A message regarding creative businesses – in particular Balloon Artistry.

Referencing, Plagiarism, False advertising and Search engine Optimization
What we have learnt in the Balloon world! Part 1.

Last week in Australia many final year high school students sat their English exams. Opening to page one it read …citing examples describe how…
Next week it is the time for the Biology students. While we haven’t seen the exam it is odds on somewhere in the exam will appear the words “referencing studies discuss how…..”

This referencing or footnoting of literature / scientific studies has been around for hundreds of years. Yet it seems to be foreign in regards to the creative visual medium that is balloon decoration.

If we switch back to the written word :-
“Plagiarism is a term that describes the unacknowledged use of someone’s work. Using the words or ideas of others without referencing your source would be construed as plagiarism.

It is NOT plagiarism to copy words from another source as long as you place them in quotation marks and provide a reference.”1.

Referencing vs Plagiarism in professional balloon art.

If we cross back to the visual medium and converge it with the digital presence that is the internet.  Isn’t referencing simply linking / listing the original artists original digital location or ‘directions’ to find the original creators web address or social streams?

Whereas plagiarizing is simply posting another individuals picture, or piece on a medium such as Instagram or Pinterest without acknowledging the original creator. Passing another individuals piece of as your own!
Or simply false advertising?
As you are displaying a product that you (may or may not depending on your skill level) be able to reproduce for a client.

We now wish to pose a question of you.
It happens at every balloon convention we have ever seen. Several individuals / companies / a collaborative team enter competitions at these conventions, with their work being displayed for attendees and/or the general public to see.

An individual takes a photo of apiece of professional balloon art that particularly resonates with them. They return back to their store / location.  Months later a potential client asks about a design concept that the attendee thinks was shown brilliantly in the competition piece. Bear in mind they simply took a photo of the piece at the convention.
Can the person be shown the photo?
But it isn’t their work! They just took the ORIGINAL photo. Does that change your answer?

Now I want you to ask yourself.  Could you achieve the same level of skilled execution shown in the competition piece? Financial restrictions in regards to time and materials don’t apply at conventions as they do in normal decoration hours.

How can referencing help your business to grow, improve search engine optimization and foster a better international balloon industry?

Consider the following very simplified diagram where the different coloured dots with a letter on them represent different companies.
Who is the most effective company at getting their message across and therefore have better search engine recognition?
Who is the second, who is the third?

Now what if I say the larger the dot the larger the revenue of a company….

Does that change your answers?

If you had the following order our experience would suggest you are probably be correct,
A, C, (J,K,L equal) and then the others.

Now you have been given the answer can you see why?
A has several links to several separate companies including C which also has links to J, K and L.
In a simplified existence A would be seen as the pre-eminent authority on the selected topic. C with a couple of its own links and a link to A (the authority on the subject) would rank highly too. It does this even though it is the revenue of all the companies on the diagram.

While this is a very simplified explanation of the complex algorithms that dictate what individuals see when they request a search engine.  It does show that having strong relevant cross references with others in the industry is one of the best ways for a small business to compete.

How to rank higher?

Please don’t take this as gospel as we say it is extremely simplified and does not take into consideration search request location, paid advertisers, or even little things like spelling.
There are companies that actually pay Google for adwords for a misspelled version of the products they sell. Think Baloons with one L, or Ballons with one O. A simple typo could represent hundreds of searches a day.

Check out this section of Google’s patent number 20120158711 A1:

Automated tests for measuring spelling correctness, grammar, and reading levels can be used to generate a metric value that reflects writing style. A score proportional to the measured quality of writing style may then be assigned.

Randomly generated content or poor articles written for $1.00, are both hallmarks of ‘spammy’ websites. These articles tend to have a lot of errors. Since lots of errors correlate with ‘spammy’ sites, it makes sense to use those errors in the algorithm used to measure trust.

The other thing we love above referencing is it brings professional balloon art in front of many more sets of eyes that possibly the original creator could have ever imagined.

The more of the general public seeing great professional balloon art means more of the general public are going to wish to engage professional balloon artists to create this great balloon work!

SEO for outbound and inbound links.

For those who pay individuals or companies to create effective websites for your businesses you may not be aware but as you can see from the attached screen shot ‘Internal links’ and ‘Outbound links’ both play important roles in Search Engine Optimization.

How to act when you become worldwide?

When you post a photo of your work that you are proud of don’t be annoyed if it appears on the other side of the world – afterall you wanted to show it off!

Yes be annoyed if they didn’t acknowledge you – which is easily fixed with a kind worded email such as
“We at XYZ balloons are delighted you love our work and wish to showcase it off to your prospective clients it would be great if you would acknowledge that the image is actually of our work – please link the photo to the following location on our website/social pages. Regards so and so from XZY Balloons.”
If they refuse then they are plagiarizing and false advertising and that is enforceable very easily.

If it is acknowledged why not still send them a kind worded email such as
“We at XYZ balloons are delighted you love our work and wish to showcase it off to your prospective clients. We have had a look at your work through images displayed on your website and really like the image of the *^ balloons. Keep up the great work of showing how great balloons can be at any event or party! If you are ever in …insert city here….why not drop in and say hello, Regards so and so from XYZ Balloons.”

Now if you have read this post to this point it has possibly taken you several minutes . This in turn has helped our own search engine ranking.  It is not only the more people that visit your site, but the duration in which they stay engaged on your site shows how relevant, involved, up dated and interesting your site is.
So thank-you for that.
We would love to return the favour of a visit for a visit – drop us an email and let us know where to visit so we can see where our readers have come from.
Got a great image or design the world needs to see? Awesome let us know we are only to happy to write an article about the amazing work being done world wide..

Regards and Happy Ballooning!

The team at the Star Décor Group.

Oh in case you are wondering the reference about plagiarism comes from the following site https://www.macmillanihe.com/studentstudyskills/page/Referencing-and-Avoiding-Plagiarism/