Hello, hello. Welcome to day seven. Yeah, we're in the first week. We're at the end of the first week of the Flash Briefing February course, that's been presented by me. Peter Stewart's got a background in radio and broadcasting. And also I produce and present Flash Briefings. So it's me together with Suze's Cooper, who's got a background in radio and audio broadcasting, and also produce some presents her own Flash Briefings. It's like we’re made for this show.

Absolutely.

That's right. And we're on day seven. So in February, we have been talking about the mindset, the skill set and the marketing needed to create your own amazing Flash Briefing. So we are all about supporting other people to create these little audio files that go out every single day via Amazon Alexa smart speakers.

Absolutely. Today and tomorrow, we're going to be talking a little bit about your logo or your icon, whatever you want to call it, your cover art. Just a couple of tips. We're going to give you some websites to go to tomorrow. But today, it's just talking about why we're talking about how important it is to have your icon and to have your logo. And I suppose the first thing to say is that first impressions really do count is the first touch points. You know what yesterday, we were talking about your name of your Flash Briefing, and the description and the SEO. And before that, we're talking about the content of what you're actually going to be talking about. But before both of those bits of kind of content and ideas, whether it be the name of your show, or what you say within your show. It's what your show looks like rather than what it sounds like. And by that what I mean is when people are scrolling through the directory of different skills, different Flash Briefings, their eye is going to first of all, land on your icon or your logo before they actually read the name or the description of what it's all about. It's the first touch point. And you know what you need to communicate really, really quickly what it is that you're doing, what the show is about, and also how seriously you're taking your audio production. Now, if it's a Flash Briefing with a silly fart joke for kids, then you can imagine that could look a little bit silly could have some crazy colours, some weird fonts, and it could just be exploding out of the screen, and almost deliberately not to have much what you might call professionalism about it. However, if you are using a Flash Briefing, to pass on information, useful information to build a relationship with adults and potentially sell them something a little bit further down the line, then obviously, you want to come over branded, businesslike professional. So therefore, you've got to think about the name as we spoke about yesterday. bit about your colours that you are using the quality of the font. As I said yesterday, if you're using Comic Sans and clipart, then it's going to be saying something different from if you're using perhaps Arial font, and a photograph. So think very carefully about what you use and how it fits in with the rest of your branding, because brand consistency is really, really important. So I would suggest you're using the same kind of colour that you're using with the rest of your brand, whether it be your letterheads, or the logo on the side of a van, or the advert that you've got on people's websites, and your website colour and all of that. So the same kind of colour, the same kind of font, the same kind of typeface, and also for it to be really big and clear, and bold. So he's eye catching because you know what, when people are searching up and down on their phone or on the Amazon site, there's not much real estate there for them to see. It's really small logo It really is a thumbnail image. It's about the size of a thumbnail if someone is looking on their phone so it's got a leap out from the page really, really clear and really, really obvious what it is that you're doing. So not much clutter, not too many words, maybe just a visual representation of what you do have that brand consistency as well. And Suze, it's also important about colours, isn't it because of those alexes with screams because then if your colour as part of the logo, it kind of that is the same main colour that's used behind your logo as well and one could kind of cancel out or be a bit jewellery on the eyes could know.

So lately and I certainly have personal experience of this actually, my Flash Briefing the social days, Flash Briefing, the logo was an idea that I just came up because it was a very obvious image. It is a half black hashtag On the yellow background, I thought it would be eye catching I thought the yellow kind of promoted happiness and kind of being happy with your content and was a kind of sunshine colour really nice idea. And I've used those two together and I really like the logo but someone has been in touch with me and said, did I know that actually on the echo show, the yellow actually comes out really quite vibrant and so vibrant, that they don't like looking at it on their screen. Now, in a way that's you know, it's it's negative feedback, but it's also feedback that I like to hear because I wasn't completely aware of that. And actually, I quite like it on the echo show screen myself their opinion is that it's all too much but it's understanding how your logo is going to be used within the Amazon ecosystem. So not only is it used within the skill store, as Peter says where it will be placed into a circular logo that they have that they basically put your they kind of put it inside their little template is a little speech bubble which all have Amazon skills, everybody These logo gets put into the same place. And that's quite tiny, particularly if you're on your mobile phone screen. But it's also then going to be on this, you know, Echo show screen, which is from Angel age, which actually currently, I don't think there's a way at the moment that you can change that, because the Flash Briefing is audio only currently. So it's not something and they've expanded the skill for the screen and versions of the the echo. Currently, it means that you are kind of stuck with your logo will be the picture that people are going to be seeing while they hear it if they listening on the echo show. So there's an awful lot to think about in terms of how your logo is going to be seen and where it's going to be seen and which colours you might want to use.

Absolutely. So I'll leave it for here today because we're going to be back tomorrow with some websites because if you're thinking to yourself, I know nothing about fonts and colours and designs and things like that. well rested steezy don't lose sleep over it is okay. Don't panic. We're here to hold your hand. On Flash Briefing February, as we go through step by step with the skill set the mindset, the marketing for building a better briefing tomorrow. We're back with some really good websites that you can use. They've got templates. They're cheap, they're easy. They're straightforward. They're really, really professional about so you can dive into those. You can have a little play around and you can create something that looks really, really good. So we're back tomorrow, just looking down at my notes here. All of these websites all and also something it says down here we're going to be talking about size matters done. Well. That's about join us tomorrow. We'll find out together as Flash Briefing February continues until the hamper Bye for now.

See ya.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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