I have been having a goofy creative spell. What possesses me to do what I do I have know idea. The last few weeks I put together three sites that stemmed from an idea or a brainstorm through goofy conversations with co-workers. The three sites were built with a ‘viral market’ in mind but the main purpose is to sell some t-shirts.

First came twiturder.com. Twiturder (twit-turd-er) is a device that attaches to your toilet and ‘tweets’ whatever happens while you are on it. Yes, it can most certainly be gross. I tried to create a 1/2 serious and 1/2 silliness look and feel for the site hoping to have people guessing whether the twiturder device was real or not. The t-shirt for this product is a simple “got turd?” design. I also have a Twitter account @twiturder where I occasionally update what goes on at the plant including any new products that come along.

The next product to come out of the maelstrom is ThongDrive.com. During a conversation I was having with a co-worker I swear they said something about a thong drive. While he probably didn’t say anything close to that it sounded like a great idea to mix usb flash storage and a thong. Don’t you think? The site is complete with a little Flash application at the top where you can choose your skin color and preferred thong color. The t-shirt for this idea is a simple “ThongDrive” logo with the phrase “thong + storage = genius”. Usually people get a charge out of this product. I’m still working on a way to convince my wife to actually create one but it does not seem like she’s interested at the moment.

The newest product idea was easy to come up with due to the current scare of swine flu. The Swine B Gone.com product is supposed to be an aerosol spray that you can douse yourself with and remove all effect of the swine flu (H1N1). I had a couple t-shirt ideas for this one but stuck with the “Swine B Gone” logo and the words “swine flu protected” below it.

With each site I tried to make them have a similar theme but be fairly unique in content. Obviously the t-shirt element is in all three but the information about each product has it’s own unique flavor and humor. There are some key elements you should include in your site(s) when you build, develop and/or design.

Key Element 1
One of the key elements you need to include is an easy way to spread the word about your site via social mediums. There are a few ways you can cover Twitter, email, Facebook, Digg and a whole slew of others. I use the Add this menu which lists a number of popular social media methods in nice little package. The idea is to make it extremely easy for your viewers to spread the gospel about whatever page they are on.

Key Element 2
Another key element is keyword rich content. If you build a goofy site about a current event you should try to include the keywords in your content about that event. This goes for any site you build. Keyword rich content is extremely important for readability and SEO. Make sure you are conscious of grammar and spelling. People can be turned off by sentences that are difficult to read or include spelling errors.

Key Element 3
An important key element to add is data collection. At a minimum you should have a form on your site to collect emails and names so you can develop an email list. Once your list starts to grow you will be able to use it to spread the word of your newest ventures quickly. If you use Facebook or Twitter more frequently then request their Facebook or Twitter name.

Key Element 4
A key element I try to incorporate is some form of interaction. Generally, this can include a small Flash application that peeks someones interest, a game for people to play, a daily or weekly poll where people can vote on some subject or a comments section where viewers can interact with each other and you. The idea for this is to create a small element that could bring people back because they are curious about the results of a poll or the replies to their previous comments.

Key Element 5
Another key element you can easily include are affiliate marketing links. Obviously people have started putting on their blinders when it comes to banner ads and such but that does not mean they are completely ineffective. Try to think of a creative way to make them look more appealing in your design. There are so many cookie cutter looking sites that just slap them into a column and hope for the best. Try to add a new twist to your affiliate area that might peek more interest. Experiment. Experiment. Experiment.

Just because a venture is not as successful as you hoped does not mean it was a complete failure. Chances are you learned something from the experience and you will be able to put what you learned into use on your next venture. If you sense failure, reassess your position and either make modifications or move to your next venture. If you are just starting out, do not be afraid to fail. Usually in failure we learn enough to make the next attempt successful. Put some thought and creativity into each project you do.

If you have not already read part 1 of this study I recommend you check it out Managing Your Social Marketing Part 1 – A Store Owners Experience

If you have been in business for any amount of time you undoubtedly had to answer questions about the products or services you deliver. Chances are you had to answer the same exact questions over and over again. This is the way search engines work for people who use the web as their information source…which means pretty much everyone on the web. People have questions, they type them into their favorite search engine the results should have the answers. In comes the blog.

Think of a business blog as your repository for information about your business, industry, products and services. When you are in business you gain an intimate relationship with whatever you offer. You know how it functions, it’s quirks and you probably have insight into its future. This information is valuable to current and future customers alike. It builds consumer confidence in your business and leverages you as an authority figure in your field. Incidentally, this is one of the “assets” I talked about in Part 1 of this study. If you use other social media for marketing your business, having a blog(if used correctly) gives your more relevance and clout.

Having a blog is not for everyone. An empty or seldom updated blog is akin to having an e-commerce store where you sometimes if ever process orders. It is useless unless you fulfill its function. The business blogs function is to inform, educate and feed those looking for ever changing information. If you are not comfortable doing research and writing information you have two options. One option is to not have a blog. The second option is to start with small frequent blog posts until you are comfortable delving deeper into subjects. We will touch on this more in Part 3.

Start that blog! If you choose to get your blog rolling…blogroll: list of recommended blogs listed on the sidebar of a blog…you will either need a little technical know-how or someone that possesses the technical know-how. If you have the technical know-how then you will need web hosting that supports the blog software you wish to use. WordPress is a very popular blogging software and is one I recommend. There are hundreds of “skins” for WordPress that can take you from the normal “blah” layout of a standard install to completely sheik in a few clicks. After that you just need to familiarize yourself with the amazing administration portion of the software and you are ready to blog.

If you are not technically inclined there are companies that can help you get your blog off the ground. Solid Cactus is a great company that helps business owners develop their online presence. They take care of everything from e-commerce to search marketing to blogs to a number of other services.

Once you get your blog up and running there are some key things you should be conscious of when writing your posts. We will go over that in the next part of this study.

As a handmade craft store owner I am always looking for ways to get my products in front of people. My role in our family business is to program/manage our Etsy store
(http://beadsandquilts.etsy.com) and our Yahoo! store (http://www.beadsandquilts.com) along with managing our social presence in forums, Facebook, Beads and Quilts on Twitter and our Beads and Quilts blog. With so many facets, managing our social presence is the most time consuming part of my role. It is easy to get bogged down with replies to forum posts, writing blog posts, monitoring and writing Tweets, and on and on and on…

Many small web business owners do not have the time nor resources to manage a social marketing presence in addition to their daily tasks within their business. This and future articles will touch on some of the key online social marketing tools and how to manage them without getting dizzy every time you look at your computer screen.

Take a deep breath in and let it all out (continue breathing throughout the article )

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After installing, customizing, adding contents and pulling hair out from frustration for a number of e-commerce platforms I have settled into one platform…but first let me review what I tried. Magento was my favorite of the free platforms but on a shared hosting environment it was very slow. Magento will be amazing for the person that wants a free platform and has some jink to get a dedicated or semi-dedicated hosting solution. OSCommerce was the one platform I spent the least amount of time working with. The back-end of the OSCommerce solution was not very intuitive and seemed sloppy. Early on I thought I would be happy putting in time to customize the chosen platform as needed…this platform made me uphappy. WP e-Commerce was my final attempt at a free e-commerce solution. It is built on top of the Word Press blog platform. Everything about this solution was fun and easily customizable. I had the store setup within a few minutes and making section and items was just like making a blog post or a page. Unfortunately, after I got things in place and ready to add products I decided I did not want to work with a free solution anymore.

The time I put into customizing, installing and troubleshooting had left a sour taste in my mouth and I wanted something canned that I was familiar with and could make changes often within seconds. In comes Yahoo! Small Business. I guess it helps that I work for a company that specializes in designing and customizing the Yahoo! platform. My only real reservation was the $39.95 monthly cost. Aside from that I have not really seen any issues with the platform and its feature set. Setup took a few minutes and I was in there making modifications and slicing my mockups within a day.

So my goal is to have the site live and taking orders (hopefully) within two weeks. I need to get our inventory together, take pictures, write descriptions, set prices and do some final testing them BeadsandQuilts.com will be fully operational.

Today is going to be a rough day. Planning on being at work around 7am in order to catch up. I think this is my first blog post about work. While it consumes most of my day I found other things to blog about so I guess that is a good thing. Too many interruptions throughout the day to get backlog done. I have a backlog of a backlog. Usually when I start the day this early I start acting loopy by lunch time…that is if I don’t start falling asleep by that time. EDIT: I’m at work now and the internet is slow as molasses, so any jump on production I thought I was going to have…ain’t gonna happen.

Ryan has been playing ping pong almost every day. Monday night I was practicing my serve with Ryan on the other side of the table. He was just talking to me while I was attempting some serves I saw Ma Lin do on YouTube. The next thing I know the ball is coming back at me with speed. I started paying attention, Ryan was up on his bean bag, leaning on the table swatting at the balls I was sending over at weird angles and actually returning them. I think he is going to be the next Olympian at ping pong.

Ecommerce-wise I shelved using Magento because of speed issues. It really stinks because the Magento solution is so packed with features but it seems more tailored to a dedicated server environment. Even on a dedicated server I read post about it being slow so it appears the Magento team needs to work on optimizing their code.

I installed OSCommerse and have begun to customize it to have the exact look I had with Magento. The OSCommerce structure is a messy nested table one that makes me very unhappy. So far I have dedicated time to converting everything over to a CSS/DIV structure which has gone really well. From what I have seen OSCommerce is infinitely faster than Magento and has an ample feature set.

Store
I’m now in the programming phase of developing my store. Working with the templates from Magento is not completely straightforward but I love how everything is modularized…it’s just a matter of finding the template you are working on in the maze of folders. This is going to be a slow and long process but I think it will be well worth it.

Family
Ryan and Dominic appear to have pink eye. And I think it’ll only be a matter of time before Sue and I both get it. My eye was itchy this morning but that seemed to have subsided. Dominic woke up periodically through the night and was not easy to pacify. Either he has more teeth coming in or he really is not feeling good.

Fun
I made Sue watch a demo of the electronic drum set that I would love to get…trying to win her over on the idea. I don’t think anyone can see it in action and not be pumped to get one. But as usual Sue had to throw in bits of reality. Namely, will my boys end up destroying the drum set and can I really afford it. I think if I teach Ryan how to play he might be less inclined to take a hammer or hockey stick to the set. Concerning the affordability…well we won’t talk about that.

This has been a wish of mine for a very long time.  For the past 5 or 6 years I have been developing sites for other people.  I have been doing a little research off and on about the many aspects of having your own e-commerce site.  I’m sure I am going to miss a step or two along the way but it will all be part of the learning process.

Since I already know what products I am selling my next step is to choose a domain name for my store. The name of the store is up in the air. I came up with 2 possible names but need the approval of my partners…my wife and my mom. Choosing a name is a very important step. Search engine wise it can be very helpful to choose a name that includes a keyword or two that encompass what you sell. You can do a search of phrases at Google Adwords to see how often the words you choose are searched.

My next step is to choose a content management system (CMS). There are a number of ways you can have a go at this step. You can choose a canned solution like Yahoo! Small Business, eBay ProStores or Amazon WebStores. The benefit of these in a nutshell is that once you signup and have a few things in order your only worry is populating your store. There are pre-designed templates you can use if you are not design savvy and once your item and section pages are created with a push of a button they are live. The downfalls can also be many depending on the amount of control you want, monthly fees, limited functionality, and poor customer service.

I chose to go with a CMS called Magento. It is an “open source” solution meaning you have complete access to the code of the application and when you or other developers create features for it there’s a great chance you can add it to your system.

In my next step I purchased a hosting account from Host Monster which is an incredibly affordable hosting solution with a plethora of features waiting to be tapped into.  I did some shopping around and thanks to John Dawe had a chance to give the control panel a test drive before getting my own space.  This very domain was hosted on his space until I figured out what I wanted to do.  From my experience so far I highly recommend Host Monster.

Current Status: Installing the CMS and designing the site.