2012 ~ Rags To Stitches Productions

New Web Site: Wesley United Methodist Church

9:22 PM Author: RAGS

Wesley United Methodist Church was in need of a useful web presence for growing their congregation, broadcasting newsletters bulletins and announcements, managing their calendar and more. As there are many staff members with their own individual areas of responsibility, the site needed to accommodate their need for multiple users to login and keep the church information current.

Rags To Stitches Productions provided all of that and more with a brilliant looking web site that features different themes that are set on timers to highlight seasons such as Easter and Christmas. The site is also Responsive, adjusting to users visiting from a mobile device automatically. When newsletters bulletins and announcements are posted, they are automatically sent to the Wesley Twitter and Facebook accounts to save time and spread the word at the press of a button. Each staff member has their own login account and through the easy to use dashboard can make edits or changes as needed, along with including images, video, audio and other media.

From the desk of Holly Malone:

Rags has been instrumental in designing websites for both our church and our in-house preschool. His designs are colorful and impactful without being graphically burdensome. Rags is a consummate professional and very responsive whenever we have issues. We recently moved our hosting service from BlueHost to GoDaddy, and Rags accommodated us to make this transition as seamless as possible. Furthermore, Rags set up our sites with the WordPress toolkit – giving us the ability to affect minor changes to the content without outside intervention or cost. When the need arose to include online forms for our Vacation Bible School program, Rags completed the task for us in a timely and cost-effective manner. We are completely satisfied with the level of service provided by Rags for our website needs.

Holly Malone
Technology Coordinator
Wesley United Methodist Church

Pinteraction with Pinterest

2:18 PM Author: RAGS

In short time, Pinterest has generated quite a stir in the Internet landscape and will likely be considered THE social network of 2012. Pinterest is not only driving heavy traffic for some major brands, it is now producing more traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and MySpace combined.

To follow up on one of my recent columns, Pinterest: Social Network Evolution, I thought I'd provide readers with some interesting facts, statistics, and food for thought.

Pinterest has 10.4 million registered users and growing. Should that size of an audience go ignored?
American Pinterest users spend an average of one hour and 17 minutes on the site, well ahead of Twitter (36 minutes), LinkedIn (17 minutes), and Google+ (six minutes).
Top corporate Pinterest boards include HGTV, Nordstrom, Whole Foods, and Better Homes and Gardens. And while statistics have indicated that the majority of Pinterest users are women, we are now seeing men join as professional sports teams create boards as well as brands such as Home Depot and Lowes.
The estimated unique visitors to Pinterest increased by 429 percent from September to December 2011.
According to comScore, the average Pinterest user spends 98 minutes per month on the site.
More than one-fifth of Facebook connected users are on Pinterest daily (which represents more than 2,000,000 members).

Clearly if Pinterest is to become a social networking giant in 2012 (as it is expected to), it should be considered for anyone marketing their products and services online. Facebook connected users make their Pinterest activities go viral, sharing is not only encouraged but often automated. And with the diversity and freedom to create boards targeting as many topics or subjects you desire, one could easily build a virtual online catalog.

Give Pinterest a try, and by all means have fun while doing it. Combining work and play can often make your online tasks a little more enjoying.

Such as this little gem, for my own amusement here is a captioned and photochopped image of Charlie Sheen. Courtesy of Rags. Have a great weekend and happy Pinning!

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Pinterest: Social Network Evolution

2:10 PM Author: RAGS

Printwear Magazine, April 2012.

The new social networking buzz comes in the form of simplicity, and that buzz is called Pinterest. While Pinterest may look like a mere bulletin board full of pictures as well as a network primarily visited by women, beyond the surface lies marketing opportunities and benefits that should not go un-explored.

Pinterest is a perfect networking tool for apparel decorators, as it is clean, simple and VISUAL. What we do as apparel decorators sells itself in a visual manner, so this website is a great opportunity for us to showcase our work and let the products sell themselves.

Have a look at the April Internet Strategies column and join in on the Pinteresting elements of this social networking web site.

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Do you have social media sharing buttons on your web site or blog?

Add this important feature to your site today!

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Only $35.00!

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Going Viral with Social Media

2:03 PM Author: RAGS

Printwear Magazine, February 2012.

One of the most beneficial elements of marketing within social media is the potential for a broadcast to go viral through sharing and letting your followers spread the word. Over the holidays I observed some great promotions that can spark marketing creativity within your own social media marketing strategies. Have a look and put your thinking cap on!

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Do you have social media sharing buttons on your web site or blog?

Add this important feature to your site today!

Design and Install Social Sharing Functionality to One Web Site or Blog

Only $35.00!

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Johnny K Darts

6:11 PM Author: RAGS

John Kuczynski is known as Johnny K in the sports world of darts. As a sponsored professional dart player and annual fundraiser John needed a web site that would give him the opportunity to post news and events on his own, and serve as a place for accepting donations to his annual Toys For Tots dart Tournament.

Naturally, WordPress was a perfect fit, giving John the easy to use tools to publish and maintain the site himself. And with the added benefit of a donations plugin, John can easily integrate his fundraising with his PayPal account, monitor donations and have those who donated post comments to his web site during the process.

Visit Johnny K's new web site and consider making a donation to his fundraiser.

My Dart Shirts Custom Shop

6:52 PM Author: RAGS

My Dart Shirts Custom Shop is an extension of My Dart Shirts, offering more options in terms of style and printing. The Custom Shop has created custom designs and manufactured dart shirts for dart players all over the world, from amateur status to professionals playing on the big stage.

Create Your Facebook Landing Page for Social Media Success

1:53 PM Author: RAGS

February is a great time for you to turn fans into customers with Social Campaigns. And with the tools and coaching Constant Contact offers, they can help you create a Facebook Landing page and build marketing campaigns that engage not only your existing audience, but new Facebook fans, too.

Here's what you can do with Social Campaigns:

Start for FREE Your first campaign is free, and Social Campaigns is always free up to 100 fans.

Share Promote to your campaign to your Facebook fans, Twitter followers, LinkedIn connections, and email subscribers.

Customize Pick a Facebook landing page template and create a professional-looking Like page.

Measure Online reporting shows how your campaigns drive page visits, shares, and new Facebook fans and email subscribers.

Edit Use our flexible editor to give your campaign the look and feel of your organization.

Learn Get free personal social media marketing coaching and support by phone, email, chat, and in person.

Schedule Set your social media marketing campaigns to start and end when you want.

Engage Create a Facebook landing page that keeps you looking professional when you're not running a campaign.

All this, plus Constant Contacts professional Email Marketing tools for even further benefits and a great addition to your marketing efforts.

See how Social Campaigns works. Watch the video below:

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Online Surveys

1:36 PM Author: RAGS

Printwear Magazine, December 2011.

Targeting a qualified audience in marketing strategies can be a difficult task. You may like to know what section of the local newspaper the majority of potential customers read before placing an ad, or perhaps what radio programs they may listen to in order to purchase some advertising air time. If you are looking for answers like these, consider the use of a survey. Decembers Internet Strategies column goes into detail.

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Powerful and professional tools for online surveys! Constant Contact is a service I personally use as well as many of my clients. You can choose from a template with pre-written questions or start from scratch, add your company logo and modify the design to compliment your web site or brand. Question types range from multiple choices to rating scales, and the ability to use skip logic to display certain questions based on answers to previous ones. It features customizable greeting and closing pages to thank participants or tell them about an incentive, offer a coupon or get creative with your audience.

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Microsite Marketing

1:31 PM Author: RAGS

Printwear Magazine, November 2011.

In the sport of darts, we like to use the phrase “aim small, miss small.” This adage has everything to do with focus and keeping aim on-target. I recently wondered how this same saying could apply to focusing on a target audience in terms of marketing, brand awareness and selling online. The answer comes in a small package called the microsite.

Small, compact and effective, microsites can help you improve your search engine traffic as well as target specific audiences and/or demographics. Read Novembers Internet Strategies and consider the benefits you may find suitable for your online marketing efforts.

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