Do you want to better understand the cost and logistics of starting a blog for your company? Do you want to know how Schipul can help? Would you like a free lunch?
Then we have the seminar for you! On Wednesday, November 19, Schipul will be hosting a blogging seminar in our office and Aaron Long will help our clients and friends understand the blogging phenomenon a little better.
A growing number of companies are harnessing the power of Social Media and “starting a blog”, and while this has been successful for some, other companies who have jumped head first into the blogosphere have ended up doing a royal belly flop.
Those companies didn’t understand the very basics of blogging. If you don’t have a clear message and target audience, it is easy to get lost! Don’t worry, Schipul is here to help you.
Aaron is going to be presenting Schipul’s customizable line of blog offerings for anyone interested in blogging for their business. We offer blog hosting and can set you up with anything from a simple template to a full fledged design that includes a social media platform.
Today’s luncheon is not a training class; it is a seminar and a chance for us to show you how we can help guide you through the sometimes murky Social Media waters with our blogging products and services.
Bring an empty stomach and your handy dandy notebook because Aaron will be filling your mind with knowledge while Schipul fills your belly with food.
Aaron will be discussing things such as:
How a blog can increase your company’s exposure and profits
The marketing cost savings you accrue by leveraging Social Media
The value of communication with your customers
Just how Schipul can help you get started!
Here is a little Schipul blogging resume for you to see some of our work!
Take a flip through Ed’s slides to see how Modern Day Storytellers are using Social Media mediums to grow their organization’s brands.
Storytelling is an incredibly important part of the way our societies have always handled change, explained the unexplainable and entertained themselves — this presentation provides an interesting overview of how the fundamentals of storytelling and character development are alive and well even in this digital age.
Ed Schipul has been out on the road this week with a stop in Detroit for the International PRSA Conference to chat about how Non Profit public relations professionals can implement Social Media tools into their Communications strategy (strategy being the operative term here).
The Schipul crew are passionate about blogging and Social Media (you can check out some of our personal brands here) and love to help other folks launch and grow their corporate and personal brands online as well.
Blogs receive 77.7 million unique visitors in the US
Facebook receives 41.0 million unique visitors
MySpace receives 75.1 million unique visitors
With a total Internet audience of 1889. million
Even if your company doesn’t have a Social Media Marketing strategy, you are already being talked about in the Blogosphere — 90% of all Bloggers report that they write about brands, music, movies and books they love/hate
Bloggers are active in other Social Media realms too and average at about 5 other activities (besides updating their own Blogs):
As you know, we’ve been constantly updating our Tendenci modules to make your job easier. This week we are going to have some minor updates. Here is the list:
1) Ballots – Random Display of Candidates or Options.
When comes to elections, sometimes the order really does matter. This Ballots update will give the site administrators the option of randomizing the candidates order for each voter by simply checking the Randomly Display on the Ballots add or edit pages.
2) Physical Locations Import
As a site admin, the Physical Locations Import allows you to bulk add locations to your database by just a few clicks. It is linked from Physical loc. –> Reports.
3) Jobs – Category Option Integrated into the Jobs Add / Edit Pages
If you are familiar with the Jobs module, the categories are separated with the add and edit pages. You could select the categories only after you added the jobs. Not anymore! Now you can select the categories while you are adding or editing the jobs.
4) CMS Form Anonymous View
With this update, after a user completed and submitted the form, he/she will be able to view or print his/her submissions even if he/she was not logged in to the site when he/she was filling out the form.
Well we’re at it again, mid October and we have some more updates for you.
1. Job provides guidance – Small update, but it’s the details that matter. Just a little bit of instruction, we understand that not everyone lives on the internet (just us) and a little bit of guidance never hurt anyone.
2. Rename (sub)categories in catalogs – Simply click on the category or subcategory, make your changes and click rename. This will update all catalogs with their updated (sub)category name.
3. Exporting Reports – We’ve recently started providing an export for your reports. Looking at a report is very useful, but that same report is much more useful if you can export the data and manage it – using spreadsheet focused software (e.g. excel, etc …)
4. International Jobs and Resumes – Tendenci has come a long way and we’re starting to stretch our legs a little further than we imagined. We’ve been working hard to make our features more useful to our national and international friends. One of the more recent contributions to this ideal is no longer requiring the U.S. Citizen field in either Jobs or Resumes.
5. Partial Administrator – With some of our latest permission updates, a user can now have permission to be an administrator in only certain sections of your Tendenci powered website. In other words, permissions are now more robust and administrators can better control their users capabilities. Pretty neat huh?
It is no secret we at Schipul LOVE the Houston Art Scene, so of course we’re super excited about one of our artsy client’s events! Join the Schipulites from 5:30- 7:30 pm to help The Houston Arts Alliance kick off their inaugural viral video campaign THIS Wednesday at the Space125Gallery.
At the Art-the heART of Houston event you’ll be elbow to elbow with some of the best artisits Houston has to offer and you’ll get to enjoy some awesome wine from 13 Celsius. You’ll even be home in time for the debates! And did we mention it is all FREE??
You’ll also get a head start in taking part in the heART of Houston viral video campaign. What does that mean? It means that anyone and everyone can submit a 60-second video of their favorite local artists and share why they’re “the heART of Houston.” You’ll vote on the best, and there’ll be rockin’ prizes for the winners!
For more details, come play with us this Wednesday from 5:30-7:30 pm at the Space125 Gallery. We hope to see you there!!
It’s the month of October and we have some spooky — ok exciting — updates to talk about.
1. Clone your forms and surveys – Now when you put in all the time to create either a form or a survey, you can duplicate your work simply by clicking a copy/clone page in the more options link. Now you don’t have to start from scratch and you can simply edit the pieces you wish to change on your new form or survey.
2. Cleaner Console – Your console page has hidden the ‘other modules’ inside of a drop-down menu. We’re neat-freaks just like you and don’t enjoy clutter.
3. Delete CMS Pages – You can now permanently delete a CMS page. Simply click on the delete link found in the more options tab and click delete cms page. This will take you to a page that will let you decide between moving an item to the trash or completely deleting it.
4. New SEM Page + Google Analytics Tool – First and foremost, we have one page dedicated to helping you maintain your web sites search engine optimization tools. One of the newest tools we’ve added is the ability to update your own Google Analytics code. You can find this link to Manage your SEM on your console page.
5. One less step when building a web site – When you first create
your web site, you are no longer required to fill out the
authentication code. Now the easy/fast creation of a web site just got
one step faster.
6. New Password Procedures – As mentioned last week. We’re a little more strict (read: secure) with your password. You can no longer retrieve your password, only reset it. This update was done with everyone’s security in mind, resetting your password is also a piece of cake. Click on forgot password, follow the link sent to your email, and reset — then boogy down.
As always we appreciate your comments and look forward to creative genius.
When updating your membership, you might notice that the passwords look a little longer than usual. I’m here to tell you, no need to worry. What your seeing is just a reflex of some of our more recent updates. Obviously we will get to correcting this deceptive field from looking so scary/confusing.
Till then, I’m just here to say it’s cool and all of your functionality will work well, as always.
I think I’ve seen the book before at Barnes and Noble and pretty much overlooked it because it was a book about sales so it didn’t really apply to me.Going into the seminar by Gitomer I definitely was not very excited and had really low expectations.I’ve found that most speakers have decent but unoriginal speeches (except for Ed Schipul’s speeches-you never really know what he’s going to say!).The speaker will tell some cutesy anecdotes, then spout out some inspiring quotes from people like Winston Churchill , or Viktor Frankl .Of course I am inspired by those great men.While I love hearing stories I also love to hear speakers who truly make me laugh and think with their own original ideas.
I was pleasantly surprised when Gitomer told the hilarious story of how he cold-called Roger Staubach’s office and told Staubach to his face how much he hated the Dallas Cowboys.After that incident, Staubach now uses Gitomer’s sales seminars to teach over 3,000 of his sales employees.Now that’s cool!
After that story, I decided that Gitomer was worth listening to.During the presentation, I was thinking yeah this is great, but how does that apply to my clients who are marketing their businesses online and how can I help them use these very same principles that Gitomer is telling us?
It’s apparent that a lot of people are going to be tightening their financial belts after everything that is going on in the economy right now like the Bailout and Hurricane Ike recovery.So I came up with a few ideas and strategies on how to get the most out of your Internet Marketing campaign while our economy gets sorted out.
1. Stay in front of your audience with newsletters‘ Gitomer said if you aren’t sending out a newsletter once a week then you aren’t staying in front of your audience.Your newsletters should be filled with information that your audience can use.For example, if you are a home builder you can write in your newsletters weekly do-it-yourself tips.You know, stuff that is actually helpful!After all, it’s really all about what your customer wants anyway, right?
2. Connect with your customers using Social Media (Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube)‘ Just having a standard website can be pretty impersonal.So why not let your customers find out a little more about you and engage them on a personal level? I know that’s directly against what I just said about newsletters, but the truth is your audience does want to know what you can do for them. Next they want to know your expertise and if you actually know what you are doing.
Here’s what Gitomer suggested: Get some of your top clients and record them giving testimonials about your company.Let your clients speak for you. Gitomer said to make DVDs and slide them under doors.But my idea is better.Post your video on YouTube and put the video on your website.Not only are you letting your customers learn about your, but you’re also creating a stronger web presence by linking to other websites.Remember to keep it light and fun.Don’t be to promotional.Use these tools to meet and interact with people.
3. Update the content on your site ‘ If the content is the same as it was three months ago it’s time to refresh!Adding new content to your site keeps your site visitors interested so that they will come back for more.Stale content is the equivalent to turning off the open sign and the lights and locking the doors.People are going to think you’re out of business.Plus, fresh content will help you get found in the search engines.Gitomer said, ‘Get Googleable.â€Gitomer said post white papers, articles you have written or that have been written about you, and let people know when you’ve won awards and achievements.I have nothing to add. He’s right.This guy knows what he’s doing.Type in Jeffrey Gitomer and he’s listed on the first 78 page results.
4. Keep statistics’ If you’re not using Google Analytics on your site, why not?Sign up now for Google Analytics and track the visitors on your site. This is where you actually get to see the real numbers and ROI.
The amazing thing about all these options is that, for the most part, they are free! All you’re really spending is your time and it could really payoff in the end.I don’t want to be a doomsday prophet, but the business that are able to keep their customers happy and loyal are the ones who are going to thrive.
So build your connections with your customers and stay in constant contact.Maybe you won’t see results right away but you will eventually.Gitomer told us, ‘Small errors in judgment can cost you your entire career.â€As an example he used Peter Best, the original Beatle’s drummer who quit three months before the Beatles went on their first world tour.Gitomer estimates that that error in judgment cost Best $2 million dollars.Gitomer’s encouraging words were, ‘Be your Best, not Peter Best!â€
Do you want to better understand the cost and logistics of starting a blog for your company? Do you want to know how Schipul can help? Would you like a free lunch?
Ed Schipul has been out on the road this week with a stop in Detroit for the 
