We recently saw the launch of a new lifestyle brand, HelloBrit.com which aims to find helpful, yet creative new ways for busy people to live more simply, beautifully and imaginatively. Brit Morin (wife to Dave Morin, the founder of Path) has been working in the tech world for several years now and was a former Apple and Google employee. She is already being touted as the Martha Stewart of Silicon Valley and has recently been featured in The LA Times, Huffington Post, and TechCrunch. Brit gives new ideas and tips to live a more simple and creative life whether it be through technology, food, style, health that she either created or curated from scouring the web, something that is becoming very popular! Brit says “The ideas should come to you, and they should come through a channel whose expertise and taste you trust.”

Her site is looking like a cross between Real Simple and Wired Magazines with videos showing you how to make Christmas tree cheese appetizers, how to use electrical tape to make candy cane cups, DIY Holiday welcome mats, wearable dinner party napkins, and more. She recently featured a great gift guide for the holidays and showcases 20 of her favorite products and apps. Thanks Brit!

The brand’s first offering is a wedding app called Weduary, which was inspired by the process that Morin and her husband used in planning their own ”Pixel Cowboy”- themed wedding this summer. This will be a new service for brides and grooms, and will hopefully make for a more interesting experience for guests online and off. Make sure to sign up on the website to be notified when the new site arrives! There will be some other apps launched in the future which will likely be centered around ways to be creative around the home and novel ways to perform everyday activities like cooking, decorating and shopping.

We hope you enjoy and use Hello Brit for a little inspiration into your own creativity! We know that at ABCey, we will be keeping up Brit’s innovative ideas and using them for inspiration of our own, especially this holiday season.

We all know that in this day and age, websites are extremely crucial for companies.  That being said, it wasn’t t until the past couple years that Typography for the web has become important.  We, at ABCey Events, are currently updating our brand and website, and we want to choose the right typography.  Here are some helpful tips that Kelli Shaver, has outlined for us:

• Readability:  Make sure that the typography you choose is readable! There is no point in having a font if no one can read it.  Therefore, sometimes sticking to default fonts for your body might be your best bet.  Although, it can be “boring”, it is easy to read and gets the point across.  So, keep it simple, stick to around 13px, and keep the font at a medium weight.  If you want to make your headline fancy, go ahead, but keep the rule of thumb: make sure it’s readable.
• Mood and Message:  Fonts illustrate the mood and message of your website.  Bold fonts can portray strength and it immediately grabs the attention of the reader, whereas lightweight fonts can portray a freedom to read and think as you wish.  Just like you shouldn’t have a variety of different font types, make sure you don’t have too many font weights as well. Pick a style and stick with it.

Working daily and trying to manage your everyday life can be tough and stressful.  Sometimes it can even be hard to try to find the time to take a break and recharge your batteries. That is why Rebecca Shambaugh has pinpointed 6 ways to refocus and recharge.

1. Don’t Go Another Day Without a Life Plan:  If you develop a life plan, then you are ultimately thinking about what you want to attain over the course of your life.
2. Fill Your Whole Tank:  When you look at your life, consider four aspects: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.  Try to keep all of these aspects in line and if you feel one is not in harmony with another, try to focus on that particular aspect.  This will require you to concentrate about what you are doing personally and professionally.
3. Be Intentional About Having Healthy Disruptions in Your Life:  Plan to take breaks in between work and your personal life. Read a magazine or book, take a walk, or relax! You deserve to take a break.
4. Create a Revised Time “Budget” That Reflects Your Real Life Priorities:  Take a look at how you spend your time each day and figure out where you can gain some time or relocate your attention to other priorities.
5. Establish Your Boundaries and Communicate Them:  You make the changes in your life and decide how you want to prioritize your time. Don’t let other people try to dictate your priorities and choices. Be vocal and clear about what you need.
6. Build Your Support Network and Actually Use it:  Surround yourself with people that inspire and motivate you and are good company.  Stay focused as to what is important to you and be with people that give you energy and provide a little fun in your life.

Customers will use social media to give compliments or complaints about a company, regardless of whether that company uses social media itself.  Therefore, it is important for a business to use social media to give their customers an environment to share their thoughts. Dave Toliver, Director of Corporate Marketing at Angel, gives seven ways to create a memorable customer experience with social media.

• Give Your Customers a Place to Talk:  If you don’t have a place for your customers to talk openly, they will do it behind your backs and you may never know what customers don’t like. Therefore, having a place for customers to freely give compliments or complaints, allows you to know what you are doing well or need to resolve.
• Integrate Social Media Into Your Customer Service:  Giving a place for customers to voice their complaints allows for you to find a way to fix them, but be prepared to have resolutions for the complaints.  Likewise, if a customer compliments you, make sure to give them thanks or even coupons and rewards.
• Activate Your Existing Customer Base:  Many businesses have more customers than they do Facebook or Twitter followers.  Reach out to the current customers to start building your social media fan base. Then use the social media to reach new customers and perhaps promotions to sell your product.
• Be Proactive:  Interact with customers. Engaging in conversations will make you noticeable and customers happy.
• Reward Influencers:  If you reward customers, they will most likely be advocates for your business.
• Create Compelling Content:  Give your customers something they can admire on your page.  Remember, they are following you, so you want to make them feel special and exclusive.
• Stand Out From the Crowd:  The majority of social media is done by text. Be different and make yourself stand out. Use pictures, voice applications, or even music, to engage with the customers and make yourself memorable.

We’re loving Event Espresso over here, even though we haven’t had a chance to use this events registration and management plugin for WordPress just yet. One of the most important choices you can make for your meeting, conference, or event is the website design. The onsite registration and calendar module features make this a great choice, among many other reasons! They seem to keep adding new features too such as a custom form builder, early bird registrations, Groupon integration and Facebook, Twitter, and Mailchimp addons. This is looking like exactly what we need for some of our clients & their events!

Event Espresso has all the event management tools you need, from accepting payments to reports to promotions.

• Custom descriptions
• Multiple event dates
• Multiple event times
• Multiple event prices, surcharges, member pricing
• Event location and mapping
• Custom email confirmations
• Event categories
• On-going events
• Attendee limits
• Group registrations
• Make events a blog post
• and more!

This premium plugin for WordPress allows you to turn your existing blog or website into a fully featured event management website. If your organization offers classes, workshops, events, trainings or conferences for which participants need to register in advance, Event Espresso can make you a hero. This online event registration system can save your organization countless hours of administrative time, create a “green” and paperless event registration process, reduce costs and be available to take sign-ups 24/7. Everything from custom confirmation and reminder emails to payment management, and quite a bit more is all included and automatically handled for you.

The plugin even creates registration forms so attendees can sign up right on your website. Attendee information is also stored right in the WordPress database, allowing you to have access at any time. If you don’t have a PayPal or Authorize.net account, it’s okay. Event Espresso now offers alternate methods of accepting payments. Registrants can now download a PDF invoice or pay by Cash/Ckeck/Money Order, Bank Transfer, Authorize.net, and PayPal. There is even an option to pay by bank transfer!

Thanks Event Espresso. This is a great tool and we are sure to use it here at ABCey Events soon!

Blogs have been written for years about interesting articles and topics that inspire people to comment and give feedback. What most people don’t think about before starting their own blog is how to properly write one that will be successful. When starting a business or continuing the growth of an existing one, social media and blogging can have a big impact on your success. When it comes to event planning having a blog can be helpful in getting feedback on how an event went and getting your company name out there.  A blog is like your own personal newspaper, it’s up to you what subject and content you write about and can be fun too!

These five steps will help send you on a straight path for successful blog that can end even end up making you money and help get your voice heard.

1. Come up with a Blog premise that people will enjoy reading: When writing your blog try to stay away from only including personal things. People often enjoy reading about a lot of different subjects.   Not every blog will be perfect but keeping a variety of things will help keep the readers interested.

2. Try out many different ideas before focusing on one category: Everyone has a different writing style, writing is really all about trial and error. After finding your witting style and a good topic, it will help you build up your fan base.

3. Pick a blog subject you passionate about: “Your passion is your gateway to success.” People honestly enjoy what you’re passionate about.  This is a huge reason why your blog is successful; writing with passion will help maximize how successful the blog turns out.

4. Don’t be self conscious about your writing: The beauty of blogging is that anyone can do it. Becoming self-conscious about your writing can make your blog success suffer. Don’t let the silence of that fear creep into your head. You have control over how much effort and passion you put into the blog, the more the better! As long as you stand full ground behind your blog your readers will too.

These rules hopefully have given you a strong basis to start blogging! It’s lot of fun and can really help your business flourish.  What success has blogging brought to your company?

It doesn’t seem as though there’d be many similarities between bloggers and construction workers, but upon closer inspection, the commonalities run deep.  Problogger has provided us with a few valuable lessons we bloggers can learn from construction workers:

1. The best way to learn is by doing: Construction workers are rarely found reading manuals on how to operate their machinery.  They are given the equipment and they figure it out from there.  As bloggers, trial and error is the most efficient method of achieving success.

2. Learn how to use your tools: Just as construction workers know which tools to use to get the job done, bloggers must learn to use their resources, or “tools”, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and WordPress.  Become the master of your (construction) sites!

3. Make sure you get it done: Simply “thinking, talking, and tweeting” are not going to get the job done.  You have to actually sit down and write posts consistently, and by practicing this, your blog will greatly improve.

4. Learn from a master craftsman: Pay attention to the leaders in the blogosphere and take note of how they formulate their posts and how they create interesting, memorable headlines.

As event planners, have you found blogging to be a successful means to getting your name out there?  What other tips can you share that have worked for you?

To get the rest of these tricks of the trade, click here!

If you have been looking for that stellar advice on how to produce effective online content, consider your search finished. Copyblogger.com has laid out a five-step formula that will help any newbie or veteran content marketer attain the success they seek in this department.

1. Effective content is educational content. Content that sells is content that teaches. It is informational and useful to your audience. Don’t be a salesman with your writing, be a teacher.
2. Effective content exhibits personality. Educate in an entertaining, reader-friendly way, and don’t be afraid to really put yourself into your writing. This allows people to better connect to your content.
3. Effective content draws in a reader with a great headline. Well thought out headlines will attract more links, more social media sharing, more readers and more customers.
4. Effective content keeps SEO in mind. Educational and ready friendly material is content that Google wants to serve, and thus best serves your search engine optimization.
5. Last but certainly not least, effective content puts the reader first. This is the most vital of all steps, and will help the rest fall into place if you keep this in mind. It is not about what you can gain from the blog, it is about what your audience can gain from it. The less you focus on the money you want to make from it or its popularity, and instead focus on the readers and customers, the more you will achieve with your writing.

We at ABCey think this five-step plan imparts sound, comprehensive advice. It is all straightforward but be prepared because it will take work to fully achieve these steps. Do these tips seem helpful to you? If you have already tried any or all of these, how much has it helped? Would you add anything else to this list?

Do you feel like your blog posts could use a little more zest these days? If your posts are feeling flat and in need of a lift, you’re not alone. That’s why we are featuring these nine ways to help get your writing where you want it to be:

1. Add a snappy title and subtitles. Headlines are important, as we all know, because it is your big chance to introduce and hopefully pull in a reader. So, instead of going with the first title you think of, really take the time and mull over this important introductory statement.
2. Introduce powerful images. Images are eye-catching, set the tone of your post, and can make your post look more professional. Include at least one image at the top of your post, and if your piece is long, add more to break up the text and add visual interest.
3. Tap into readers’ concerns. Successful posts are those that solve a potential problem of your reader. Know your readers and work to help them with their struggles.
4. Add a personal anecdote. Not to be used in every post, personal stories can be powerful when used correctly. It gives your readers the chance to connect to your character and to hook them on an emotional level.
5. Offer “take home” tips. Provide clear points that get your reader thinking and ensure that they take something memorable away from your post.
6. Get readers to react. Pose your opinions and ideas in a way that enables thoughtful reactions from your readers. This allows them to actively engage in your content. This is often done by asking thought-provoking questions.
7. Include quotes from other bloggers. If you find quotes from other blogs that are poignant and relevant to what you are writing about, it helps to include them in your post. It can help to break up the post and add interest by inserting another voice into your piece, and can also help to validate a point you are making.
8. Use analogies. Analogies can be a great tool for helping your readers to understand and/or relate to a point you are making.
9. Make your language punchier. Always important in good writing, make use of strong yet effective vocabulary helps you get your message across in a simple but compelling manner.

To read the full article, click here! At ABCey we think these kinds of tips are always useful to increase your blog skills. Do you use any of these pointers in your blogs? Do you think these can help to spice up your writing?

It is always important when maintaining a blog to keep in mind how to grab the attention of a first time customer, and then of course to hold it. Here we are concerned with the grabbing, for which there are the following tips that will help build credibility with your first time readers right off the bat.

Provide quantitative instead of qualitative statements. Your readers are not going to believe statements like “we provide the best event planning advice”. Credibility does not exactly come to mind when one reads such claims. Instead, provide evidence and concrete examples of your blogs success, such as “# new subscribers daily,” and “over # new twitter followers every day”. This type of provided information consistently produces higher conversion rates.

Let somebody else do the bragging for you. “Providing testimonials” can prove even more successful than disclosing your own statements of the blogs accomplishments. Your readers positive feedback holds a lot of weight and should be shown off on your site, even if the comments are qualitative, i.e. “ABCey has the most wonderful blog on event planning”. Research shows that letting others do the bragging for your heightens your credibility quickly.

Put a universal Like button on your blog. Make this button visible on event post and every page. Since next to the button it shows the number of people who have clicked like, it provides social proof that this is a place that others enjoy visiting, that there are real people reading the blog, and will make the customer curious at least.

From there, the great content of your blog will keep them settled on your site and wanting to come back for more. These tips are mainly relevant to blogs that have potential to build long term audience relationships, and we at ABCey hope they come in handy for those with that goal! Are there any other words of advice you can offer on this matter? What have you done to hold the attention of visitors to your blog? Do these tips sound useful?

To read the full article, click here!