Last year I did a post to highlight some of the great things about Constant Contact. I still use the e-mail marketing tool and love preparing and getting ready to send out a new newsletter. Don’t do it as often as I would like, but I think it takes time to put something together that’s worth reading. Meeting new people and generating new contacts also takes time. Make it easy for people visiting your website to be able to sign up for your different newsletters.

If you haven’t already, go ahead and sign up for an account. Once logged in, click on the Contacts tab along the top. Then click on Join My Mailing List. This gives you various options, but the first one allows you to create a signup box for your website. Click to start the wizard to generate the HTML needed for the signup.

The first screen allows you to select the type of sign up you want. It gives you the option to have an online form, a button, or basic text links. Click through each of them to find one that you like the look of. Click the next button.

Next, select the different colors, fonts and text style you want to use. You can also select the words that will be used to make your signup box standout and attract visitors to actually enter their e-mail address and request your newsletter. Click the Preview button to see how it will look. When you are done, click the next button.

Finally, you are given the HTML code to add the box to your website. It also gives you the option to e-mail this directly to someone if you wish. This could be to your web designer if you have one. Make it easy for people to sign up for your newsletter. Get your signup box added today!

We recently posted about how to create a Facebook Fan Page. Well, while we are on a roll, let’s go ahead and show you how to create your own Fan Box for your website. First of all, log into your facebook account and go to your Facebook Page. Click on the Edit Page link at the top of your page.

This will take you to a page full of all of your FB Page settings. Scroll down and look on the right hand side for the following section. Click on Promote with a Fan Box.

You will see a preview of how your Fan Box will look, depending on the different settings you choose.

For my fan box, I like to include the stream of comments and wall postings. This allows people to see the sort of things you are talking about, the ability to see if it’s worth becoming your fan I suppose! You can also include your fans, and the facebook logo. Finally, select where you want to put your fan box. For your own website, click on Other. The code will be listed below that. Copy the code.

Here is what you can do with the code:

• Send the code to your web designer and tell them where you would like it on your website.
• If you have access to your own pages and are comfortable modifying the code, paste it in directly where you would like to see the Facebook Fan Box
• If you have WordPress, simply log in, go to Appearance on the left navigation, click on Widgets, and use a Text Widget and simply paste the code in there.

Any questions? Let us know below!

If you are a small business owner, you have probably heard of Kudzu. Maybe even posted a review of your own on there for a fellow small business owner. We know how important they are and what a vital part of keeping new business coming in. Without reviews, no one knows about our good name, and there is no better advertisement for us than a satisfied customer.

So, how about telling people about all the good referrals you have? Share the reviews online. You can choose to simply link back to your Kudzu business page, or create a widget to do this. We talked about widgets on Tuesday with creating a Twitter Widget, and you can do exactly the same with Kudzu.

The first thing you need is a Kudzu account, and also, some reviews! Click on the following link to get started: https://register.kudzu.com/login.do If you already have an account, simply go ahead and log in. If this is all totally new to you, click  the link to actually set up your business on the site. Once you have this done, go to the Promote your profile section, and click on the Create Reviews Widget.

Next, select the layout and appearance of the widget. You can only return up to a maximum of 5 reviews, so I say go for that one! Would be nice if you could pull in more, but it is what it is. You can select what the minimum review rating is. Then change colors of borders, headline and text along with changing the size. Finally, click to generate the HTML code of the widget.

Once you have done this, now comes the fun part. Adding this to your website. As I said with the Twitter widget, you have a few options for this.

• Send the code to your web designer and tell them where you would like it on your website.
• If you have access to your own pages and are comfortable modifying the code, paste it in directly where you would like to see the Kudzu widget
• If you have WordPress, simply log in, go to Appearance on the left navigation, click on Widgets, and use a Text Widget and simply paste the code in there.

And finally, here is the finished widget! Yes, they are lovely reviews, I agree! Don’t be afraid to ask your clients to take time and leave one for work you have done. Although people will say yes, often they don’t quite get round to it. Those that do, thank them!

So, back in January I did a post about using Twitterfeed to import your blog posts (RSS Feed) into Twitter and Facebook. Although I am not TOTALLY going back on my word, I have found that it doesn’t seem to work so well for Facebook. Works great for Twitter though, so still using it for that. However, I found that at times it would log me out of my Facebook account and lose connection. It could be because I have three Facebook accounts that I am constantly logging in and out of? Also, it would only update either my Profile or my Page, not both. So, I had to search for something else. (not sure what an RSS Feed is? Check out this blog post to learn more).

Social RSS seems to be doing the trick for me. Log into Facebook and then click on the following link: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=23798139265

It will take you directly to the application for Social RSS for Facebook. This application allows you to pull in your blog feed directly into Facebook. If you are using WordPress, there are several plugins that will do this for you, but I haven’t yet found one that has the same settings and flexibility of this app.

Once at the application, you will need to put in the settings. First, you can enter in a Description. Put in a little bit about you or your business. This is going to be used on your Facebook Profile, not your Page (more about how to set that up in a moment). Let people know about what it is that you do, or what your RSS feed is about. Why would it interest me? Who is it targeted at?

Next you can put in a website link. You can make this your home page if you wanted to. You will put the actual RSS Feed link further on down in the settings. Now onto the settings for the feed itself. If you need more guidance just hover your mouse over the title of the field and it will give you more info. These are all required fields and the tag can be something simple. The field is no more than 5 characters so just put in a combination of letters and numbers that makes sense to you and what the feed is about. This is really more critical if you have more than one feed. I just used an acronym of my business name, seemed simple enough!

The Title I just used my company name. When a new post is published to your wall, it states: New Story from, then the Title you entered, so put in something that makes sense. The URL is that of your RSS feed. If you are not sure what it is, click on the orange rss icon from your blog and it should take you to the url. If you are still not sure, ask a friendly web designer, I am sure they will tell you for free!!! Do not just use the url of a regular web page, it won’t work that way. The Alternative URL will be used when someone clicks on the Title of the feed. I have it taking people to my About page for more information.

Next click the Display Options tab.This allows for more settings to determine how the new posts from the RSS feed will look. Here are my settings below, feel free to copy, or use your own. You can click on the other two tabs but I haven’t changed anything on those. Finally, click on Add to Profile.

This will ask you if you want to add Social RSS to your Profile. You can add it to the boxes tab, or the Wall and Info Tab.

Once you have done this, click on Application settings from the top right of Facebook. Click to Edit the Social RSS Settings. Select your Profile settings, and also click on the Bookmark tab. By Bookmarking Social RSS, this means it will show up when you are on the Facebook home page. You will see it listed underneath News Feed, Messages and any Applications you have book marked. This makes it easier to get back to in the future.

Once you have this all configured, the next time you publish a blog post, you will see it listed on your Profile. Below is how mine looks.

And finally, if you want it to appear on your Facebook Fan Page, click on this link: http://apps.facebook.com/rss-connect/pageinfo.php?ref=tb If you have more than one page, it will ask you which one to add it to. Click to Add Social RSS and then you will be taken to the same settings page as before. It’s a pain to set it up twice, but you only need to through this once, and that’s it. I kept two windows open, one with my Profile settings and one for my Page and just copied and pasted from one to the other.

Had success with any other applications posting your RSS Feed to Facebook? Let us know about them below!

If you look at the About page at Purple Star Consulting you will see we have our Tweets scrolling through on the sidebar. This allows people visiting our site to know we are on Twitter and also see some of the things we are talking about. Perhaps it will entertain them, maybe even interest them enough to start following us. You may have seen this used on many other sites and wondered how you can get this on your own.

How do I set up a Twitter Widget?

Widgets can be used to pull in information from another website or application directly onto your own site. You can get widgets for so many different business related sites, Facebook and LinkedIin included. Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts to find out how to do just that. For today though, we are looking at Twitter. And, bonus, you don’t really need to know too much about web design or coding to do this (although a little does help!). Log into your account, then look at the very bottom of the page, and click on the link for Goodies:

From here you can select to create a Widget for your account. Buttons can be used if you just want someone to know you are on Twitter but not pull in all of the content from your Twitter page.

Next you will be taken to a page that allows you to put in your own settings to get the look and feel you want for your site. Keep your web page in mind while you are doing this and picking the colors and size. You want something that fits and makes sense. First, pick your Preferences. Those in the screenshot below are what I prefer, but by all means, go with something different! Polling for new results each time someone visits your site is a good idea. You don’t want it to be a stagnant old list. Including a scroll bar really depends on if you pull in a lot of tweets or only decide to show a few. I like the look of tweets that come through in a timed interval. So, every few seconds a new tweet shows up. If you don’t like that approach, simply choose load all tweets and everything will come in at once. For this you would definitely need to include a scroll bar. If you are doing the timed interval, select how often you want a new tweet to load, how many tweets and if you want the results to be looped. Depending on how frequently you are tweeting, you might want to put 20 or 30 as the number of tweets, or less or more as you see fit.

Next, look at the Appearance of the widget. This allows you to set the colors of the text, links and background. If you click on each section, a little color chart will appear. You can either use that to make your selection, or type in the HEX color if you are familiar with this method. It’s pretty easy as the colors will change in the widget example displayed as you select new colors. Play around until you get something that works and you like the look of.

Finally, set your Dimensions. You won’t be able to see the new size from here, you just need to trust that it will be sized once you put the code onto your website. You can now see what you final widget will look like.

The last step is to get the code for your widget. At the very bottom you will see a button for getting the code. Simply select all of the text and copy it to your clip board (simple right click with the mouse to select copy, or Ctrl+C).

Next you have a few choices, and it really depends on your comfort level and the way your website is set up:

• Send the code to your web designer and tell them where you would like it on your website.
• If you have access to your own pages and are comfortable modifying the code, paste it in directly where you would like to see the Twitter widget
• If you have WordPress, simply log in, go to Appearance on the left navigation, click on Widgets, and use a Text Widget and simply paste the code in there.

You will notice at the top of the code it details the width and the height of the widget so if it needs changing slightly you can easily do it yourself. The interval can be modified too if you find it to be too fast or too slow as the new tweets show up. Just change the first digit. Need help? Either e-mail info@purplestarconsulting.com or just post your questions below. Happy Tweeting!

So, you have your own business, you have a website, maybe even a Twitter page. What about a Facebook Fan Page? This post will walk you through how to create your own.

So what do I need a Fan Page for?

Well, good question! Fan Pages allow you to interact with clients and potential clients online. Unlike your Facebook Profile, you don’t have to be friends with a fan to interact with them. They can become a fan of your page, and if you allow it, they can post things on your Fan Page wall. This allows you to have conversations and be “social through media”. You can also track statistics of your interactions and the demographics of your fans. Use your page to post articles, videos and comments relevant to your business. Keep your Profile for your ramblings, political opinions and anything else that isn’t necessarily promoting your business.

How do I create a page?

First things first, click on the following link: http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?src=pf . This will take you to the following page. Simply click on the Pages link, then click on the green Create a Page button that show up.

Next you will have to fill out a series of fields about the Page you wish to create. You can select the category for your business, then type in the name for your page. Try to stick to your Businesses legal name, or the name you use on your website for consistent branding. Enter the Captcha security words and then click on Create Page at the bottom:

Next, if you already have a Faceook Profile account, you can use that to log in with. If you do not have a Facebook account, you will need to create one in order to create the Page. This is required by Facebook.

Next you are taken to your Page. The first thing I would suggest doing is uploading an image for the Profile picture of your new Page. From the current image of the big question mark, hover your mouse and then click to Edit the picture. Click on Upload a picture and then browse out for your company logo, or a picture that makes sense for your page.

Once you have your picture uploaded, you now need to go through and edit the rest of your page! Click in the Write something about “your fan page name” section and put in a little bit about your business. Next, click on the Info tab next to the Wall tab and add a little more information. When you are adding your website address, be sure to include your Twitter page and any other sites you want to link to.

When you are done editing your page, click on Suggest to friends! Spread the word so that people start to become a fan. Your first goal is to reach 25 fans. Why? Because until you do, you cannot create a unique url for your fan page, and this makes it so much easier for people to find you.

Finally, sorry for teasing you all, but My Dog Oscar isn’t really a Fan Page, I just created it for the screen shots Sorry to disappoint, but isn’t he cute? To make it up to you, I will let you post a link to your own Fan Pages in the comments below! Go for it!

I don’t normally gripe and moan, and usually I just try to give the facts. BUT, this post is based on the overwhelming increase of being bombarded with e-mails lately! Unfortunately, it’s e-mails that are unsolicited, from people I don’t even know. Or, people who I sent an e-mail to once, and they have decided I should receive an e-mail from them every week about their specials. Not cool!

So, this post is to explain why this is wrong, and what you can do instead.

To market your business in an effective way, best practise is to ask permission to e-mail  someone. Plain and simple. Asking is easy! Now if you meet someone at a networking event, they give you their business card, they are effectively giving you permission to contact them. Contacting them is one thing, but if you want to sign them up for your newsletter, give them the option to opt out. Don’t take it personally if they do, they might just not be interested at the moment, or like me and so many others, they might have subscribed to a million other newsletters!

Don’t just use Outlook or your e-mail client to e-mail. There are limitations set by many companies that if you e-mail to many people at one time it’s considered spam, therefore potentially not making it to all (or any) of your intended recipients. If you MUST e-mail this way, be sure to read one of my older posts The Power of BCC! It’s there for a reason, so use it. Another reason not to use your e-mail client (Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail) is that it just doesn’t look that good! There are only so many things you can do, and mostly you are looking at plain boring raw text e-mails. Not really exciting and enticing for people to read through.

Consider using a service like Constant Contact or Aweber. I did another post to find out if Constant Contact is worth it. I have never used Aweber but have heard great things about it so be sure to check out both before you decide. You can use templates to create professional HTML e-mails to get your messages across. A big plus with Constant Contact is that people can opt out, and also confirm that they still want to be signed up for your e-mails. They can also forward them on to other people to prompt their friends or contacts to sign up.

Sending people e-mails and NOT giving the option to opt out is rude. It shouldn’t be up to the recipient to just keep deleting them if they don’t want to, and many people don’t want  to appear rude by responding with a request to be removed. Think about your own e-mail techniques and tactics. Are you guilty? It’s ok, we have all committed e-mail sins at one time or another.

Fancy a gripe? What frustrates you? We all get so many e-mails every day, sifting through those unwanted ones is a pain! Share your stories below!

Google Alerts is a great functionality that allows you to track keywords, phrases and information that is being posted out on the internet. You can use your current Google account (perhaps you have AdWords, AdSense or Google Analytics already?) or create a new one. Then, go out to: http://www.google.com/alerts/

You will see the following screen. Type in what you wish to monitor. In the example below, Newcastle is my home town in England. I would be quite interested to see if there are news stories or content posted online with this in the text. I can set it up and would like one e-mail a day, if there is any new content out there that Google has found for me. You can determine how many results, and also will add an e-mail address you want this sent to.

Direct from Google Alerts – they currently offer 6 variations of alerts – ‘News’, ‘Web’, ‘Blogs’, ‘Comprehensive’, ‘Video’ and ‘Groups’.

• A ‘News’ alert is an email aggregate of the latest news articles that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top ten results of your Google News search.
• A ‘Web’ alert is an email aggregate of the latest web pages that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top twenty results of your Google Web search.
• A ‘Blogs’ alert is an email aggregate of the latest blog posts that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top ten results of your Google Blog search.
• A ‘Comprehensive’ alert is an aggregate of the latest results from multiple sources (News, Web and Blogs) into a single email to provide maximum coverage on the topic of your choice.
• A ‘Video’ alert is an email aggregate of the latest videos that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top ten results of your Google Video search.
• A ‘Groups’ alert is an email aggregate of new posts that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top fifty results of your Google Groups search.

You can see below, some of the searches I have set up. I am interested if my name is mentioned, my business name and several other items. This will also help if you want to see how quickly a blog post is indexed by Google. Once you receive an e-mail that mentions your blog post, you know Google has indexed it. Pretty cool!

Have questions? Let me know below!

Although there are many factors to consider when trying to get your website listed higher in the search engines, backlinks are important.  A backlink to your site is a link one someone else’s website that goes directly to yours. Consider Site A links to Site B. If you are Site B, you have a backlink from Site A. Got it?

So how do you know who is linking to you? Well, there are many sites out there that can show you this information, but a simple quick and easy way is to go directly to the Google Search Engine. Simply type into the search box – link: www.domainname.com where domain name is your domain. See below in the example for my website.

First glance and it looks like there are over 1,400 links back to my site. Technically this may be true, but many of those links are actually within my own site. One page linking to others. Once you get through all of those, you can see other sites that have added a link to their pages back to one of yours. This could be from another blog, a forum you visited and added your information to, or a site just showing you some love! It’s a good idea to know who is out there and linking to you. A lot of the sites listed when I do my search, I already know about. However, I often find someone linking that I had no idea about either! Sharing links is good, if it makes sense for your website. Consider a list of other local and trusted businesses, or offer a shared link for those that meet certain requirements.