in the card as this misleads users.

If you don’t have multiple frames in a card you can create a mini version of it and use as thumbnail. However if you have a text heavy card, choose the images for the thumbnail with minimal text on it. Owing to the size of the thumbnail, the text usually becomes illegible. If you have a flash card with multiple frames it is best to use the most attractive and aesthetically appealing part of the card as the thumbnail. Including minimal text with key messages such as ‘Happy New Year’, ‘I love You’, etc. works well in thumbnails. Animated thumbnails (GIFs) usually do well but they should not be overpowering in look.

Many of our visualizers have experienced a significant improve in the performance of their cards by changing or modifying their card thumbs. Thus it is important to spend time and thought in creating them. Your ecards may be wonderful but will only receive appreciation if users are excited to see what it holds and this can only be captured by an attractive thumbnail!

September 17, 2014
Guidelines To Create Rosh Hashanah And Other Religious Ecards

In one of our previous posts we looked at different kinds of ecards. The need for different ecards arise due to the different nature of holidays and occasions. Some holidays are religious while others could be nationalistic and some others celebrate personal relationships. These holidays differ from each other in nature, celebrations and style of greeting. It is important to understand the crucial elements and their correct usage in designing such ecards. Here are some broad guidelines to help you identify and focus on key areas while designing ecards for Rosh Hashanah (Sep 24-26). This post will also serve as a guide to help create ecards for other religious events.

1) Research about the holiday

This is the first and the most important step. Read-up about the holiday – its history, background and customs. Understanding the essence of the holiday will help you with the creatives. Rosh Hashanah, for example, is the Jewish New Year. It marks the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve. Rosh Hashanah literally translates to “Head of the Year.” A critical part of Rosh Hashanah is making amends for sins and seeking forgiveness from God.

It is also crucial to understand ‘How’ the holiday is celebrated and the customs attached to it. What do people do on the day? What are the common terms for exchanging wishes? The answers to these questions will give you a user’s perspective and help you understand what they want to express through ecards.

2) Card copy/ Message

Your ecards will gain popularity if they can express the users’ thoughts into words. It is important to understand the sender receiver relationship to write the perfect message in an ecard. Also remember that religious holidays must have appropriate text and proper usage of terms. There can be no room for errors as improper usage can hurt people’s sentiments. In the case of Rosh Hashanah ecards will be sent by Jews to family or friends. Include messages that are suitable for the sender and receiver. You can use the traditional greeting of L’ Shanah Tovah instead of Happy Rosh Hashanah, which means ‘Have a good year’.

3) Color

The colors used in ecards must be related to the holiday. For example Christmas colors are usually red, green, white or gold. In case of Rosh Hashanah blue, white, brown, ocher, yellow and other shades in the same color family are suitable. Avoid using black for all religious events. Also research and ensure you don’t use colors that may be perceived as inauspicious by the targeted group/ community.

4) Design

To have the necessary design elements in the card it is important to understand the elements that people associate with the holiday. In Rosh Hashanah it is customary to eat honey dipped apples and hear the sound of the shofar (ram’s horn). Other symbolic elements are challah (bread), pomegranate, lighting candles. If you are designing a menorah (traditional candle stand), you must be certain of the number of candles that are lit on the occasion. Apart from elements you can also depict what people enjoy doing on the holiday such as family dinners, offering prayers at synagogues etc.

5) Music

Traditional music or religious chants are appropriate for these ecards. Key elements in music are the beats and sound of traditional instruments. In case of Indian religious events this could be bell chimes or Indian drums. For Rosh Hashanah this could be traditional Jewish instruments such as harp, flute and trumpets. Western music will be inappropriate for these events.

6) Make use of the different sub-categories

At 123Greetings.com events may be further categorized into various sub-categories. This helps users to easily find the type of ecard that they are looking for. For example if a user wants to send religious wishes on Rosh Hashanah, he/ she is most likely to look under the sub-category ‘Religious Blessings’ and choose among the ecards listed there. Hence an ecard submitted under ‘Rosh Hashanah Wishes’ should be intended to appeal to an audience looking to send generic wishes for the holiday and not necessarily cards with religious sentiments.

The two ecards showcased in this post are popular Rosh Hashanah ecards that have been most liked by our users. Both the ecards beautifully blend the important elements of the holiday and are aesthetically appealing. The combination of background colors and textures, designs, music and card messages entice users to send these cards.

September 3, 2014
Tips To Improve The Performance Of Your Ecards

So your Studio profile is ready. You’ve got your marketing going. But, it isn’t time to sit back and relax just yet. In order to be successful, you’ll have to constantly monitor the performance of each of your ecards. Identify what makes certain ecards do well and what doesn’t. Rework on them accordingly.

Here are a few pointers to help you optimize the performance of your portfolio:

A. For the ecards that are not doing well – for instance, both the views and sends are low, try and assess where the problem lies. What could be the reasons for the views, and consequently the sends to be low? The following changes might help:-

1. Change Title / Description / Tags

Check to see if these are ok. Have you tagged them correctly to ensure they’re easily searchable? Is the title apt? Does the description rightly convey the essence or purpose of the card? If not, change them.

2. Change Thumbnail and Icon

Are the thumbnails and icons appealing? These make the first impression. A poor thumbnail or icon could be one of the reasons why your ecard may not be performing well. Amidst a sea of ecards, the thumbnail of your ecard may not be enticing enough to attract viewers to check them out. Try changing them. But ensure they are related to your ecard.

B. There could be ecards that have impressive views, but poor sends. For such ecards, you may choose to make the following assessments and required changes:

3. Change Background

If you’ve used the “Easy Upload” option for uploading your ecard, the background color by default would be white. You could choose to change the background of your ecard to add to its appeal. There are quite a few websites which offer options for creating backgrounds. A simple online search will help you find these resources.

4. Change Font

The choice of the font color in which the message of the sender appears is also crucial, as it has a bearing on how the end product (your ecard with the personalized message) would look. If you have used the “Easy Upload” option to upload your ecard, the font color by default would be black. You could choose to change the font color to compliment the colors used in your ecard. Ensure the color is such that it is not overshadowed by the color used in the background. A dark font on a light backdrop and vice-versa are best suited in terms of legibility. Similarly, if the font used for the copy is not legible or aesthetically appealing enough, you could make the required changes.

5. Change Music

The right kind of music can set the mood of your ecard, while the wrong one can mar its performance despite everything else being just right. You could choose to change the music accompanying your ecard if you find that to be the reason of the poor performance of your ecard. There are plenty of websites that offer free music that can be used for your ecard. But ensure they are not copyrighted and can be used for commercial purposes. Each piece of music offered on different websites has its own licensing norms. Ensure you use them accordingly and give credit to the owner when need be. 123Greetings’ music bank can also be used to select the appropriate music from.

6. Modify the Message

Is your ecard failing because the message is weak? Rewording the message could help. A strong Me to You message is important in ecards. Also, check to see if there is any spelling or grammatical error in the text. These could hold people back from sending your ecard.

7. Change Image

Visuals attract. Ensure that the image used is of high quality. Pixelated images can be replaced.
You could make the required changes in the content of your ecard and replace the existing ecard, without forgoing the existing statistics and other details of the ecard. Simply go to the “My ecards” option, select the desired ecard under the “Listed” category, choose “edit” and upload the modified ecard.

C. Some of your ecards might be limited by the “time period” within which its sendabilty is bound. The following changes could help circumvent this limitation.

8. Modify event specific ecards

These event specific ecards (if they manage to become popular) garner a high number of sends that would help you peak your performance. However, these ecards are confined only to a particular period of time in a year. How do you optimize the performance of each of these ecards? Modification is the answer.
In order to make these cards sendable at any point in time, you could modify them to fit into more general or everyday categories by altering the copy. For instance, a Valentine’s Day ecard can be modified to fit into the “Love” category by changing the message. Similarly, a Mother’s Day ecard can be modified to fit the “Family” category and the like. Also change the title, description, tags, music, thumbnail, icon, background and font where required to improve its performance.

You could read more on what one of our Studio Artists, Bebestarr says, here.

These steps could help you optimize the performance of your ecard portfolio and improve your performance.

August 27, 2014
Marketing your Ecards on Blogs and Artist Communities
In our last two posts we looked at some exciting and easy ways to market ecards on social media. However online marketing doesn’t end here. Social media is the most popular medium but there are other mediums through which you can effectively promote your artwork.

1. Blogs/ Personal Website

Most artists now have their own personal blogs or in some cases their personal websites. You can either provide a link to your 123Greetings profile or simply write about your ecards – both old and new, your membership – your experiences benefiting from 123Greetings Studio. The advantage of blogs or personal websites is that they have the right set of people for you to target, since a common interest binds them all. The people who follow your blog or visit your website are ones who are interested in your kind of work and keep coming back to you for more of what you share with them on these platforms.
Below are some tricks to help promote your ecards through your blog/ website.
1. In the bio section or ‘About Me’ section on your blog or website provide a link to your 123Greetings profile to direct your viewers to your portfolio.
2. Blog/ write about emotions, human expressions, holidays, occasions and your take on them. You will gather a fan following for your designs and users can start following you on our website and receive notifications of your new uploads.
3. Blog/ write about your ecards – what inspired you, how you went about creating them, the thoughts that went into it, the emotions expressed and the like – providing links to them to illustrate your points. This will direct users to your cards and increase its views and its sendability.
Here is an example of 123Greetings Studio Blog that talks about Paul Solomons and his ecards. You could similarly talk about your ecards on your personal blog and provide links to them.

2. Artist Communities

Various artist communities or forums that you’re a part of offer you a chance to network with like-minded people, share your work with them, get their feedback and through them, increase your reach.
Participate in topics of discussions. Give your ideas and inputs to establish yourself as a knowledgeable person in your area of interest. Provide useful information which will allow more people to follow you. Also share links to your work, the members of these forums can be encouraged to like or share your work with their set of friends or fan-base. You could return the favor by doing the same for them.

All these platforms are, therefore, a great way to connect and promote your work. However, ensure your posts do not go overboard. No one wants to be constantly bombarded with self-promotion. Too much of it from your end might just put people off. The 70/30 rule can be followed; which means, only 30% of what you post should be to promote your work, 70% of your content should be information which could benefit your followers. If managed well, this would contribute to helping you gain recognition for your work, significantly increasing the popularity and sends of your ecards, and increasing the monetary rewards you receive from 123Greetings.

Money, fame and recognition are all yours!
August 20, 2014
Marketing your Ecards on Social Media – Part 2

In our last post we discussed some helpful tips on how to use Facebook and Twitter to promote your content. In this post we’ll tell you how you can use other popular social media platforms such as Pinterest and Quora to market your ecards. But before we start off, here are two helpful tips:-

1) Insert your 123Greetings Studio profile link in your email signature or any social network profile of yours. This will allow you to drive traffic to your profile and thus promote your portfolio. The more people viewing and sending your cards, the higher will be your ranking. Once you’ve got a good amount of work in your portfolio and your cards start doing well, in terms of the number of people viewing and sending them, our system propels it and the visibility of your cards on our website increases. The greater your visibility the more likely would it be for our 95 million visitors to click on them.

2) Use a common icon or avatar and username on all your profiles across the different social networking sites. For example, if your username is ‘Christy’ on Facebook, Twitter or the like, try to use the same username in your Studio Profile. This would make it easy for your followers to find and follow you.

Pinterest

Pinterest, with its emphasis on visuals, is a powerful tool for showcasing and marketing your ecards. Here’s how you can get started and pin your way to success…

1. Connect your Studio Portfolio to your Pinterest profile: Use your boards and pins to entice people to take note of your creations. Next, direct them to your portfolio to expose them to your work and increase the sends of your ecards. You can do this by clicking on the globe icon on your profile page and adding the link to your Studio Portfolio.

2. Create interesting boards: You can choose to group your ecards under various interesting boards, such as, Love, Friendship, Birthday, Family, Humor and the like. Name your boards accordingly and select apt categories under which they could figure, e.g. art, design, humor, photography and others.

3. Pin your ecards: Pin your ecards to the relevant boards. You can do this in two ways: by using the “Add a pin” or “Upload a pin” option.

Add a pin: This just requires you to paste the URL to the particular ecard that you would like to pin. The image is automatically generated from the link provided. In this kind of pin, clicking on the image would take the viewer to the source of your content – your ecard on 123Greetings.com. You could also add the link in the “Description” section of your pin.

Upload a pin: This requires you to upload the image of your ecard, to which you add the link (in the “description” section). You could also put the URL in the “link” section by clicking on “edit”. The only shortcoming of this kind of pin is that when someone clicks on the image they only see the image and are not directed to your ecard. Only clicking on the link would take them to the source.

4. Add Hashtags: Just like adding tags to your ecards, adding hashtags to your pins also helps to increase the searchability of your ecards when people search for those terms.

5. Follow pinners / boards / pins: Getting people, who would be interested in your work, to follow you is what you need. For starters you could follow boards and pins that interest you and are closely related to your style of work; also, follow pinners who get most likes and repins and those who have pinned your work. Chances are they may follow you, and through them their followers may follow you too.

Quora

With its strong focus on specific topics, this is a great forum for you to connect with people who share the same interests. By following topics that pertain to your work and interest, you get the opportunity to not just read up on what people have to say about various topics, but also share your opinion with them. Networking with people who share the same interests would help you connect and share your work with them and vice-versa.

Here’s how you could leverage Quora for marketing your Studio portfolio:

1. Create a good profile: Create a good profile by linking your Studio portfolio so that people who want to learn more about you and your work can do so and be able to click through to your portfolio.

2. Follow topics/people: Follow topics that are of interest to you and related to your work. Find people who share your interests, experts in your field or top followers and connect with them.

3. Become an active participant: Post thought provoking questions and valuable answers. This helps to establish your credibility. Share content on and off Quora by providing links to create valuable information that people would like to follow. Whenever appropriate, provide links to your profile or work. It is a good way to promote your work but don’t overtly self-promote, lest people consider you to be a spammer. Eg. For a question like, “What do people look for in a good birthday ecard?” In your answer you could put down your thoughts and also share a few other resources that help address the question. As an example to illustrate the points you’ve laid out you could provide a link to one of the birthday ecards created by you. You could also create your own question that you feel will be helpful for others who share your interest and provide a valuable answer to it yourself, or invite others to answer it. Establishing your credibility gets people interested in your work, helps you gain followers and drive traffic to your portfolio.

Go try these tricks now and promote your work on social media to get that extra edge!

August 13, 2014
Marketing your Ecards on Social Media – Part 1
So you’ve created some good ecards and uploaded them on 123Greetings Studio. What next? How do you get people to check out your creations? You have to use ways and means to draw their attention and bring them to see what’s on offer; which means you need to market your creations. Thanks to web 2.0, things just got easier!

From various social media platforms, your own website or blog, to different artist communities or forums – you could use them all to your advantage. There’s a plethora of social media platforms just waiting to be explored. Each, however, has its own set of nuances and unique ways of working. If you’ve figured how to make the most of each of them you’ve found your way to success!

So the main question now is, how do you use social media to market your ecards? We’ll explain how you can use two biggest social media platforms – Facebook and Twitter to market your ecards, this week, and look at some others next week.

Facebook
1. Promote your Studio profile URL: 123Greetings Studio gives you a URL for your profile. Provide this URL in your “About me” section.
2. Post on your friends’ walls: Share the links to your works on your wall or share them on your friends’ walls. Encourage them to comment, like and share them. But don’t do it too often, lest you turn your friends away.
3. Send messages to your friends / groups / everyone: Send the link of your Studio profile or individual ecards to your friends with a personal message, telling them why you’re sending it to them.
4. Use notes: Write notes that relate to your works, providing links to them. Perhaps, you could put a short write-up on what inspired you to create that particular ecard or the thoughts that went into it, or anything related to the emotions expressed in it.
5. Upload images: Images of your ecards are a great way to grab the attention of people. You can create an album of the snapshots of your cards. With each snapshot, provide the link to direct them to the ecard.
6. Use hashtags: Hasthtags help you make your work easy to find or increase its searchability. Using hashtags relevant to your content is the key.
7. Tag your friends: Whatever is the type of post – status updates, wall posts, notes or photos – tagging your friends on them will help get their attention, as well as, the attention of their friends. Moderation, however, would be the keyword here because you don’t want to spam their walls!
Having more people interact with your post would help in making it viral, and thereby increase its reach. This will invite people to not just check out your ecards but also send them, thereby increasing your ecards views and sends on Studio, thereby increasing your popularity and fan-following.

Twitter

Twitter is another ideal place for promoting your work and growing your fan-base or followers. Here’s a list of things that could help your market your portfolio through Twitter.
1. Link to your Studio profile: Provide a link to your Studio portfolio on your Twitter profile page. This way, anyone who visits your profile can be directed to your work.
2. Tweet about your work: Don’t just give links to your ecards. Instead, put an interesting tweet along with the link. It would be a good idea to shorten the links (this can be done easily using free websites like bitly.com).
3. Don’t go overboard: Linking every tweet with your work would be blatant promotion and appear pushy. Not recommended as it annoys people, and may cause them to unfollow you.
4. Follow the right people: Use Twitter’s search feature to find profiles that are of interest to you and are related to your area of work, e.g. ecard developers, artists, graphic designers, photographers and the like. Follow them to keep tab on what’s happening. Use the Twitter RSS feed to get notified every time a tweet containing a certain keyword is posted.
5. Engage in conversations: Start conversations by replying to people talking about topics that are of interest to you. This helps you get connected with like-minded people.
6. Retweet often: Whenever you come across content that is of interest to you, retweet it. Chances are your followers would be interested too.
7. Ask for feedback: It is equally important to hear what people have to say. Don’t just talk about yourself and your works. Share your works with people and ask them for their feedback. Helps you get different perspectives and also get people interested in your work.
8. Use hashtags: Hasthtags help you make your work easy to find or increase its searchability. Using hashtags relevant to your content is the key.
9. Build followers: The more people come to know about you and your works, the more click-through you would get to your portfolio.
10. Thank people: Thank people for retweeting your content and, maybe, return the favor by retweeting their links or mentioning their twitter names.
11. Background: You could also have your profile background to reflect your works. That would help you brand yourself as a successful ecard designer!
Go try these helpful tricks and look out for our next blog that will talk about marketing your ecards on other popular social media websites.
August 6, 2014
Uploading Ecards On To Studio
Very often artists struggle to get their cards up on the most popular pages due to timing issues. Remember to plan early. We suggest you upload your ecards 30 days before the event. For example, if you’re doing an ecard for Halloween your ecard should be done by October 1. This way, you have lead time to market your ecard. Your ecard will be listed in our site, and indexed by the search engines. Ecards should not be uploaded less than 7 days to the event.

Another area to look into is our upload options. New artists may wonder which one of our upload options to use. We’ll tell you how the two options differ so you can decide which one suits you the best.

With 123Greetings Studio, you can now upload your ecard in a few simple steps:

1. Sign in to Studio with your account
2. Go to “My Cards” tab and choose the way you want to upload your ecard
You could either select the “Easy Upload” or the “Advanced Upload” option. Though the “Easy Upload” option is simple and easy-to-use, the “Advanced Upload” option offers greater options for customization.

Easy Upload

This upload interface is easy, fast and hassle free. It only asks for the basic card elements (ecard, music
file, title, description and category). Under this option our system determines the Thumbnail, Icon and Permalink to be displayed.

Follow these steps to upload your ecard using the ‘Easy Upload’ interface:
1. Select the Event or Category under which you would like to place your ecard. Be as specific as you can.
2. Browse and select the card file that you want to upload.
3. In case your ecard is a postcard or an animated card you may attach a music file to it. Browse and select the music file that you want to upload. Music is optional. (A flash ecard must have music embedded in it, so there is no need of a separate music file for it.)
4. Put a relevant card title. For example: “Just dropping by to say hi” can be a suitable title for an ecard that will be in the “Everyday: Hi” category.
5. Add a description for your ecard. Using apt key words makes it easier for people to find your ecard in their search results.
6. Click on the submit button to get your ecard listed on the site.
7. If you opt not to submit your ecard for listing and want to save it as draft, click on the “Save as Draft” button.
Note: Once you upload your ecard (in Easy Upload), the Icon, Thumb file and the permalink of your ecard
are auto-generated by the system. The default background and font color of your ecard remains as
white and black respectively. If you save your ecard as draft, all these elements can be further
customized in the ‘Edit a Card’ section.

Advanced Upload

This upload interface lets you customize all the card elements in detail. You can upload your own icon or thumb for your ecard, customize the permalink of your ecard, choose the color of the font in which the sender’s personal messages would appear, add tags and also select your own background for your card. These are important for your card’s popularity and indexing by internal and external third party search engines, which drive traffic to your card.

Here are the steps:
1. Select the Event or Category under which you would like to place your ecard. Be as specific as you can.
2. Browse and select the card file that you want to upload.
3. In case your ecard is a postcard or an animated card you may attach a music file to it. Browse and select the music file that you want to upload. Music is optional. (A flash ecard must have music embedded in it, so there is no need of a separate music file for it.)
4. Browse and select the icon file of your ecard.
5. Browse and select the thumb file of your ecard.
6. You could also use the auto-generated icon and thumb for your ecard by selecting the“Want to recreate icon and thumb” option.
7. Put a relevant card title. For example: “Just dropping by to say hi” can be a suitable title for an ecard that will be in the “Everyday: Hi” category.
8. Add a description for your ecard. Using apt key words makes it easier for people to find your ecard in their search results.
9. You may customize the permalink of your ecard or choose to use the auto-generated one (which is derived from your title). While suggesting a permalink try to use relevant keywords so that it becomes search friendly.
10. Choose a font color that will be used to display the custom user messages. The font color should compliment your ecard color scheme. The default font color would be black.
11. Add tags to your ecard. You could use keywords that did not figure in your title or description, but are closely related to your ecard. Tags can be for the card elements/visual objects, potential senders, potential receivers, emotions shown in the card.
12. Browse and select the background file of your ecard. This is optional. The default background would be white.
13. Click on the submit button to get your ecard listed on the site.
14. If you opt not to submit your ecard for listing and wish to save it as draft, click on the “Save as Draft.”
These two options provide artists with the flexibility to upload cards in their preferable way and take control of card elements such as thumb, music etc.
July 23, 2014
Modern Trends In Ecards

Ecards these days are not merely restricted to static images with accompanying background music and plain text. There is a whole gamut of multimedia tools that you can play with to create and customize your cards the way you want to, thanks to the advancements in technology!

Animated ecards:

Animated ecards are the first step in enhancing static ecards. They create motion and shape change illusions of static images thus making the cards more appealing. Emphasis on text, changing images or change in background or text color are common features of animated ecards.

Flash ecards:

Flash ecards are the most common format in use today. The use of flash technology enables you to create two-dimensional vector animations controlled with a scripting language. These are usually animated clips of short duration with accompanying music or speech. Some may be interactive, requiring the participation of the recipients in terms of clicking on certain objects to elicit a response, while some would only require the passive observation of the recipients. 123Greetings.com’s internal data shows that most users tend to send flash cards over other types.

Video ecards:

These allow you to combine a personalized text with a video-clip to convey your message. It works like a mini movie that uses visuals and text to convey the message.

Web-based multimedia ecards:

These enable users to create online greeting cards based on their preferences. So the user can choose the backgrounds, add images, animations, emoticons, create avatars and put in the text that they like and change its fonts. The ecard may also contain videos and music. Some sites also allow users to upload photographs, wherefrom the faces are selected and embedded onto their animations to achieve a higher level of personalization.

Mcards:

We also have the mobile ecard or mcard, which is basically a picture SMS or a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). Like ecards, mcards can contain multiple pictures, music and text messages. They can be sent from the PC to mobile devices by entering the recipient’s mobile number on the website, which the recipients receive in the form of an MMS.

Mcards may not be as popular anymore due to the advent of new mobile applications and messaging services.

Perhaps the latest and most significant advancement is that ecards are now optimized to be viewed on mobiles or tablets thus allowing sending and receiving them on the go. Various mobile applications, such as 123Greetings Mobile App, are also available for sending ecards directly from the mobile phone or tablet.

July 16, 2014
Advantages of Ecards Over Paper Greeting Cards – Part 2

In the last post we covered the advantages of ecards from an artist’s perspective. Now its time to consider the popularity of ecards among users. Let’s take a look at some of the possible reasons…

User’s Perspective

• Convenience: Ecards are easy to create/ customize. There’s no need to spend time and money in purchasing cards from a store. All that is required is to browse through the cards available on the website, select the card of your choice, enter a message and email it. It also helps you to save time by allowing you to send multiple cards at once.

• Speed: Ecards are fast to deliver. There is no need to worry about delays in the postal service. Ecards are delivered instantly at the click of the button (literally!), while some websites also allow one to schedule the delivery date, to avoid last minute hassles. It is, indeed, a lifesaver for busy procrastinators.

• Eco-friendly: One of the primary reasons for ecards gaining popularity over paper ones is its “green” benefits. Ecards help reduce the carbon footprint by substituting traditional paper-cards and contribute to the preservation of the environment.

• Cost saving: Ecards may be cheaper to send than traditional paper cards. Many websites offer free ecards so users can send wishes without money being a concern.

• Accessibility: Ecards can conveniently be viewed on multiple platforms like the laptop, desktop or mobile phones. It, thus, has the ability to reach people anywhere and at anytime.

• Notification: As soon as a card is viewed, the sender receives a notification. This thereby eliminates the fear about delivery failure.

• Variety: From simple, yet beautiful, postcards to flash/ animated or realistic video cards, to ones incorporating interactive games, there is always something to choose that will suit both the sender, as well as, the receiver’s tastes.

• Selection: It may be difficult to get a wide choice of cards in a physical store. However, in an ecard website, such as 123Greetings.com, one can get over 42,000 cards to choose from, covering almost all important occasions and holidays. Cards made especially for particular relationships, such as, father-son, sister-brother, colleagues, friends, and even in-laws are easy to find.

• Customization/ personalization: Ecards offer a host of solutions to add that personal touch to one’s cards – the ability to embed one’s pictures or video-clip on the card, to personalize the message using the font or color of one’s choice, or to add music of one’s choice are some of the options that one might not find in paper cards.

All these factors make ecards a more favorable choice over the traditional greeting cards.

July 9, 2014