QR Codes

I’ve been asked a lot about QR Codes recently.  In fact, I had two clients call me today because they saw local forward thinking businesses using QR Codes.  I used to just call them mobile scanners but I guess I gotta catch up to the times as well.

QR codes are not for every business.  Just like facebook is not always good for business.  Please, do not just use them cause they are trendy and you saw them at a bus stop in Brooklyn, think before you use QR codes.  That is why my first recommendation is… Decide why you are using a QR code, what is the point?

No need to ask me when you want to generate one… you can generate your own.

First, what are QR codes?
QR codes are basically a link in print.  You can print an image and when someone with a mobile device that has a QR scanner, such as an iPhone, scans the image then the link you place shows up.  QR Codes can be used for many things such as, a link to a song in itunes, a link to your contact information, or a link to a webpage.

I use the Bakodo scanner on my iPhone because it can scan more than just QR codes! (in fact, I just learned that it could be used for more than finding out the price of spaghetti sauce (my past use of it)

Want to generate and track QR Codes like a web geek?

Decide why you are using a QR code, what is the point?

For something other than a link to a webpage on your site:

1. go to: http://zxing.appspot.com/generator/ (there are many generators out there.  this is the one justin likes)
2. choose from the dropdown what kind of content it is
3. fill out the fields
4. choose your size (the size of the image)
5. click generate
6. then… you can either download the image or use the url to link to it (if for instance you are putting it in your email signature)
7. test your image by scanning with your mobile device

For a link to a webpage of your site there are more steps because we want to track the code to see how many people use it:

1. go to: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55578
2. put in the url that you want to link to example: http://brainspiral.com to link to the Brainspiral Homepage
3. for the campaign source put “the name of the magazine, etc” cause that is what we are gonna track here.  For example for this I would put “websiteqrexample”,  if this was in the Transcript on May 22nd, “transcript522″
4. for campaign medium, Id put “qr” cause that is what the medium is
5. for campaign name… give it a name
6. click generate URL (I got: http://brainspiral.com/?utm_source=QR&utm_medium=qr%2Bcode&utm_campaign=qr%2Bweb%2Btest)
7. now that is one LONG URL…let’s shorten it! so, copy that long URL
8. go to: http://goo.gl/
9. paste the long URL you just generated into the box and click shorten
10. For mine I got: http://goo.gl/5UcsV (nice and short!)
11. NOW go to: http://zxing.appspot.com/generator/ (there are many generators out there.  this is the one justin likes)
12. choose from the dropdown URL
13. paste in your nice short URL
14. choose your size (the size of the image)
15. click generate
16. then… you can either download the image to use in print or use the url to link to it (if for instance you are putting it in your email signature)
17. My image looks like this:
18. test your image by scanning with your mobile device

Ok, that is it!

-justin adkins
Get a website today with Brainspiral!!!