5 Tips to help you manage your time on the social web
I was recently interviewed by Gwen Bell for the Unconventional Guide to the Social Web and one of the questions Gwen asked me was how I manage to get all the many things done that I have on my plate!
My answer….you have to develop great time management skills and stay disciplined about them…and you have to manage technology instead of it managing you.
One of the biggest problems of the social web is the ease with which one can lose track of time. We are having so much fun connecting with friends & colleagues on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks that we end up not getting any work done during the work hours and end up working ALL THE TIME.
Another problem is multi-tasking and interruptions. Research shows that it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task when interrupted on an unrelated topic.
Here are some tips on managing your time on the social web:
- Schedule Everything and stick to the schedule
I use the Entourage calendar to schedule EVERYTHING…meetings, responding to email, social network presence, day-to day tasks. But it’s not enough to schedule things..you have to stick to the schedule!
- Schedule your most important tasks when you feel like you are most productive
The most productive time is different for each person…some people are sharpest in the morning, some are later in the day. Figure out what your magic time slot is and schedule your most important task during that time. Sprinkle your social interactions & email management throughout the day but make sure it’s not during your most productive time. - Use a timer
Using a timer will allow you to set an alarm to notify you when your current scheduled task/activity is supposed to end. Let’s say you are alotting 20 minutes for social media interaction at 1pm…before you begin the task at 1pm, set your alarm to let you know when the 20 minutes has passed.The application that I use to achieve this is Apimac Timer (mac). You can also use Xnote StopWatch if you are on Windows (there are many more you can choose from).
- Close down the applications that you are not using
Human nature is to respond to stimuli…so if you hear a notice that you have a new email or a new response from a friend, you have to go see what it is. That is why if it’s not time to check and respond to email, I close down the email application…if it’s not time to interact on Twitter, I close down the Twitter application…the point is…only have the application that you are currently working in open. - Set and manage expectations
Managing everyone’s expectations is the key to time management. I think a lot of the time, the immediacy to respond is in our own head. Training your clients, colleagues, friends, and online connections that you are not available 24×7 will allow you to respond on your own time. And because we are all going through this information and task overload…they will more than undertand!
Did I miss anything? Share your time management tips in the comments!
| Did you enjoy this post? subscribe now to get all of the posts | Comments (0) |
How to: Create a Share on Twitter link for Wordpress Blog
Sometimes when you need a marketing tool…you just have to build it yourself…I wanted to implement a way that our readers (who use twitter) could let their followers know when they were reading a great blog post on the Webgrrls International Blog…Webgrrls Wisdom.
So, I have recently created “Share on Twitter” functionality and link on the Webgrrls Wisdom blog and you can use this functionality too…for your blog and for extending your brand.
Here is how it works
When readers click on the “Share on Twitter” link after they are finished reading the post, the following twitter entry automatically gets posted to their twitter account:
Currently reading on Webgrrls: Title of Blog Post & Shortened url to the blog post (ie. Currently reading on Webgrrls: Book Clubs for User Experience Professionals http://tinyurl.com/kmm9oy)
Now, when you do it, of course, it will have your blog name and branding information
Here is a step by step guide on how you can implement this feature on your blog:
- Click the download button below to download the plug-in file to your computer.
- Uncompress the downloaded .zip fil and Upload/FTP the tinyurl-functions.php file to your Wordpress /wp-content/plugins directory
- Activate the TinyURL Function plug-in in your Wordpress Admin area.
- Add the following link code to any of your theme files, where you want the “Share on Twitter” link to appear.
<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=Currently reading on Webgrrls: <?php the_title(); ?> <?php echo get_tiny_url(post_permalink($id)); ?>” title=”Click to share this post on Twitter”>Share on Twitter</a>
That’s It! it is a easy as 1,2,3,4…Good Luck and get blogging and of course Share it on Twitter!
| Did you enjoy this post? subscribe now to get all of the posts | Comments (3) |
How to create a global bestseller book or product
Today, I had the pleasure of hearing Tim Ferris, Author of the bestselling book The 4-Hour Workweek, speak at the Mediabistro Circus event. Tim shared his “secrets” on how he leveraged Social Media to create a global best seller product….book or otherwise.
Data is KING
Tim measures and tests EVERYTHING… He says “from wording to read time…test it all”…learning as much as you can about your user will help you serve your audience better and help you make more sound promotional decisions. Tim uses Crazyegg.com tool to figure out user click patterns on his sites.
Determine your target market
Before he started marketing his book, Tim decided on the demographic he was going after…first, 18-25 tech savvy males and secondly 18-25 tech savvy females. He advised to identify your demographic well because if you try to target too many people you won’t sell anything.
Go Where the Bloggers Go
Tim spent $25,000 on the book launch. $18,000 was “wasted on a PR firm”…the PR firm he worked with was not “accountable or measurable”. He spent the rest of his budget meeting people in person as “the e-mail channel is too crowded”.
To learn about blogging, he attended the CES expo. He would join blogger conversations by listening and if he did not understand a term, he would ask. Although that made him seem ignorant, eventually people asked him what he did and he would tell them that he was writing a book. He would not pitch the book or himself and in fact, never asked the them to review the book….he just elicited questions and EMPHASIZED that he did not think the book would appeal to them, except for about five pages of it. Tim says “Nobody has time to read the whole book but everyone has time to read 5 pages”. His goal was to obtain 20,000 evangelists — not customers but avid fans, 3 months before the launch of the book.
Sell around the product
To create a fast-acting meme, Ferris says you need to do the following:
- Phenomenize: “identify and name a legitimate societal shift or new phenomenon….to best spread a message or product, sell around it by discussing larger issues surrounding its creation: the person (himself in this case), the changing social landscape, and emerging trends. No one cares about your new software, but the reasons it needs to exist might ‘make for a great TV segment on 20/20.’”
- Polarize: “Good stories and trend-spotting, told unapologetically, will create both supporters (”That’s the solution!”) and attackers (”It’s a fraud!”). The battle and ongoing debate this generates is the fuel needed for word-of-mouth wildfire”.
- Communitize: Ferris encourages community creation for your online users. He encouraged his readers to create their own communities on the social networking site Ning and there are currently 12 different mini-communities that were formed to date.
Tim left us with two inspirational parting thoughts “Plan big but test assumptions and Doing the unthinkable is easier than you think”.
This session set the tone for what would turn out to be a great day 1 at the MediaBistro Circus hearing great insights about open source publishing, the future of books, magazines, newspapers, blogging, and the distribution and consumption of content, how customer behavior is evolving around technology, the best way to employ data so your company makes money, integrated marketing partnerships and of course meeting some really great people.
| Did you enjoy this post? subscribe now to get all of the posts | Comments (0) |
HTML Emails: A Primer
Every time you read your email, you are likely to open an HTML email, one which includes links and images and the omnipresent “If you wish to unsubscribe to this mailing…†directive at the bottom.
I occasionally delete these messages before my conscious brain even knows they’re there. But some HTML emails are stunning—succinct, content-driven messages wrapped in beautifully designed boxes. And I read them. Some are from Fortune 500 companies, some are from small business entrepreneurs. All are trying to stand out in a crowded ecosystem.
Many of us would profit by knowing how to create and send HTML emails. They keep ongoing clients in the loop, they attract new clients, they act as extensions of our websites and blogs, they help us, on a regular basis, to refine our message.
I recently attended an excellent—and free–seminar on HTML email at the Noble Desktop, a New York-based organization which specializes in teaching all aspects of Web Design and Desktop Publishing. I thought it important to share what I learned.
What do you need to send an HTML email?
Basically, any email application that supports POP, IMAP and SMTP will allow you to send HTML emails. In short, all of them. Clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird, Gmail and Hotmail all include tools to send HTML emails.
In the current version of Thunderbird, for example, you would:
- Create the HTML page you wish to send, either by hand coding or using an editor such as Dreamweaver.
- Select and copy the source code.
- Click on Message> New Message
- Click in the body of the message.
- Click on Insert >HTML
- Paste in the source code.
It is possible, with some applications, to code directly in the email window. However, coding your own email gives you greater control over the final product. So, code it, make sure that you have chosen the appropriate “Insert HTML†tool, and and paste it into the email window.
The nuts and bolts
When you design your HTML email, keep it simple.
In creating a normal web page, you are designing it to be part of a whole, a component that interacts with other components within your design universe. An HTML email is a self-contained entity at the mercy of a larger entity—the email application itself.
These applications—Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo—live in their own HTML and CSS universes and have their own coding rules to follow. Therefore, some basic rules to keep your code out of their way:
- No Flash, no Quicktime movies, no animated GIF’s. Current Email applications cannot handle them.
- You can use CSS to style, but again, keep it simple.
- Put your CSS style declarations in the body of the email, not in the <head> tag. Email applications—especially browser-based ones like Gmail– are very protective of that <head> space; they don’t want your code conflicting with theirs. If they see any weird code (translation: anything not theirs) in the <head>, they’ll strip it.
- Style using Class, not ID attributes.
- When you make a CSS style declaration, do not use any CSS shorthand. Use ‘font-family,’ font-size’ etc. Spell it out.
- Once you’ve made the declaration, repeat it inline.
For example, don’t just do this:<td colspan=â€2†valign=â€top†class=â€mydocâ€>Do this:<td colspan=â€2†valign=â€top†class=â€mydoc†style=â€font-size:13px; font-weight:bold; padding: 0px; font-family= Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin= 0px;â€Â face=†Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;†size=â€13pxâ€>The redundancy ensures consistency across platforms, as the inline style is permanently attached to the element it is styling. It will also protect you in case the declaration is overlooked or deleted. - Avoid using DIV’s and SPAN’s. SPAN’s might survive intact, as they are in fact inline elements. DIV’s will cause conflicts with your email application’s code. Which is why Tables are good. Yes, Tables. Yes, Nested Tables.It seems counter-intuitive to go back in time to Tables when you are designing something that may be read on a Blackberry or IPhone, but Tables are clean and simple and they read well across browsers. Tim Slavin of Sitepoint suggests nesting everything inside one big “Container Table,†as it acts as a sort of <BODY> tag, protecting everything inside it.Inside the large “Container Table†you might design a one-column or two-column layout with a header, main content, and footer. You might create a layout with more complexity, but nest no more than four levels of tables. Simplicity.
- If you are using absolute widths, make your “Container Table†600px. Most email windows are not nearly as wide as your screen, and many people make their windows even smaller, so 600px is a safe width. If you are using percentages, make your “Container Table†no greater than 98%. Some sources suggest 95% or even 90%, to make sure you are within Yahoo’s or Gmail’s or Hotmail’s structural parameters.
- Use absolute paths for image links. Remember that your HTML email is alone in a strange universe. Your images live on your website; make sure that the email can find its way to them.
- Include height and width attributes for all images; if your images fail to load, your layout will remain intact.
- Test Your HTML Code. Once you’re happy with the design of your HTML email, test it out on as many email applications as you can. Insert your HTML email into Thunderbird or Outlook and send it to yourself. Then send it again via Gmail or Apple Mail. And again via….you get the idea.
The proliferation of HTML email has spawned new companies that offer HTML email services such as customizable templates, email list management and mailing strategies, tracking and analytics. Among them: MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, MaxBulk Mailer and Constant Contact. Have a look at their offerings. They can do a lot of your heavy lifting.
HTML email is, sadly, likely to be pegged as spam, and filtered out before your target audience ever sees it. To separate themselves from Internet ruffians, legitimate senders are increasingly turning to companies like Return Path for certification, and it seems likely that certification will be mandatory in the very near future. And for tips on getting through spam filters, check out these great recommendations posted on the Webgrrls blog.
HTML email is clearly not the only way to communicate with clients, customers, friends, and colleagues. But it is a great arrow in your quiver and a good way to send up a flare.
| Did you enjoy this post? subscribe now to get all of the posts | Comments (0) |
Save time by reading website colors in your browser
Last week, I installed a great Firefox extension, ColorZilla, and have been using it extensively because it saves me a lot of time. ColorZilla is a feature rich extension for web designers. Here are some of my favorite features:
- Get a color reading of anything in your browser.
- Easily copy RGB or Hexadecimal color you selected to any other application
- Tweak the color you selected using the built in color palette browser.
- Enlarge pages with zoom feature so it is easier for you to sample the color
Here are instructions on how to download, install, and use Colorzilla Firefox extension
Continue Reading “Save time by reading website colors in your browser”
| Did you enjoy this post? subscribe now to get all of the posts | Comments (1) |
Next Page »
