Buzz #11: Obblogatory dot com

I do have a confession to make… I’ve been working on another blog… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to happen. I tried to resist the temptation… but I enjoy that blog, too. Am I too timing you? Am I? No, please don’t look at me that way! You always knew I had other blogs, we never agreed that it was to be an exclusive arrangement, did we? Look, I’m sorry…

In 2007, I started doing a few BlogBuzzes for people, and in 2008 I am continuing my BlogBuzz. You’ll see it is a great way to advertise your blog around the net, and I get my blog seen on your blog… If you’re still interested, drop me a line in the contact form. Do complete the opp first. The buzzes can be short or long, but at least a minimum of 50 words, please!

Yes, it’s time for a BlogBuzz. This time I’m doing it for one of my own blogs:

obblogatory

Actually, most of the content at Obblogatory was originally found at this blog, but I moved it over in 2006 when I decided to refound the whole InvestorBlogger thing. Of course, little did I know what a PR5 meant at that time, and how moving the blog would blow the entire thing up in my face! Oh, well. Such are regrets.

Well, Obblogatory is a general blog with categories as wide ranging as Taiwan, Entertainment, Blogging, Shopping and much more… it’s fun to write and I have no expectations it will ever be high profile like this one. But I enjoy writing it. Despite that, I know that there are a lot of improvements I could make:

  • 1. Change that header image: I have no way for people to know what the blog’s name is!
  • 2. The side bar is a real mess: I have reorganized it several times, and it’s still a mess. Worse: it leaves out important stuff!
  • 3. I use almost no SEO stuff at all apart from the friendly URLs… I really have to use tags, summaries and much more. One day, I’ll get around to fixing that.

They say your worst critic is in the mirror, and that’s true! Oh, well. Anyway, if you fancy a more general blog on other stuff, that’s the one! Check it out!

And that’s it for Blog Buzz #11! Drop me a line if you want one! I’ve got two more in the pipeline right now!

Introducing: Google Friends Connect

google connectThere is a huge land rush going on for social networks and for the longest time, Google has been on the outside, looking in. Myspace, FaceBook, LinkedIn have all come along and created huge audiences for social networks; smaller players have carved valuable niches, such as MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, and so on.

But Google has failed singularly to come up with its own successful social network. Until now.

Introducing: Google Friends Connect…

Google writes: “Google Friend Connect lets you grow traffic by easily adding social features to your website. With just a few snippets of code, you get more people engaging more deeply with your site. Attract more visitors. Visitors bring along friends from social networks like Facebook, orkut, and others to interact on your site. Enrich your site with social features. Choose engaging social features from a catalog of gadgets provided by Google and the OpenSocial developer community. No programming whatsoever. Just copy and paste snippets of code into your site, and Google Friend Connect does the rest.”

Google Friends Connect is a way to bring the social networking world out into the real world allowing webmasters to add a simple code element, visit the website, and configure the social networking features required. This turning the social world inside out is going to be very welcome to webmasters and users and will enable new ways to find existing websites. The walled worlds of FaceBook, Linked In and so on have been pretty frustrating for me: I hate having to login each day just to get useless updates and waste time removing or adding pointless applications that have little relationship with the rest of the web. This will a terrific advance for bloggers, who although they use social networking a lot, find that social networking means that they and their visitors are now interacting OFF the website, not on it. Why maintain two or even more subsidiary sites when you can maintain one primary site!?

Just watch the video.

Making a Newsletter: Tips on Making One for your Business

It’s time to do our new business newsletter. We’ve had quite a few problems with this issue but it’s finally done… I can breathe a little when the new newsletter is done. Summer is coming and this is the best time to promote our business as our target parents are now looking for schools for the summer and afterwards. So the newsletter is a very good promotional tool.

At the moment, we’re pretty limited in the presentation for the actual newsletter: we don’t do color yet. But I’m becoming certain that this is the direction we need to go in: of course, we’ll then need to send out the flyer to be done commercially. OK. This is what it looks like! It was made using MS Publisher 98 … in Windows 98SE, but later versions of Office include this, too.

May 2008 Newsletter

Even in this era of online commerce, creating a short off-line flyer, newsletter or card can be a good way to gain additional attention for your service, store or website. You can use the wizards in Word or Publisher 2008 to get you started with the basic design, write a few short columns, make it informational and of value to the readers.

Layout

I created two documents, each A4 in size. Then I named number 1 – pages 1 and 4. Number 2 is pages 2 and 3. I used a simple printer connection to the photocopier in our office and printed 2 pages on each A4 page. It was tricky to get the double-sided effect, and I wasted quite a few sheets in the photocopier. But soon, I was able to double print each A4 page. Folded in the middle, I had a four-page newsletter.

Tracking Results

I create a special link to the online sites (use a redirect if you want to) to track the traffic. If you get really smart, you can create several runs with different URLs to track the effects of different distribution points (in a larger city, this would be a great idea!).

When clients or potential clients are just looking for simple introductory information without too much hype or a sales presentation, this kind of flyer or newsletter can really answer their questions without pressure sales. I usually attach a name card to the newsletter with a personal name on it.

And it works. New clients often pick one up on the way in. Of course, as a community tool, I also distribute it to our existing clients. So there’s an added bonus there, too.

It REALLY works.