Shaggy Blog Stories

Jun 13, 2011

MailChimp – importing data is driving me bananas!

Mail Chimp Newsletter. How to import dataNow don’t get me wrong here. I love MailChimp and have used it for my partner, Judy’s (or ‘J’ as she will be affectionately known here in future) Work from Home Wisdom website.

So I thought it would be a good idea to transfer my own newsletter fans from the Outlook distribution lists I have used up to now. Here’s why:


1. It’s much easier to manage your list in MailChimp as your data is automatically converted into specific fields (E.g. first name, last name, email address etc.) and duplicate entries get deleted.

2. It takes all the grunt work out of manually adding people to the list.

3. Great statistics to see if anyone is actually reading your newsletter and where they are clicking through to on your site.

4. Management of bounced emails is much simpler – I don’t get the hassle of amending my list every time I send it out when I’m notified of undeliverables, full inboxes etc.

5. MailChimp now gives you up to 2000 subscribers for free which is pretty much enough for any small business until they start to grow and can therefore afford to pay for bigger campaigns.

6. Ability to send emails to many people at once (over 700 in my case) rather than in batches of 50 because of restrictions on bulk email from my account.

What was driving me bananas was attempting to import my 15 distribution lists on Outlook into a MailChimp list. After some research it looked like I was going to have to do it manually. However I found a solution that will save you time in the future.

1. Open up your distribution list in Outlook

2. Save it as a text file (on your desktop is easiest)

3. Edit the text file to clean the data. Take out headings and notes and check that the first and second names have a comma between them so that when you open it in Excel the email, first and second names come up in separate fields. Also strip out any duplicate emails for each person – if you have someone on the distribution list who is also in your contacts you might have an extra email next to their name enclosed in brackets

4. Open the text file in Excel – navigate to the text file and choose file of type as ‘All Files’

5. Follow instructions to import text – yours will be a ‘Delimited file’. Click to put a tick in the Tab and Comma delimiter fields. (There will be a preview of how your data will appear)

6. Click ‘Finish’ and check data is all in order

7. Go to MailChimp and choose option to copy and paste from Excel

8. Follow instructions to check list headings

Congratulations. Your distribution list is now on MailChimp and you can reward yourself with a banana!

I know this Info is a bit ‘micro niche’ but you might need this process for other data you wish to export and import.

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By Andy Britnell Shaggy Blog Stories 7 Comments Tags: , ,

May 20, 2011

From Fear to Fun – the Blogging Experience

Sally Shalam's Britain - Testimonials for Andy britnell - See a Man About a BlogIf you’ve been wondering why it’s taken me so long to do a post it’s because I’ve been heavily involved in helping one of my clients to set up a great travel blog. What with my current clients, new ones engaging my services, and delivering blogging and social media workshops, I haven’t quite found the time.

What inspires and motivates me most is getting a great idea launched for someone and for them to feel the process has been fun, productive and motivational. I could blab on for ages about what I do, but there is nothing better than unsolicited feedback from satisfied clients.

This one is from Guardian reviewer Sally Shalam who is delighted with her new blog Sally Shalam’s Britain, an independent and personal view of some of the best accommodation and tourist destinations in Britain. It’s early days but I reckon this is going to be extremely popular with people who want a fair and objective review from an expert who has a good eye for what’s cool and contemporary and knows what the discerning traveller is looking for. This is what Sally has to say about working with me:

“If only I’d known how much fun setting up my blog was going to be. Andy has taken me through a step-by-step process at a pace which I am comfortable with.

Much of the setting up is down to him, but our sessions are always part-tutorial so I came away feeling empowered and inspired to contribute myself from day one.

Now I can tackle the things I need to do – from blog posts to SEO – with confidence and manage the blog myself but I know he is on hand when I am too busy or get stuck.

Social media is such vital part of any business but I needed someone to de-mystify it for me.

Thanks Andy, for professionalism without geek-speak, patience without being patronising, and exactly the blog I want. Don’t struggle to get your own blog up and running, just go and See A Man About A Blog.”

By Andy Britnell Shaggy Blog Stories, Writing a blog 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , ,

Feb 1, 2011

You’ve got to be joking…

A great friend of mine shared a brilliant video via Twitter the other day. Unfortunately it was from wimp.com which means I can’t share it here apart from a link which is at bottom of this post. Here is a similar one from YouTube:

Which brings me to the subject of this post – how well does humour work on a blog or in social media?

I’ve seen some links to very dubious videos that were quite frankly unwelcome intrusions in my busy day, so now I’m very selective about whose links I click on. You can go off someone very quickly when they post a tasteless link on Twitter.

Also what counts as humourous for one person is not necessarily found funny by another. You run the risk of alienating your audience if you sail a bit close to the edge.

However I find that a funny link can lift my spirits and that laughter can help to put things back into perspective. So sharing a fun piece can have a valuable effect on others. If you do offend someone maybe they are just not your target market.

I think that before posting something you just need to double-check to see if it adds value in some way. If in doubt, leave it out.

What are your thoughts about using humour for social media and blogging?

Many thanks to Louise Billington for the original link to Animal Voice Overs on wimp.com

By Andy Britnell Shaggy Blog Stories 12 Comments Tags: , , , , , ,

Jan 31, 2011

Falling into blogging

Falling into blogging. The Red Horse SpeaksI have been helping people with their blogs for about 18 months now in a low key ‘I like what you did with that blog, can you do something similar for me’ sort of way. I find I have fallen into a niche which uses many of my talents and skills from coaching to creativity and from inspiration to IT. So perhaps it is time to publicise my offering to people.

The first blog I developed was for my partner Judy Heminsley who is the Jelly Queen and doyenne of Work from Home Wisdom. i changed the theme to something more contemporary and interactive and put the blog on the home page so the content was always fresh.

A client who came along later was Beth Duff, who has a fantastic business called The Red Horse Speaks using horses to teach us about leadership.

Having asked Beth to complete a questionnaire to see what her goals were we had a few discussions about what she wanted to communicate in the blog. We eventually came up with the idea that it was a vehicle for the horses to share their wisdom, so we called it The Red Horse Blogs. Beth and each horse has a category which allows them to express their particular personality and role in the herd.

It’s very fulfilling to be involved in these unique businesses and use my creativity to help people produce an innovative blog.

What I love about blogging is that, when written in someone’s authentic voice, it provides an insight into the way that they think. The writing and navigation options represent their internal structuring of the subject and take us down interesting paths which we can follow using tags and categories.

So please go and have a look at Beth’s blog – if you love horses you will appreciate the content and how Beth has developed it from the original set-up. Here is what she says about the experience of working with me:

Initially Andy set up my blog from scratch so that all I had to do was to write the posts. Gradually he taught me how to manage the blog site and stayed with me until I was ready to take it over completely. Along the way, he gave me all sorts of invaluable tips, hints and shortcuts and made the whole process fun and enjoyable. Even now, he still helps with the occasional query and continues to offer encouragement and ideas.

Thanks, Beth.

By Andy Britnell Shaggy Blog Stories, Writing a blog 10 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Nov 6, 2010

How scary is that?

Starting a blog. How scary is that?After two years of looking after other people’s blogs I have taken action and started this blog. The inspiration for the title came from a client who said that every time she came to see me she would tell her friends that she was going to “see a man about a blog”.

I thought this was so hilarious that I decided to use this as my title rather than a dry and boring one like ‘social media management’. I had thought about using ‘Blogging for the Terrified’ but this is not just a resource for people who are just starting or have a fear about expressing themselves. However when I get faced with a blank theme I can get blocked by the fact that there is so much to do and the thought that no one might be interested in what I have to say.

Fortunately I have read ‘The War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield which tackles this thorny issue. He says that the thing we are most frightened of is the very thing we were sent to this planet to do. There are no clever tricks about beginning to write – you just have to start. And once you start you can usually trick your brain into thinking you might actually have something interesting to impart.

So my hope is that I can inspire other people to write blogs and share their unique knowledge with the world – you might even make a bit of money or even a lot of money! Even if it just allows you to explore your creative part then I think it would have been worth the effort.

You are always welcome to ask questions. I like questions – it means you are willing to learn something.

Keep blogging

Andy

By Andy Britnell Shaggy Blog Stories 11 Comments Tags: , , ,

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