Creating A Custom Short Link

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Over the Thanksgiving holiday break when I was supposed to be “not working,” I worked. I did not do anything stressful or work for clients, but I did do some “internal,” as I call it, work. For a while, I have been wanting to create a custom short link. I share a lot of content on social media networks and here on my blog. I primarily use goo.gl (Google Link Shortener) and bit.ly (bitly.com), but I had noticed a couple years ago that other businesses were using custom links. Yes, it took me almost two years to finally do this and I can see you shaking your heads. Please stop. Because HostGator was running Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals that included domain name purchases/registration, I decided to go ahead and get this done. Finally.

If you have wondered how to create a custom short link to share content with, here is what I did to do so:

Bitly offers the capability to use a custom domain name to create short links. Instead of the standard bit.ly/xx12345, you can use cust.om/xx12345. To do this, you must first have a domain name that is not being used for anything else (can be a sub domain). It can also only be 15 characters long, to include the “.” I used Domai.nr, to get suggestions and search for a short domain name to use. Most of the variations of “Colleen Eakins Design” that I was interested in, were already taken, so I decided to just go with my name. In the end, I chose “colleeneakns.me”

The next step, was to go to Bitly and enter the new domain name in as a custom link. You can find this by logging into your Bitly account, clicking on “settings” and then clicking on the “advanced” tab. Once I had it entered, I needed to change my A record for the new domain name to point to Bitly. I can admit that this was a little tricky with HostGator. I must say, that it was easier to make these types of changes with my domain names that I still have under GoDaddy. Minus two points for HostGator. Once that was done and verified with Bitly, I was good to go and geeked to have my “vanity” custom short link. I probably frivolously shared content that day, just so that I could ogle my own link.

Here are a couple [frivolous] links that I found helpful and one irrelevant one:

Bitly Support Page – http://colleeneakns.me/1eJyiOF
Mashable Article – http://colleeneakns.me/1cSxG7i
CED on Facebook – http://colleeneakns.me/1cdQ3W2

Confession: I Don’t Always Take My Own Advice

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It’s confession time.  Hi, my name is Colleen and I am guilty of not [always] taking my own advice.  Wait, before you stone me, hear me out and listen to my excuse.  I often advise clients, family and friends that pick my brain on different ways to market their business and position/brand themselves.  A lot of the advisement that I give, I do not actually do myself.  I am pro marketing plans and strategy.  I am pro digital marketing.  I am pro succinct marketing messages.  I am pro everything that goes into creating a great marketing strategy and executing it.  However, my own strategy is slightly shotgun, which is exactly what I preach against.  Does that make me a hypocrite?  Probably.

Here is my excuse:

I am just plain, plum, too busy.  My brain is too full and consumed with coming up with the best ideas, strategies, graphics, layout, logos, etc for clients.  I put a lot of energy and thought into the work that I do for my clients.  As, I tell them, I consider myself to be a part of their team and everything I design, every idea I present, is thought out based on where they are trying to go with their business and what the market and my gut are telling me would be best.  There just is not a lot of brain power left to think and plot my own strategies and what is left is often picked out for my friends and family.  I do not mind one bit, helping friends and family, because I truly want to see them succeed as well.

At the end of the day, there just is not enough gas in the tank for me to plan, evaluate and execute a great strategy of my own.  I liken it to hairdressers that have magical hands and execute the best haircuts and hairstyles, but look like they have a bird’s nest sitting on their own head.  Yeah, it’s kind of like that for me.

Business: Feast and Famine

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Every business has seasonal periods that are slower or busier than usual.  With large companies, you tend to hear about lay-offs or seasonal/temporary hires during their high and low seasons.  For them, the economic affect is felt, but not like it is felt in a small business.  If you have less than 10 employees, or you are the only employee, a lay-off during a slow period just is not feasible.  I often find that new business owner’s, or those looking to start a business of their own, are not aware of the “feast and famine” aspect of owning a business.  It can vary by industry and business type and what one person experiences with their business, may not be the same exact thing someone else will face.  However, there will in my opinion and experience, be times when business will be slower than other times.

“Feast and Famine” simply means that there will be times of Feast, when business will be booming, busy, extremely profitable, etc.; and there will be times of Famine, when business is slow, and for some, non-existent.  A seasonal business like a tax preparer, will experience the vast majority of their business income during the tax season and little to no business outside of that bracket.  A retailer, may see spikes of feast in their business around holidays and dips at other times of the year.  I think it is important to plan for these peaks and lows if you are just starting out and look for ways to capitalize on your high seasons to help compensate for your low seasons/peak.

I was fortunate enough to learn when those high and low peaks would typically occur for me before I went full-time with my freelance business.  What I do now, as a freelancer, is the same thing I did in Corporate America.  I also freelanced part-time, on the side while I was in Corporate America and I saw that my slow downs occurred around the same time as slow downs occurred at my day job.  My day job also helped me determine some of the reasons why those slow downs occurred.  Marketing budgets were almost depleted, sales were in decline, taxes were due, etc., I took note of those things.

If you have not already started your business venture, do some research to see if you can find out when those peaks and lows may happen.  It will help prepare you for those times, so that you can weather through them.  Last year, I filmed a short video with tips for getting through slow periods.  Hopefully, this may be of some help!


6 Blogs You Should Be Following

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I am an avid reader and have been since childhood.  With the advent of technology and the explosion of content readily available and easily accessible online, I have added blogs to my daily reading lists.  I follow more blogs than what is listed here, but I thought I would keep the list short and list some of my top favorites.  I present to you the top 6 blogs that I like and think you should follow:

 

Seth Godin

“SETH GODIN is the author of 17 books that have been bestsellers around the world and have been translated into more than 35 languages. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything.”

 

Gary Vaynerchuk

“In the spring of 2009, my brother AJ and I launched VaynerMedia, a new breed of agency that would help Fortune 500 companies like GE, PepsiCo,Green Mountain Coffee, the NY Jets, and the Brooklyn Nets find their social voices and build their digital brands through micro content and other story telling actions. The idea took hold – what started as a 6-person project 4 years ago has swelled to a 250-strong team spread across the country.”

 

Small Business Marketing Blog (by Duct Tape Marketing)

“John Jantsch has been called the World’s Most Practical Small Business Expert for consistently delivering real-world, proven small business marketing ideas and strategies. His blog was chosen as a Forbes favorite for marketing and small business and his podcast, a top ten marketing show on iTunes, was called a “must listen” by Fast Company magazine.”

 

Entrepreneur.com

“Business ideas and trends from Entrepreneur Magazine. The latest news, expert advice, and growth strategies for small business owners.”

 

Jenn’s Trends in Social Media Management

“My goal in my blogs is to bring you relevant social media and business trends and discuss their applications, implications, and benefits. I will write from my perspective about the things I enjoy and use regularly. I also scour social media, forums, magazines, headlines and groups to find information that I think you will find fun, interesting and valuable. I sincerely hope that you enjoy my postings!”

 

Under30CEO

“Goal: To inspire, lead and educate the next generation to live more succesful and fulfilling lives.  Under30CEO is the leading media property for entrepreneurs, inspiring the world’s next generation of business leaders. Under30CEO features direct interviews with the most successful young people on the planet, profiles twenty-something startups, provides advice from those who have done it before, and publishes cutting edge news for the young entrepreneur.”

 

I would like to note that all of the descriptions were taken directly from their respective sites.  To make it easy to keep up with and read new content from the blogs that I follow, I use a RSS feed reader.  I used to be a user of the old Google Reader that was shut down, through a third party source, but I have migrated over to Feedly.  I can recommend Feedly as a pretty good RSS feed reader to use to follow blogs.

Low Cost to Free Resources to Learn Technical Concepts & Software

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One of the great things about technology is that it has made it easier to share information, find information and learn.  I myself have taught myself new techniques in updated software releases, CSS, some PHP, and a few other technical concepts using online resources.  Some were free resources and some were paid, but the pad resource that I used (Lynda.com) was nominal compared to what I could have paid to attend a class to learn the same thing.  Another added benefit is that I was able to learn at my own pace and at my leisure.

If you are pretty technically inclined and do not need a classroom setting to learn, here are some resources to check out to learn technical concepts and software:

 

Lynda.com

My favorite resource over the years has been Lynda.com.  For $25 per month, you can watch all of the video tutorials you want on your computer, phone or tablet.  Courses are organized into chapters and then further broken down into chapter sections.  The section videos are just long enough to pick and learn what that video is teaching, but short enough for someone like me with a short attention span.  Because of the way courses are organized, it makes it easy to pop in find a video specific to what you need to learn how to do, without having to watch the entire course.  For instance, if you are already familiar with and use Photoshop, but do not understand smart filters; you can find a video within a Photoshop course that specifically goes over that function.  On average, the videos that I have watched are about 6 minutes in length.  For $37.50 per month, you can access the resource files that are used within a course.  One of the best things about Lynda.com is that there is no contract and you can cancel your subscription at any time and reactivate it later if you need.

 

Udemy

Udemy touts itself to be the world’s largest destination source for online classes.  I have not used Udemy myself, but it has been referred to me a few times to learn different programming languages.  It has also been referred to me as a place to offer a course of my own.  So, if you are looking to teach a course and looking for a third party external source to host the material and distribute it; Udemy might be a good resource for you as well.  Courses range in price because they are offered by a myriad of individuals.  You can also price shop for different courses because there tends to be a lot of duplication with the course topics.  I recommend looking at price, course content and reviews/ratings for the instructor, when making a decision.

 

YouTube

Of course the post would not be complete without the inclusion of YouTube.  You can learn a little something about just about anything on YouTube.  From hair and makeup tips, how to play the piano (one song at a time) and of course design and coding concepts.  There are a plethora of users with dedicated channels on various topics and of course, it’s all free!  Keep in mind, that you may get what you pay for with some users.  However, there are a lot of competent and talented instructors with video tutorials on the ‘tube.