Article Roundup - Dec. 30

This week, I looked for articles that loosely focus around blogging. Since regular blogging may take too much time for small business DiYers, I've chosen 4 articles that have applications beyond blogging. (Mostly advertising and graphics.)

Leverage Blogging to Build Business Identity, Authority, & Credibility

Pinterest and Blogging: The Good, The Bad, and The Huh - I have to admit, I didn't expect to learn much from this article when I first clicked on it, but I was pleased to see that it had some real content to it. The author talks about how she had to start thinking about the graphics she used for her blogging business in order to have some that were blogging friendly.

Moreover, she talks about some of the mistakes she made. One of her most linked to posts was essentially her talking about a number of projects she had completed using the information from another person's furniture painting ebook, but the people clicking through from pinterest thought they were going to find the how-to instructions themselves and this caused some people to accuse her of bait-and-switch. She responded by changing her graphics to be more clear and by using an app that allows you to create a description that autofills for Pinterest when someone pins directly from her site.

If you're thinking about incorporating Pinterest into your marketing scheme, then it highlights the importance of creating clear graphics that avoid confusion.

How to Use Watermarks with Style - This article starts off with an example of what a really, really bad watermark job looks like, then gives 3 different alternative styles so you can have a watermark on your image to identify your work without making the image ugly. This does not include detailed how-to instructions for the 3 styles, but is meant to give ideas.

Creative Watermarking - How to Incorporate Your Signature into your Photos - this post is aimed at professional photographers, but it includes really good how-to instructions for using Photoshop CS3+ or Photoshop Elements to seamlessly hide a watermark into a photo.

5 CSS Tips for Creating Hierarchy - Although a lot of people will mix two or more font styles (or font faces) in their blog/written ads, using the same font style throughout makes things look clean - but then, how do you distinguish titles, headings, subheadings and other items of relative importance? This goes over 5 ways to do that (not necessarily through CSS).

I picked the CSS article because it applies to WAY more than just blogging. The advice there is solid for any written piece - be it a report, sales copy, website design, client proposal, even a business plan presented to a bank.

Outfitting a Business without Breaking the Bank

About this time last year, I remember stepping into a newly-opened family business.  My first thought was, "Look at that slate tile on the wall. The food here must be really good." My second thought, which came right on the heels of the first one, was, "I wonder if they'll still be open this time next year?"

They're not.

Why?  I don't think my local cafe had enough in their rainy day fund to get them fully off the ground. Businesses often take 5 years to become self-sustaining. Most new businesses that fail don't fail because they have a bad product or a bad business model. They fail because they don't have enough cash to see them through the rough patches and dry spells that occur in those first 5 years.

This makes it absolutely critical that you do not overspend outfitting your new business.

Business Article Roundup - Dec 23

How Etsy Gambles with Your Livelihood - 5 ways to protect yourself - this is a recent post from blogger Lisa Jacobs, who focuses on handmade and creative businesses.

How to Create a Style Guide for Your Blog - although this is directed to bloggers, there's a lot of information here for developing a consistent brand across many platforms - the information you decide on using her free worksheets can help you when you are creating marketing materials for pinterest, instagram, physical print, or your own website. (She covers aspects deciding how images will look as well as how text will sound.)

How Color Can Make Your Business Successful or Not - basically: color controls 60% of people's initial decisions about a new or unfamiliar brand. The article here is really short. I've linked to it because it has a nice infographic categorizing the emotional feelings associated with each color. (Something to consider when you create a style guide for your business.)

5 Consumer Psychology Hacks - One of my favorites this week.

Build an Email List to Get More Customers - if you don't maintain an email list for marketing, you probably should start. The article talks about why and provides some resources, including a list of email marketing services (not just MailChimp).

Navigating the Back End of an E-Commerce Shop - a peek at SupaDupa

If you're researching e-commerce platforms, it's usually pretty easy to find a table showing pricing and features. However, it can be more difficult to get a good grasp of the usability. Reading reviews can certainly help, but you might not b
e able to see what it's like to work on the backend of the shop until you sign up. Many sites offer a limited risk-free trial, but you have to sign up first. And it takes time to set up and try out any one platform.

A few people on the Artfire forums have been asking what it is like to work with the platform I use, SupaDupa, so I decided to post some screenshots here along with a review. This is a view of what their highest tier of service would look like. Some of the lower tier plans do not offer as many photos, options, etc. 

Welcome Page (aka "Dashboard")

This is the first thing you see once you log on. There are 3 things shown on the page:

Business Article Roundup - Dec 16

Another round of 5 articles for you from around the web. Three of them focus on the logistics of email marketing.

A Million Things to Do? Prioritize by ROI. (And Then Get a Life.) - from The Middle Finger Project, which provides snarky business advice to freelancers. Any article from The Middle Finger Project will have some amount of colorful language, but this article outlines a very useful method for how to organize and prioritize how you spend your time.

10 Ways to Use Gmail Like a Pro - features and plug-ins that can help you use your time more productively.

Making Emails Can-Spam Compliant - In a nutshell: opt-in, unsubscribe, include your postal address in the actual email, keep your email lists up-to-date, use clear subject lines.

How to Use MailChimp to Grow Your Brand - goes over 11 great features and benefits of using MailChimp to send out newsletters or marketing emails to your mailing list.

Sites to List Your Giveaways - Planning a giveaway to drum up some exposure and publicity? This article has been keeping an updated list of places to spread the word since 2010. (Of course, you can always send an email through MailChimp to your mailing list in addition to these sites.)

Using the Clone Tool to Remove Distractions Using Either GIMP or Photoshop

OK, let's face it, sometimes when you pull a photo up at full size on your computer screen, you notice that little distracting something that shouldn't be there. For example, it could be....

How to Crop and Re-size Images in GIMP and Photoshop

Most modern cameras are capable of taking very, very large photos. However, these large photos are not good for the web. They take a long time for you to upload and a long time for users to download. Sometimes, they are so big that the entire image wouldn't even fit fully on the screen at full size.

There is no reason to have an excessively large image up on the internet. Optimize them for the web by cropping and re-sizing.

How to Crop

In Gimp, the crop tool looks like a utility knife.

In Photoshop, the crop tool looks
like two L-shaped pieces.

Cropping refers to cutting off a portion the image in order to get the shape (and perhaps size) that you want. In Gimp, the crop tool looks like a little utility knife; in Adobe Photoshop, it looks like two L-bars. (Photographers sometimes take two L-shaped pieces of matte board to play with framing options on a print.)