If you use Constant Contact, you may already know this, but I just found out the other day and thought it was pretty cool! (If you don’t use it, click here for more information and a free 60 trial
). There are many different ways you can add contacts to your database. Sometimes they sign themselves up through your website which means you don’t need to do anything. Other times, your new contacts come from networking or business meetings and the e-mail addresses are on business cards. This means you have to log in to your account and add the information, or so I thought!

Although there are different ways to add, and sometimes you might just upload a spreadsheet of new contacts, if you just have one or two to add, you can do it simply, direct from your desktop. Log into your Constant Contact account. From the home page, click the Import your contact list link on the right side, or alternatively, click the Contacts link from the top to add new contacts.

Next, you will be asked how you would like to add contacts to your list. Click on the link right at the bottom for import tools:

You will see a list of many different ways to import in contacts directly (you may find some of these useful also). Click on the one right at the bottom, the Contact Capture Tool.

This will start a download. Pretty simple, just walk through the steps to complete the download. Once complete, you will need to enter in your user name and password for Constant Contact. You also determine which of your mailing lists you wish to sign people up to by clicking on Add or Remove Contact Lists from the middle of the pop up. Enter in the new contact e-mail address. At the bottom, you can determine up to 4 fields of information that you wish to contact. First Name is always a good one, as is Company Name. With fields, you can add these to your e-mails for a personal touch. Enter everything in and click Add.

If the contact is already in Constant Contact, it will let you know and ask how you want to handle this contact. If its a new contact, it will be saved exactly as you enter it. Click OK.

Once the contact is saved, you will be notified at the top of the screen. You can close out of the capture tool, but can either get back to it from your icons on the bottom toolbar of your computer, or from your desktop if you created a shortcut icon during the install. Quick and easy!

You already have a Facebook Page right? If not, click here to learn how to create one, then come back here!

Once you have your page, it’s great to start building your list of fans, connecting and communicating with your current and future clients. However, it’s also good to make connections with other business owners and to help promote each other. Did you know you can link from your Facebook Page to another Facebook Page? It’s pretty quick and simple.

Log into Facebook with the account you use to moderate your page. Next, navigate to the page you want to link to. Here, we want to link to a local real estate agent, Rodney Camren of Star Team Atlanta Realty.  He is a great business contact of mine, a fantastic networker and has been a great advocate for Purple Star Consulting, so I want to share the love!

From the top left of the page, underneath the logo, you will see a link for “Add to my page’s favorites”. Click this link.

If you are an Administrator for more than one page, you will be asked which one you want to add the favorite to.  Select and then click Save.

Once you have completed these simple steps, you will see the page listed at the bottom left of your own page. You can promote and endorse other businesses by completing these steps.

That’s it! Pretty simple right?

Found a new site today which I wanted to share. When posting an article to your blog it’s great if you get some reader participation with comments at the bottom. However, there may be times when you wish to encourage readers to share links of a specific type. For example, I may be interested in knowing the blogs of my readers (which I am!). In this case, it would be better to have all links compiled together in one place for me, and other readers to see, rather than scrolling all the way to the end of the post. This is where Simply Linked can help! Really really easy, and free to set up.

Go to their site and sign up for a free account. It’s a Beta site (still in testing) so there could be a cost introduced in the future, but hopefully that would come along with additional features. Once you are signed in, click the link to create a new list:

Enter in the name of your list. There is the option to select from either a standard type, or from a recurring theme. There are no instructions so I take the theme to be a way to group lists together and categorize them. You can either select from one you have already created, or create a new one easily.

Once your list is created, you will see the code displayed for your list. Copy it and then you can paste that into a web page or blog post:

When someone visits your site or blog post, they can easily add a link to the list. See the example below in this post. Once links are added, you will be able to review them from your Simply Linked account. Could be useful for follow up and review on your topic.

So, feel free! Give me the link to your blog, I would love to pay you a visit, and maybe others will too! I started the list going, so join in.

I am proud to be one of the organizers of a local networking group here in Lawrenceville, GA. We have events a couple of times each month. This past event we were lucky to have George Robbins there from Your 1 Minute. He creates videos for business owners to help promote themselves and their company. Here is one he did as a gift for our networking group. Thanks again George, it looks fantastic!

Find more videos like this on YOUR1MINUTE – GLOBAL BUSINESS NETWORKING -VIRAL MARKETING -

For a while I have wanted to do a post to highlight some of the coolest plugins and widgets out there for WordPress. Time in short supply, I still haven’t gotten round to it, so call it cheating, but I did search for some blog posts that already have done this! So, credit to all of these blog writers, and here are some links to some good information!

This post is all about plugins to help with your different social media profiles:

http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/wordpress-social-media-profile/

This article shows 50 great widgets for your blog:

http://mashable.com/2007/09/06/widgets-2/

30 cool plugins:

http://www.masternewmedia.org/30-cool-wordpress-plugins-for-web-publishers/

10 Cool WordPress plugins to show your ratings:

http://www.geeksucks.com/showcases/10-cool-wordpress-plugins-for-ratings.htm

Plugins designed to get your readers to your blog:

http://mashable.com/2007/08/02/wordpress-readers/

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Be sure to check out all of these great blogs, get some new ideas and have fun! Not sure how to install a plugin or figure out the widgets? Post your questions below and I will help where I can!