If you are already blogging, chances are that you’re writing your posts by firing up your web browser, logging into your blog’s website and writing your posts directly into your Blogger, Wordpress, or Typepad. Did you know that you can manage your blog postings directly from your computer without logging into the website? They’re called “desktop blogging” software and you can use these programs to write new blog posts, edit old ones, and to even schedule future blog posts.

Smashing Magazine has just posted a review of 15 desktop blogging tools. You can read the full review here.

Since I’m a Mac person, the software I use to manage my blogs is Ecto. I’ve been using it for a couple years, so I easily got my $18 worth. I just love the fact that I can manage all of my blogs in one place. I even use Ecto to store unfinished posts or ideas for new posts. If you blog a lot or if you have more than one blog, you should consider checking out one of these tools.

So you’ve written your newsletter and you’re ready to launch your very first issue. But before you hit that “Send” button, here are some things that you need to check first.

This week’s newsletter article is the fifth article in a six-part series on, “How to Plan and Start a Great Email Newsletter“, where I will go through your pre-launch newsletter checklist. To read the article sign up for the Crafted Webmaster Newsletter for free here: http://www.craftedweb.com/subscribe.html If you subscribe now, you can get a free audio download on “Effective Ways to Market Your Website Offline“.

Photo by Ada Community Library

So after several months of really lovin Twitter, they’ve finally made me sad…really sad. Yesterday, my modest roster of followers went from somewhere in the neighborhood of 140 or so to 81. And the number of people that I was following went from 183 or so to 113. Apparently this is part of Twitter’s way to combat Twitter spammers, those folks that mass follow thousands of Twitter users in hopes of getting a large following so they can bombard them with tweet spam. There’s a post on ReadWriteWeb about Twitter’s new anti-spam effort.

Was this move necessary? I don’t know. It’s pretty easy to ignore unwanted followers. Before you follow someone, check out their profile to see if they seem to be an interesting person to follow before you hit that “follow” button (Lesson #3 on my tips to finding interesting people to follow on Twitter). I’m quite sure there were some obvious spammers that needed to be purged from my followers list. You can easily spot who’s a spammer straight off by looking at their profile. If the great purge got rid of those turkeys then good riddance. But the point is, they didn’t bother me because I choose not to follow them in the first place.

I guess I’m a bit more upset about being automatically removed from some of the folks I was following. I’ve tried to only follow folks I’ve found interesting, so the fact that some of my follows may have been labeled as “spam”. Makes me sad.

Now, I’m not exactly sure how Twitter decided that a certain person needed to be “unfollowed” from whoever’s follow list. All I can hope for is that if you happened to be following me and find that I’ve disappeared, you can visit my profile and follow me again. And hopefully, I can someone find all the people that’s currently gone from my “following” list.

[Update] My followers/following counts are back to normal…thanks Twitter!

Image by Pearsonified

The topic of online jurying for shows is one that comes up every so often in the crafts forums. While a lot of artists are still on the fence when it comes to applying to craft shows online, it seems like more and more shows are going to electronic applications…especially the higher end shows like the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, Cherry Creek, and the Smithsonian Craft Show.

If you’re not familiar with online jurying there are two companies, Zapp and Juried Art Services, that offer online craft show application services to show promoters. Basically, the way online jurying works is that you open a free account with one or both of these services (the show promoters pay for the service…it’s free for artists to use it). You then upload photos of your work onto your account. When you’re ready to apply to a show, you simply fill out the application online, choose which photos you want to send with your application and then submit your application. Whatever jurying fees or booth fees that are required with your application are paid for by credit card.

Here are some advantages of jurying online

1. Cuts down on the need for duplicate slides- If you apply to a lot of shows, you probably have an entire library of slides, photos and duplicates to send out with applications. With online jurying, you scan your slide set once and use the same images with every application…without the need to know your photofinisher personally

2. No worries about applications getting lost in the mail- I had this happen to me before. The application came back to me in shredded little pieces in one of those “Sorry we mangled your mail” envelopes that the USPS gives you when they destroy your mail. Minus the slides. Apply online, you won’t have to worry about it.

3. You know if the promoter has received your application- With both online jurying systems, you get confirmation that your application is in the database, which eliminates the waiting and the “Just wondering if you got my application” calls to the promoter.

4. No messy applications!- If you’re like me and your penmanship looks like a doctor’s prescription written in the middle of an earthquake, applying online will save you from having to either having to find a typewriter to fill out the application or from those calls from the promoter asking if that scribble on your app is a “s” or a “5″.

5. You can store your portfolio and past applications online- I’ve always tried to make a copy of all my applications before I send them out…but with online jurying, there’s no need as both systems store both your images and your past applications online. If you want to get a paper copy of your application, you can simply print it out.

But just like anything, online jurying also has some disadvantages

1. You need to have properly prepared digital images- Both services have their own specifications when it comes to what images they accept in their system. If all of your images are on slides, you’ll need to get them scanned and formatted into the proper resolution and dimension. If you have a scanner and are familiar with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, this is not a difficult task. If you aren’t familiar with digital images, you’ll need to have a photographer or graphic artist do it for you. Fortunately, there are a lot of craft and art photographers that also offer this service in addition to traditional slides.

2. You’ll need to have access to the Internet and a computer- If you’re reading this, you no doubt have access to both a computer and the Internet. But not all artists have email, the Internet, or even a computer which will naturally cut those artists out of the running.

3. Easier applications can invite more unqualified applicants- In The Crafts Report forum discussion, an artist was asking if the rejection rate is higher when you apply online. While I don’t know of any direct figures when it comes to the rejection rate, there seems to be some anecdotal evidence of higher rejection rates. Don’t know if this is true, but if it is, a lot of artists theorizes that applying with photos and slides at least weeded out those artists who were only half serious about the show. But now that the application is electronic, and artist can apply to a number of shows within a matter of hours. Which can also have the effect of making the shows easier for unqualified artists to apply.

4. You’ll probably need to open more than one account- Some shows like the Smithsonian Craft Show use Juried Art Services while shows by Artrider uses Zapp. So if you apply to wide variety of shows, not all of them will use the same system. That means that you will have to maintain accounts on both systems.

5. There is a potential for forged or doctored images- This seems like the biggest fear for both artists and show promoters. A lot of artists, especially, are nervous that someone who’s savvy with Photoshop will be able to doctor an image so that a lousy piece of art can be transformed into a nice piece of art. As someone who’s been working with Photoshop 12 years, I can tell you that it’s difficult to simply “make up” a great picture of a piece of art. And why would you want to? It’s easier just to sell the finished product as a piece of digital art. However, it’s much easier to take an existing picture and change colors, the contrast, tone, and to swap elements of an image in and out. What’s more realistic is that it’s easier for an artist to submit images of someone else’s work as their own in a digital application process.

So! Online jurying…it’s here and an increasing number of promoters are using it for their application process. What do you think? Is this a good thing? Are you applauding applying for shows online or are you dreading it? Leave me a comment and let me know!

I got this question following my latest article in my newsletter.

Hey Nicolette,

I read your last article on how to send out your newsletters, but I was wondering what an “autoresponder” was, you didn’t explain it in the article.

Thanks
Natalie

Autoresponders have been around for years and they can be a powerful addition in your marketing arsenal. Here’s what I wrote to Natalie.

Hi Natalie,

Thanks for the email and I hope you’re finding the info useful. Basically, autoresponders are simply email programs that send out an email or a series of emails that are scheduled to go out at a specific time or in response to a specific action taken by someone. Here’s an example:

The software I use for my mailing list allows me to create an autoresponder for each of my mailing lists. I’ve set mine up so that when someone joins my list, they are automatically sent a copy of the latest newsletter. I’ve set the autoresponder to send out this email five minutes after they join. This is a useful bit of customer service for me because 1) some subscribers sign up because they were interested in what was in the current newsletter. So this gives them (almost) immediate access to what they wanted, and 2) it runs automatically, so I don’t have to fill these requests myself and the subscriber doesn’t have to wait for me to do it.

There’s two different types of autoresponders. You have the “one-time” autoresponder that only sends out one message in response to say, someone joining a mailing list, or someone sending an email to a certain email address to request information. These are fairly common and most hosting services offer this ability as part of the hosting package. The other, more powerful kind is the “sequential” autoresponder. This means that you can set up and schedule a series of follow up messages instead of just one.

I use a sequential autoresponder setup for my mailing list. The first message, which is a copy of the latest newsletter, is scheduled to go out 5 minutes after a person signs up for my mailing list. The second message is scheduled to go out 24 hours after a person has signed up. In this message I remind the subscriber to get their free audio download and give them instructions on how to do it. I also remind them to contact me if they have any questions or difficulty with downloading their audio. The third message goes out 48 hours after they’ve subscribed. In this message I remind my subscriber that they can access previous newsletter articles on the website and give them the link to the archives. And so on and so forth.

Why do I give out this information in a series of messages instead of just one? I’ve found it to be more effective this way because a lot of people either skim over or don’t read their welcome messages when they subscribe to newsletters. If I only put this information in the welcome message, a lot of people will miss it or forget about it. The sequential autoresponder messages serves as a reminder and it also keeps the blog and the newsletter fresh in their minds.

Using autoresponders when someone purchases something from you is also a great way to follow up with your customers. We all know that it’s good customer service to follow up with people who buy stuff from us. By using a sequential autoresponder, you can create a setup that automatically sends out thank you messages and customer service follow up messages without having to constantly remind yourself to send out follow up emails. This saves you time and keeps you in touch with your customers.

Unlike the one-time autoresponders, sequential autoresponders don’t typically come with your hosting service, so you’ll need to use a third-party service like AWeber or you’ll need to install mailing list software that has that ability. The one I use, Oempro does have the ability to create sequential autoresponders built in.

Anyway, I hope this answered your question. I’m thinking that maybe I’ll do an article or blog post that explores autoresponders a bit further. Thanks for asking the question!

Nicolete

Do you have a burning question about websites or promoting yourself online? Click on the “Ask a Question” tab at the top of the page and send me your question. I’ll send you an answer to your question personally.

If you want to start reading the article series on “How to Plan and Start a Great Email Newsletter“, you can sign up for the Crafted Webmaster Newsletter for free here: http://www.craftedweb.com/subscribe.html If you subscribe now, you can get a free audio download on “Effective Ways to Market Your Website Offline“.