Month: July 2012

Jul

2012

Snip-It Plugin – Increase Your Productivity

Update: The Snip-It productivity and convenience plugin is now available at just $17.00.

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Offer Closed

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Today at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm GMT) I’m kicking off a 24 hour sale at $7 for those who are paying attention. 😉

After this first 24 hours is over, the regular sale at $10 will start for a couple of days like I often do.

I *like* to test and experiment and that’s why I’m doing it this way. If it works out and people like it, I’ll always do it like this.

The plugin itself is a pure productivity plugin, no big bells and whistles, it just gets the job done.

The request for this plugin was from Scott (he contacted me after yesterday’s email) for a plugin that would allow him to access snippets of content across all his posts and pages so that when he needed to add it, he could just click-click-done.

This is how we’ve interpreted that request.

There’s actually two ways of using this plugin. The way we intended or there’s a little “kludge” method you can use.

Method 1 – On the admin page, you add your snippets (text or HTML) and give each one a short descriptive name. Once you’re done, you’ll see a new button in your TinyMCE editor. Click it and a dialogue box will open up where you can select and insert your snippet from a drop-down.

Method 2 – Add a single large block of text or HTML with all your snippets inside. In the editor, click the button, select the single drop-down and see all your snippets. Scroll and swipe the snippet you want and copy. Cancel then paste the snippet onto your page where you want it.

I *think* either of those two methods should just about suit everybody and the way they want to work.

Now there’s no need to have text files all over the place as you can keep everything online accessible wherever you are.

Pretty cool I think.

The sale starts today at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST) and will be just $7 for 24 hours, then rising to $10. A bargain at either price but I know how much people like to get the very best deals.

-Frank Haywood

Jul

2012

Pin-It Plugin Weekend Sale

Offer Closed

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In just over 3 hours as I write this, today at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST) and one hour before the Olympics start, I’m kicking off a weekend sale for a very powerful little plugin.

In my email and post yesterday, I said that I’d realised that with the advent of some very big changes at Google how important it was to kick up your social marketing.

It couldn’t be simpler.

Not so very long ago, ranking was decided by backlinks and then by social indicators (likes, pluses, follows).

It seems that it’s the complete opposite now, and I’ll talk about this another time as it’s very important to both your business and your clients.

What I have for you today is a plugin that leverages the power of the fastest growing social network out there.

Pinterest.

The reason it’s gathered so many users is because… dare I say it?

It’s EASY and it’s FUN.

The interface (unlike G+) is nice and simple and can be picked up in minutes. It works how you expect it to work (unlike G+ – I’ll shut up about that now) and is a very nice experience all round.

You sign up, add the pinmarklet to your browser and off you go.

When you see an image or a video on the web that you like, then you can pin it to one of your pinboards. People can repin and comment on what you’ve found. You can follow people and they can follow you.

For many people it’s addictive and they want to show their friends what they’ve done.

How does this affect us?

Well, it makes it easy for us to start using the Pinterest system to market ourselves, our products and our clients.

Every time someone pins something from our site (or repins it) then you get a backlink. People will then click those backlinks to get to the original sites the image or video came from.

Because people are pinning your stuff, then all you need is a few images or videos on the site you want traffic to. It helps if they’re colourful or interesting and these pinnable items can be photographs or videos.

“But I don’t have any videos” I can hear you say. (Make some!)

But YouTube does. On every topic imaginable. And you can embed most of these on your site. 😉

The Pin-It plugin allows you to set things up so that you can add videos to any of your sites, and then add a “Pin It” button that when clicked pins the media to one of your visitors pinboards.

Pinterest believes it’s been done by the Pinmarklet in your browser.

However, the button can link to ANY URL you wish, not just the originating page. 😉

The plugin also allows you to add various styled “Follow Me” buttons to your blog so that you pick up more followers.

So what you’re doing with the plugin is reminding and encouraging people to use the “Pin It” button and add it to one of their pinboards.

You can even get the whole ball rolling by pinning the media to your own pinboards and then go commenting on and liking other peoples pins on Pinterest. Many people will click through your link to look at your pinboard as a result and may well follow you or repin some of your stuff on their pinboards. Every re-pin is a link back to the site you decided.

Apart from YouTube, the Pin-It plugin also supports Vimeo videos too, which is something the browser pinmarklet doesn’t yet do.

Okay?

Sound complicated?

It isn’t. It’s REALLY simple to do – I guarantee you that.

And if you get it right you’ll start seeing traffic back to your sites from buyers.

Because it seems that by many accounts, Pinterest is crawling with buyers. Some businesses rely solely on Pinterest traffic alone for their entire income. A click through from Pinterest is far more likely to result in a sale than from any other source. – there’s lots of reasons why and I’ll cover that another time.

All I’ll say in closing is I’m switching BIG time to social marketing.

I like to tell myself that it’s not because I’m a bit slow, it’s just that it’s only really now come of age due to the changes in Google search algorithms. Ahem. 😉

I think you should too if you haven’t been doing so already. Backlinks aren’t enough any more.

Today at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST) I’m kicking off a weekend sale for the Pin-It plugin. When it’s over the price will go up immediately and I’ll be doing some updates to the plugin which you’ll get for free when they’re done.

This is your chance to get the plugin at the lowest possible price if you go for it now.

I’ll add a video later today to show you how it all works.

It’s fun and easy. 😉

-Frank Haywood

Jul

2012

Getting All Social With G+ And Hangouts On Air

I thought it about time I had another weekend sale, so tomorrow night at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST) that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

I don’t want to spoil the fun and tell you what it tomorrow’s sale is all about just yet, but let’s say I’ve actually seen the light and I’m going social.

Up to now I’ve dabbled a little in the social marketing arena with content locking via Like+, but I’ve now suddenly realised how important the whole social marketing scene is. I’m telling myself it’s because it’s all finally come of age, and not because I’ve been a little slow on the uptake.

😉

So I’ve now decided to extend my reach out into the social market and hopefully show you a few things that I’ve learned / am learning in the process.

For example, it’s commonly thought that G+ has been a bit of a flop in terms of competing with FaceBook. I no longer believe that’s the case as the whole idea of Google competing with FB on their own terms was a complete red herring. It looks like a lot of people (myself included) got that supposition wrong. I now no longer believe that was ever Google’s intention – they have something else in mind.

The main difference between the two should have caused everyone to stop and *think*.

FaceBook is a walled garden – what goes on in there once you create an account and make friends all happens within FB. They tried to open it up to the outside world by introducing fan pages, but it could be a case of too little too late.

G+ was open for all to see from day one. And unlike FB, you can go in and edit what you said in the heat of the moment.

Anyway… Whatever… Let’s assume that Google has something else in mind and that it will all unfold in time and become apparent to us all. So let’s not write off G+ just yet.

Secondly, Google introduced something in May that just last night slapped me in the face with all the force of a Monty Python wet fish.

This one thing coupled with G+ could change the way you do marketing for yourself and for your clients.

It’s called Google Hangouts (video chat like Skype for up to 10 people), which has been around for a while now, but has just had live streaming (On Air) added to it in May. The joined up thinking here and what slapped me in the face is that the live stream goes straight out to YouTube.

Here in fact:-

http://www.youtube.com/live/

When the live stream ends, it’s processed and automatically added as a new video into your channel where you can then edit the duff bits out.

You can even embed the live stream into your own web site if you want to so that you can get your customers viewing there instead of on the distraction of the YouTube site.

And it’s all free. *

Link this live streaming of video to the G+ system, and you can make sure that your business and pages outrank others of the same nature.

Think about that one for a moment.

Google will pay more attention to the G+ system of voting than anything going on elsewhere.

So you invite your group of followers, customers, whoever to your live stream and tell them that you’d really love it if they voted for your page, video, site, whatever with a G+ like. Tell them to consider it as a payment for the free content / entertainment / whatever it is you’re doing.

Doing so isn’t against their TOS, in fact on the YouTube Creator Playbook, they actually TELL you to ask for likes, subscribes etc in the content you create.

http://www.youtube.com/yt/creators/playbook.html

Aha!

I finally get it. But it’s taken Google Hangouts On Air to get me there.

I now accept that I have no choice but to get both social and viral and do it fast before too many other people cotton on.

I already have some ideas to do this swilling around in the mess of my brain and I think I know what I’m going to do with it all. More on this and that another time.

For now, tomorrow, we’re going to get social somewhere else with a plugin.

The system and thinking behind this plugin is viral and relatively easy to do too – if you get your act together.

I’ll tell you more about this tomorrow and kick off the weekend sale at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST) (Friday 27th).

Think hard about what I’ve said and make sure to have a nice day. 🙂

-Frank Haywood

* There’s actually no such thing as free. Somebody, somewhere, is paying for it, and as a general rule of thumb you get what you pay for.

Jul

2012

Mascot Mojo Pre-order

Offer Closed – Mascot Mojo Launches January 3rd 2013

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This is a VERY time limited deal and you’ll need to do something about it right away if it lights you up, so please pay attention. If you’ve been on my list any length of time then you probably know you need to jump in and get it now.

A couple of weeks ago I told you about the Mascot Creator Toolkit and I had a great response – lots of emails saying thank you. It was something that really appealed to me – that you could go in and edit some graphics and end up with something fairly original – there are lots of combinations of mascots you can create.

It’s a very good solution for you to be able to create mascots for your website or for clients.

But I gradually realised that its limitations were that it was only a single male model and that you really needed PhotoShop to get the best out of it.

If you know anything about me, then it’s that I can make good ideas better. While I live my life by the 80:20 rule, I also know that attention to detail when it counts is something that’s just as important.

And while Prian’s toolkit is very good, I believed that I could do something better.

And I have.

It’s still a work in progress, but I’d like to show you what we have so far and what my intentions are, and also give you details of a killer deal I’m offering you over the next 2 days.

I think you may end up telling everyone it’s the best deal you ever bought into.

I’m doing this early bird deal because:-

#1 – I *like* to give you the best deals ahead of anyone else – I like to look after my subscribers, you’re important to me.

#2 – I want to show my new illustrator the kind of response we can expect to get when we open the doors on launch day. She’s a lovely person and is very excited at the prospect of being paid for doing exactly the kind of illustrations she loves to do.

So here’s a few details of how it will work.

The mascots will be generated onsite – no need for PhotoShop.
The site will be membership based.
On the opening day there will be a minimum of one male and one female model plus costumes and accessories.
Planned costumes are dentist, construction worker, general tradesman, chauffeur, chef, beautician and so on, with any suggestions gladly accepted.
There will be new models, styles or accessories added every few days as they’re created.
Planned models will be people, animals, and “humanised” objects such as trees, vehicles and buildings with faces.
The price to the public will start at $10 per month for 20 generated mascots or a 1-day pass at $5 for 3.
The site will officially open on the 21st August but may be available before then as an “alpha” for you to try out.

The price I’m offering to you over this next 48 hours is $27 for 6 months access or $47 for 12 months with no limits on the number of mascots generated, and with your membership period starting on the 21st August. After your initial membership is up, you’ll automatically go onto a special $5/month “access all areas” rate so you’ll continue to be able to generate as many mascots as you like as long as you continue to be a member.

This is a huge saving if you buy in immediately.

Why am I pushing for payment up front, right now?

The answer is #2 above. I want to show my new illustrator how good a response we’re going to get and I want to prove to her that she has a full time position doing this.

By offering you a killer deal for acting quickly, I have that proof.

Starting tomorrow (Sunday) at 2.00pm GMT (9.00am EST) and for 2 days afterwards (closing on Tuesday lunchtime) you can pick up this one-off deal – there won’t be a better one than this.

-Frank Haywood

Jul

2012

Mascot Creator Toolkit Review

I just love this, it’s great.

IF you haven’t yet got it, then I think you might want to take a look.

http://www.frankhaywood.com/mascot-creator-toolkit/

I’ve been playing with it (the toolkit) for a couple of hours, and while I was changing the hair and the suit colour and the shoes etc, it of course attracted the attention of my family.

“Ooh! That’s good! Can I have a go?” – “No gerroff…”

But of course I had to let them have a play because it really is very cool and it’s got my brain gears working. More on that another time.

So what do you get?

The main PSD with 200+ layers. If you’re using PhotoShop you just turn layers on and off – it’s a piece of cake.
Transparent PNG files if you don’t have Photoshop. That way you can use Paint.net or The GIMP or whatever else you prefer.
A cheat sheet for managing the layers.
A tutorial document on using it without PhotoShop.

It’s a tremendously useful tool to own and if you have clients you can get your purchase price back with one use of it for them – they WILL be impressed!

Here’s the link to the toolkit.

http://www.frankhaywood.com/mascot-creator-toolkit/

-Frank Haywood