Business Blogging: I Link, Therefore I Am

On Tuedsay, February 27, 2007, RAMA and WME Blogs will present 2 UNIQUE seminar/workshops in   1 day! "Using Blogs and Social Media Proactively"

Blogging 101: Intro to World Civilization: Everything you need to know and answers to all you want to know!

• What is a blog? (Ancient *pre-2006* vs. emerging definitions
• Top 10 Reasons You SHOULDN'T Blog - and 10 More For Why You SHOULD
• Top Reasons You Should be a Part of the Scene
• Who's Talking about You? (Bad things could turn out to be good!)
• Examples from near and far

Blogging 101 Morning registration starts at 8:30.
Session starts at 9:00 and includes continental breakfast.
Session ends at 11:30.

Blogging 201: Tools and Their Usage

• Building an Online Presence using Blogs
• Blog Tools (Yes, there ARE other tools than Typepad, Virginia, but... they aren't as good for business purposes
• Build Your Own Blog - right along with us, as we build a new Typepad Blog [to see requirements, click link below]
• Q & A
• To register: click here.

Blogging 201 Afternoon registration starts at 12:30.
Session starts at 1:00 and includes refreshments.
Session ends at 4:00.
Presenters will be available until 4:30 for extra Q&A, if needed.
Cost: $139 for AMA members. $169 for non-members.

Cost to attend BOTH sessions: Members - $188. Non-members- $238. Includes ALL.
Board Members: $75 for the day. No student or volunteer discounts.

For our presenters bios...

To be prepared to build a Typepad blog of your own, you will need to:

Go to http://www.typepad.com and open a Pro-level Account. We advise our clients to pay for a year upfront (retail cost ~ $145) and get an extra month free. For as long as TypePad leaves it in effect, you can get a 10% lifetime discount by using the referral code “LAUNCH” when you set up your account (we were given the code by a TypePad rep at a conference with the caveat that he did not know how long the offer would remain in effect and it’s worked in the last 30 days).

During setup, choose “Not public” for your blog and then just accept all the default design choices. This will create a “My Weblog” blog in your account. We’ll either redesign that one or start a fresh one during the seminar, so feel free to explore creating a post, trying out various layouts and designs, or anything else you want to play with beforehand.

If you are not sure about blogging, you may want to utilize one of the ‘lesser options.’ But, for the cost, you can’t lose with Typepad. Yes, there are free tools – but – we’ll explain at the event why free is far too expensive for a business blog.

Although it is possible to domain map your Typepad account to a dot-com address, you will want to start out with a simple name for your account. We recommend using your company name (i.e. http://marysfloristshop.typepad.com) or your given name (i.e. http://sallybrown.typepad.com).

Optional graphic header/banner: In order to create a header that identifies your blog as yours, you may want to add an image – generally designed along the lines of your company logo. If you are a new business and you do not have a logo, choose an image that you like which is not copyrighted. Bring it on a disk or thumb drive. If you don’t want an image in your logo, be prepared to choose relevant colors. All of this can be changed at will, however. Nothing we do will be written in stone.

Specs: Your graphic header should be in JPEG, GIF, or PNG format, at screen resolution (ideally 72 dpi, but no more than 150 dpi), with a total file size of less than 20 K. The width/height dimensions of the header will depend on your blog layout, but generally your blog should be either 800 or 900 pixels wide and that means your header graphic should be either 770 or 870 pixels wide. The height should be 100 to 200 pixels. Bring a pic for your About page, if you like. (JPEG, GIF, or PNG; 72 dpi resolution; 150 pixels wide)

Bring a short list of keywords and phrases that describe you, your business, and your products.

BIOS: Yvonne DiVita is the founder and president of Windsor Media Enterprises, LLC, a local technology company engaged in book publishing, book marketing, and blog consulting. Her main blog at www.lipsticking.com (focused on the content of her book, Dickless Marketing: Smart Marketing to Women Online), has connected her to thousands of people all over the world, and is credited with bringing in over 50% of her current business at WME. Yvonne serves on the board of RAMA and Women in Communications. Her work is quoted both locally and nationally. She has appeared on WS Radio.com (a partner to Entrepreneur Magazine) and has been profiled on dozens of blogs across the blogosphere. One of Yvonne’s strengths is in connecting people. Blogs help her do that.

Tom Collins is a recovering attorney (his rehab is on-going) and VP of Productions at Windsor Media Enterprises. Tom began blogging in 2003 (and is credited with getting Yvonne blogging) as a course requirement in the Masters in Informatics program at SUNY Buffalo. His first professional blog, Knowledge Aforethought: Thinking about how legal knowledge workers collect, and then connect, the dots, won him a chance to publish a book review in two London-based magazines aimed at law firms and knowledge management professionals, back in 2004. Today, he designs book covers and does page layout for WME authors, and contributes to the company’s publishing blog www.ahablog.com as well as the business blog, www.wmeblogs.com. He is instrumental in helping WME authors learn how to use this dynamic, interactive tool.