EBWAY Creative Blog

EBWAY Creative - the revenue factory is born

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:46:00 GMT

I'm really excited to announce the creation of our new company, the revenue factory, inc. trf combines the strategic excellence of elevate29, LLC and web execution dominance of EBWAY Creative Solutions. The companies have merged.

Over the years EBWAY Creative has always been at the forefront of technology. We've done some amazing things and hopefully, have caused a lot of start-up business owners to prosper . Please take a moment to learn what we're doing now and why. It's really exciting!

As 2011 came to a close and 2012 started, it was evident that if EBWAY Creative were going to grow, it needed to expand it's capabilities and it's reach. There were internal processes to fix and rebuild. And, there were external things to improve on as well. In the past, we've been able to do Web Strategy and Web Design very well, but our clients missed out on the revenue growth stuff - the real business building, Top-Line growth stuff. We were implementing software, not strategy. We were building cool looking websites, not sales.

All in all, we learned that you can't truly be a "Jack of All Trades" because then you'll be a "Master of None". We saw our competitors offering services like "Content Marketing" and "Social Media" but we were always confused as to how a Web Design shop that's built nothing but websites for years all of sudden thinks they understand marketing at the revenue-growth level. That was always puzzling. So, we never jumped on the band wagon, and we never offered a service that we couldn't fully deliver on, let alone support.

the revenue factory is born...

The Internet is an ever-changing landscape that requires a watchful eye to know and understand how to use it to grow sales. While EBWAY was great, we needed something more. Our customers needed something more. Actually, our customers needed Internet Marketing Strategies, Social Marketing Tools and Vision for Growth. They needed more than fancy websites and cool graphics! That's when we found elevate29.

We actually had no intention of formalizing a new company. That's how crazy all of this is. But, I'm sure Apple didn't start out saying, "we'll invent a phone 20 years from now that will change the mobile landscape forever", but they did. By combining the ability, experience and knowledge of EBWAY Creative and elevate29, we bring to the market a totally new type of service offering. One that starts and ends with increasing REVENUE for our customers.

We're going to help our customers make some serious cash!

What's it look like?

For starters, we'll sit down with you and go over your vision. Then, we'll build a strategy that puts that vision into motion. Once we have a roadmap in place and we understand how to truly grow your top-line, we'll build the stuff (websites, etc.) that you need to make it all work flawlessly!

What's next?

We've just launched our new website www.revenuelove.com, so go on over and check it out. Learn about our services (Revenue Solutions). From here on out our sole focus is on revenue growth and helping everyone who chooses to work with us build wealth for their children's children.

Sound big? It is.

By the way...

EBWAY Creative isn't going anywhere/ Although our focus is changing, the brand isn't. Over the next few months we'll be digging into our Business Catalyst knowledge and growing our BC Dev team so that we can come along side our partners and offer some amazing revenue generating solutions. This merger means we now have access to more staff, more funds, and more of everything. Take advantage of it!

Visit www.revenuelove.com for more information and find out about our new services.

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Content Marketing Invitation vs. Invasion Event

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:58:00 GMT

EBWAY Creative is partnered with BMA and 4 Online Business & Marketing Gurus to present at BMA’s roundtable event in February. Come explore how content marketing has hit the web scene hard and why it is so important to secure that all-important invitation today. This is an open session, bring your questions and we'll give you the answers!

Joining EBWAY Creative will be Matt Weeden, Jennifer Whitton, Greg Bond, and John Stein.

Register & Learn more at Invitation vs. Invasion Event

Google Index Verification

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:02:00 GMT

How to verify if your website had been properly indexed by Google.

This is kind of a quick, geek trick that we wanted to share with our readers. If you've ever wondered how to make sure your website had been indexed by Google, simply use what we call the "site, command" trick. Here's how...

Go to the Google search screen (the main page)
Type in "site:yourwebsiteurl.com" (no spaces, no wwww, just as you see it)
Click on Show Search Tools and have fun!

Here's a quick video for all you visual learners out there:

That's it, pretty easy isn't it. Thanks for reading, we just thought that would be helpful, enjoy.

Google Goes Social

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 00:47:00 GMT

We all know (or at least, we should) that the most effective way increase website visitors is to get social by providing a variety of things like: free resources, tips, advice, statistics, etc. However, you also need to make it easy for your audience to share that content or it's next to useless. In the past we've seen Facebook, Twitter, and other apps battle it out for the top spot - now Google enters the ring with a whole new twist on social marketing and collaboration with Google+.

The theory: if you have an easy to click button, people will click it. Does it work? Absolutely! The bas news is, Google's +1 service is now via invite only. I'm sure it will open up again, but the initial launch was almost too successful so they had to put the breaks on the sign ups. This means it's going to be a critical pice of the online business puzzle.

You need to know that this isn't just about the +1 button. Google has an entire arsenal of social tools coming!

Google is betting that its new social network, Google+, will fix what it calls the "awkward" state of online sharing--but Google isn't yet sharing invitations to its latest project with everyone, so be patient.

Users have been clamoring for invitations to Google+, which Google launched as a limited "field trial," noting "you may find some rough edges." Access to the project is currently by invitation only, and a limited number of users were given 15 invitations apiece to bring others on board. "We’re still ironing out a few kinks in Google+, so it’s not quite ready for everyone to climb aboard," Google wrote.

Google knows that by limiting access, they will actually create more demand. So, the launch of Google+ is no different than that of Google Wave or even the initial Gmail launch.

Here's some cool things to look forward too and, if you're smart, jump on board early to beat out your competition!

Google Sparks

Sparks digests your interests and sends back stories, videos and photos you might like.

Google Circles

Drag and drop your friends and/or family into buckets to form groups.

Want more info? Visit the links below...

The +1 Button: http://www.google.com/+1/button/
The Google Plus Project: http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/learnmore/

Online Business Builder Video

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 04:17:00 GMT

Watch the new video and learn why more and more business owners are choosing the EBWAY website software for their business...

Business Catalyst Scheduled Update

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 19:55:00 GMT

Business Catalyst has a scheduled update on Feb 20th - please read...

What is happening?

We are migrating all sites and BC application infrastructure from Sydney Primus to Sydney Ultimo in one bulk-move!

Target Start Date/Time: 1:00AM Sunday 20 February 2011 (Australian EDT) | 6:00AM Saturday 19 February 2011 (US Pacific) | 2:00PM Saturday 19 February 2011 (London)
Target End Date/Time: 7:00AM Sunday 20 February 2011 (Australian EDT) | 12:00PM Saturday 19 February 2011 (US Pacific) | 8:00PM Saturday 19 February 2011 (London)
Customer Impact - All Customers: After the migration, you will be required to update your DNS redelegation to our new nameservers.

During the migration, you will also experience the following:

DW Extension and Triangle will not work
BC Partners won't be able to login into Partner Portal
All user management functions will be unavailable (ie. create user, edit user, delete user)
DNS management tools will be unavailable
Setting a start page will not work
Clicking "Webmail" from the Admin Console will not work
Users will receive an error upon logout
Users may experience intermittent logouts as session tokens expire
Users who are associated with a Partner Site on the legacy DC will be unable to login to all sites

Steps you need to take

For all sites with domains redelegated to Business Catalyst, you will need to update your DNS redelegation to use our new nameservers. For instructions please refer to this knowledgebase article. You will have a time window of 60 days to do this following completion of the migration.

Following this date, we will be decommissioning our legacy nameservers.

Please Note: We are sending an email (Feb 16th @2pm Mountain) to all of the website owners that are clients of EBWAY Creative. This email contains instructions and more details.

Thank you.

Sonoran Pavers - BC Template

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 23:06:00 GMT

Last year we didn't post many jobs to our little blog here - our goal this year is to do more of these types of posts... So we're excited to show off a new Business Catalyst template for business website owners. This dynamic website template was created for those who need to showcase large images within their online businesses. It's perfect for Real Estate, Landscaping, or even Contractor type businesses. Check it out below...

Project Details

Below are some screen shots of the finished product but you really need to check this out for yourself at www.SonoranPavers.com - it's a great looking and functional Business Catalyst website.

Project Details

Sonoran Pavers was looking for a way to stand out in the paver/hardscape market and loved the way this website template showcased their work. The home page has a button at the top that removes the main menu for a full view of the rotating images. Additionally, each internal page can it's own large image giving each page it's own feel. All in all this project was a huge success and Sonoran Pavers was able to easily implement this Business Catalyst website template into their web marketing plans for 2011.

Services Provided

Business Catalyst Template
Content Migration
Graphic Design
Business Catalyst Setup
Training and Workflow Setup

Total Time = 3 Weeks!

EBWAY Wins BC Guru Contest

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 02:58:00 GMT

We recently won a contest over at BC Gurus that was for Sales Process 101 for Business Catalyst partners. The best part was "How" we won...

It came down to a tie for first, so Brent Weaver at Hot Press Web had his dog, Ninja, choose the final winner... it was fun and just goes to show you that you can be a serious BC expert and keep your sense of humor.

See the Video Here...

EMAIL INSTRUCTIONS for BC EMAIL ACCOUNT

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:32:00 GMT

Update: 1/28/2011 @ 10am Mountain - Quick update for Resetting "Email Only" user passwords. Please use this link: Reset PW Link: https://secure.worldsecuresystems.com/ChangePassword.aspx

Important Notice: Security and Mail Upgrades for your Online Business

Hi Jonathan,

This is a notification that Business Catalyst (aka Online Business Builder) will be making a major system upgrade that will require you to reset or change your password to continue using the system. If you are using hosted email - i.e you can access your email account by going to mail.yourdomain.com; this migration may affect your ability to view existing emails in your inbox for up to 72 hours.

What is happening: ADOBE Business Catalyst is releasing a system-wide security and email infrastructure upgrade. Business Catalyst is migrating mail accounts from existing infrastructure to new mail infrastructure for all EBWAY Creative clients!
Migration Start Time: 1:00AM Friday 28 January 2011 (US Pacific) Check local times
Migration End Time: 1:00AM Monday 31 January 2011 (US Pacific) Check local times
Duration: 72 hours for full mail migration- although most accounts will be migrated in less time
Customer Impact: All users are required to reset/update passwords after the migration begins. Users with hosted email will not have access to existing mail in their mailboxes until it is migrated to their new mailboxes.

Steps you need to take

During the next few days, upon attempting to login either through your current desktop e-mail client (using POP3 or IMAP) or through the webmail interface, your login credentials will stop working and you'll receive an "Invalid username or password" error.

Upon receiving this error, the steps you'll need to take are:

If you have access to the site's Admin Console (ie. you're an Admin user with email enabled):

Login in site Admin with the user account for which you wish to perform a password change
Go Home -> My Details -> Change Password form
Enter old password and new password twice, and save the changes

This will result in the password being changed for both Admin and email access.

Changing your password via the Webmail login interface (ie.you're an "email only" user)

Go to Webmail as per usual (eg: mail.mydomain.com)
At the login screen you'll see a message that requests you perform a password update: "For security reasons, you will need to reset your password. Please go here to change your password."
Clicking on Change password link will load a form where you can update your password.
Enter your e-mail address, old password and new password twice, then save the changes

Once you have updated your password, you'll be able to login to the webmail interface, or through your desktop email client using the new password.

Please Note: Upon logging in with your new password, you will not see your old e-mail in the web interface or via IMAP, as we will be migrating e-mail to the new service following password upgrade. This means that your e-mail inbox and folders will look empty. Please wait a few days until the migration is complete for the older emails to appear.

Kind Regards,
EBWAY Creative

EMAIL MIGRATION Q&A

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:16:00 GMT

From: Eddy Chan at Business Catalyst | Please read in preparation...

In the 24 hours since I published my last OpenSRS Mail Migration update yesterday a slew of questions have sprung up both in the comments thread and also in a thread on our own support forums called 'OpenSRS Transition'. These are all valid questions, I understand your concerns and I'm posting again today to do my best to openly and honestly answer as many of them as possible in one place:

Mail Migration Q&A

Question: When the transition occurs (prior to password resets) will email continue to collect or does the password routine actually activate the email box creation?
Answer:Yes mail will collect inside the OpenSRS mailbox before the password reset. Any mail that was collected in the old MailEnable account prior to the cutover will be gradually migrated across to the OpenSRS mailbox as well

Question: If email box creation is not dependent on the password being created will aliases also receive / deliver email (including common domains). these are set in users in the dashboard? Will existing email forwards still be active or need to be manually created?
Answer: Yes, any Aliases and Forwards setup in the current system will be carried automatically over to the new mail system and mail will continue to be delivered via those

Question: If an email account is a catch all currently will it act as a catch all after the transition or will it need to be re initiated?
Answer: Catch-alls will no longer be available with OpenSRS - they are not supported because they contribute to spam since they do not trigger bouncebacks for non-existent email addresses. Customers will need to setup aliases to catch email sent to common email addresses such as sales@, help@ et.

Question: Will webmail address books transition across or need to be saved and reimported (can they currently be saved)?
Answer: Unfortunately Webmail address books can't be exported, this functionality simply doesn't exist in MailEnable so we will not be able to migrate these across.

Question: Do all users need to have their passwords reset? Do Admin users who do not user BC mail servers also need to reset their passwords?
Answer: Yes all users have to have their passwords reset including Admin users who do not use BC mail servers because we are making an upgrade to our security infrastructure. I would've avoided this if I could just so that those who had BC hosted email needed to update their passwords but there was no workaround.

Question: As "email only" users (i.e BC mail users) can not log in anywhere to change their passwords I presume that any such change will need to be performed by an admin user for that site or the partner needs to reset the user password and then convey the new password to the users. Is this correct?
Answer: No, email only users we need to go to this URL https://secure.worldsecuresystems.com/ChangePassword.aspx where they will be given a 'Change Password' portal that looks like the following screenshot.

Question: What is the timing for this change of password or "triggering" to occur?
Answer: Our current plan is to have it occur on Friday morning (US Pacific), this will be Saturday early AM in Asia-Pacific and Friday evening in Europe. Once I have the exact schedule I will be updating all partners with it.

Question: Is there any way in which partners can obtain a list of all users for each client site as a single report. I only have 28 sites but I hate to think of what this all involves for those with a lot of BC sites
Answer: Unfortunately not at this moment - we are relying on Partners to make contact site owners and provide them with the instructions that I have drafted here. Site owners can then pass the message onto their site users. Obviously, this process isn't optimal and this communication chain is something I'm looking to improve in the future.

Question: For users who have a mail client like Outlook and don't login to a user interface, how will they know when it is time, and how to go about updating their passwords?
Answer: As their BC Partner, you will need to send them an email. I've thought long and hard about this one, we had to take white-labeling considerations into account and if we were to send a very generic "Please Update Your Password" email with an unrecognized link it would've looked like a phishing scam. We would rather partners send out a email with their own branding from a trusted email address warning their clients that their online business hosting vendor is about to undergo a security and email upgrade. I will be publishing this email for you to send to your clients as soon as we have exact details

Question: Will there be extended coverage of support and 3rd party vendors support this coming weekend as a backup during the transition aftermath?
Answer: Given that we are on schedule to run the migration on Friday morning (US Pacific) we will have support and engineering teams to provide coverage for email related issues this weekend. OpenSRS will be providing our team with vendor support as well throughout the weekend. I met personally with a couple of their folks in San Francisco this morning and we have their assurance that we're in good hands from a vendor standpoint.

Question: Should I be notifying my clients of possible email black outs where they will lose emails relating to the new logins?
Answer: Your customers will not lose any emails throughout the migration. What will happen though is that once the DNS switch is made, it will take some time for the mail that arrived in their MailEnable account to appear in their OpenSRS account. I've allowed for up to 72 hours in my communications but the engineering team is quietly confident that we can keep it down to 36 hours at maximum and less in most cases.

Question: I'm hoping that BC will put out a "Tech Notice Email Newsletter" to all partners with step by step instructions of what's required for a smooth transition on new SRS, prior to the migration. (Not all the partners read the blog or dig out the info from forums). We will need a final definitive set of instructions to share with our customers to make it easy for them. An official email from BC outlining whats required would be great.
Answer: I will be sending out a final set of instructions to ALL BC Partners tomorrow via email. The reason I have held off sending it thus far is that I don't want you jumping the gun and updating passwords before we've even made the necessary system updates. I've also been waiting on the engineering work for the migration to be verified so we can be exact with dates and times as well.

Question: Just adding to this post - I agree with the comments in this thread - aside from the BC Blog post regarding the migration, can you provide specific step by step instructions that we can give to our clients, as there seems to be a lot of confusion here with exactly what needs to be done.
Answer: As answered once I finalize the client communications email, you will be able to download it, customize it and then send to your clients.

Question: What happens to email accounts that we manually migrated, on your advice, earlier in the crisis? Will they also experience the "reset your password" step?
Answer: Their OpenSRS accounts will not be affected by the mail migration, however they will still need to reset their Admin Console passwords or use the 'Change Password' portal for mail-only users as we are upgrading our security infrastructure in BC

Question: Will the users be required to clear their mailbox completely BEFORE the transition and if not will they lose whatever they have not retrieved (ie unopened emails)?
Answer:Yes, if your clients have IMAP or POP setup, they should be trying to download their latest emails. Whatever they do not retrieve will be migrated to the new accounts within 72 hours after the switch has been made.

Question: Why are customer accounts treated with less security than user accounts? Business Catalyst currently stores raw passwords for customer accounts, hence why I can view a customer record and see their password. I presume this is different for user accounts but why the difference? Anyone can create a BC site and collect passwords. I don't agree with it but that's how your current system works. I'm just wondering why a customer account (password) is deemed less important. Would love a reply to this one
Answer: Customer accounts on sites are not deemed any less important, they just run on different security infrastructure. This is something I will fix in the BC V3. I agree the CRM passwords should be made much more secure so people can't create BC sites to collect passwords.

Question: An end consumer here - what are you doing about CMS that are accessed using email address? Not being able to update web / post blog comment is going to be crippling.
Answer: Users will still be able to access the CMS using their existing password. They will have a full month to reset/change their password. The pressing issue here is giving them access to their new email accounts which means they need to reset or change their password immediately.

I hope this provides a lot of the answers that Partners have been looking for. My apologies for any confusion caused yesterday, it's my job to make everything as clear and concise as possible. Your feedback so far has been appreciated. I will continue to update this blog on a daily basis with news about Mail Migration until it is completed and all issues are resolved. Thanks for reading!

Eddy Chan
BC Product Manager

Email Fix - Customer Action Required

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:09:00 GMT

ADOBE BUSINESS CATALYST EMAIL FIX: With the ongoing intermittent IMAP service issues, Adobe engineers have been working over the weekend to speed up completion of all the work necessary for a migration from MailEnable to OpenSRS. We're hoping this will happen towards the end of this week. Here's an update on what's happened so far.

Completed implementation of our DNS migration tool. This tool will be responsible for making the correct MX record and A record modifications only for sites which use Business Catalyst mail hosting. Code review and testing is currently in progress.
Because OpenSRS uses a different password tokenization algorithm we've also had to make some modifications to our authentication layer so we're able to pass the correct password token to them when you login to the Admin Console. Code review is in progress, we will begin testing this tonight
As a consequence of the changes to the BC authentication layer, we also need to add a few UI changes to notify users of said changes when they login. This notice will also provide them with steps they should take to update their password. I have covered this point in more detail in below in my 'Customer Action Required' section

So what do all these changes mean from a customers standpoint? After the release with the above-mentioned changes has been completed, the next time you or your clients' sign in to Business Catalyst you will be provided with a notice including instructions which will tell you to update your password.

This is because we need to generate a new password token for the OpenSRS mail service based on the new password you provide for us. We never stored raw passwords for security compliance so we were unable to generate a new token automatically. This will affect ALL users, not just users with BC hosted email as the authentication changes we made are system-wide.

For sites with BC hosted email there's several extra points to take note of:

If you are an 'Email Only' user, you will need to go to a special URL that we will provide where you can reset or change your password. You will need to enter your current email address, current password, new password and then confirm the new password before you can login to your new Webmail interface. The URL you need to go to will be provided on the new Webmail login interface that will continue to be accessed from 'mail.clientdomain.com'.
If you are a Site Administrator with 'Email Only' user accounts on your site you should pro-actively notify your users that they will need to go to a special URL to reset/change their passwords so they can login to their new new OpenSRS email account.

Latest Migration Schedule

To be completely transparent about what is happening at BC, below is the latest tentative schedule for mail migration (all times are US Pacific):

Thursday (early AM) 27 January: Release DNS and Security related changes onto Production servers
Thursday (afternoon) 27 January: Provision all mail existing accounts with a new OpenSRS mailbox
Friday (early AM) 28 January: Switch DNS MX records for all sites from MailEnable to OpenSRS - at this point your mail will be redirected to your new mailbox. By 7:00AM, the DNS migration will be complete, you will be able to login to the new mail account after you have updated your password inside the Admin Console.
Friday (afternoon) 28 January: Start migrating existing mail across servers. Because we've had to accelerate this process we haven't had enough time to test and verify how long this will take. This will continue into the weekend and we y estimate it will take around 24 hours to move the mail across but could take anything up to 72 hours in the worst case

Throughout the week I'll be posting regular updates as we get closer to the Migration date especially if there are any changes, please watch out for these on the BC Blog.

BC Email Information and Updates

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 18:09:00 GMT

Even through we're confident that the new Adobe Business Catalyst email system will work fine for most business owners - if email has become what I call "Business Critical" for your organization - than ou'll want to get control of it and move all your email accounts to a solid, secure, and professional system. This post will cover the future plans for email accounts and where you can find more information, please read...

You can visit the links to Business Catalyst announcements on their blog...

Jan 20 - EMAIL ISSUES & INSTRUCTIONS
Jan 21 - MAIL MIGRATION EXPEDITED

At the end of the day - WebMail works, so all of our clients can send and receive mail. Remember, the email is not completely broken.

Business Critical Email - Our Recommendation

We strongly recommend you use an email service attached to your domain name, like Go Daddy or 1&1 for example. The funny thing is that Email Hosting is cheap! It's between .99 cents (at 1and1.com) and $2/mo (at RackSpace.com) - so setting your own email hosting is a breeze.

In the meantime, while Adobe takes the next 1-2 weeks to get email back into 100% operation and moves everyone to the new OpenSRS platform, you can always use WebMail.

Watch for Updates, Follow Us!

EBWAY Creative will be providing updates via Facebook and Twitter, so please follow us to stay up to date and informed, we'll be sending out updates frequently!

Getting Support?

Lastly, if you need Support or any kind, please use our Support Ticking Form on our website [http://ebwaydev.com/support-form] - do not email us directly for Support and/or Questions at this time.

We will only be handling support through our Client Support Center only - thank you. Email does not have to be operational for our support system to work, this is for your benefit.

Client Support Link: http://ebwaydev.com/support-form

*PLEASE NOTE: If you use 3rd Party software like Outlook - we can not help with that software. Why? Because we don't use it and we're not licensed to offer support for Microsoft products. If you're using any 3rd party software like Outlook, Exchange Servers, Internal Servers, etc. - than please contact your IT company for support. We'll be happy to give them any instructions and/or guidance they need to do their job. Thank you.

Sincerely, Jonathan Hinshaw / Owner

Business Catalyst Email Issues & Our Fix

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:20:00 GMT

The resent outages of the Business Catalyst email servers has been disappointing, to say the least. Never the less, it posses the question - what should we do about it? Here at EBWAY Creative, our main system is the BC platform and we have always enjoyed the ease of an all-in-one solution. That being said, email is considered by most as critical business tool, so we're looking into what our options are to assist our clients and that means we've got to get pro-active...

Business Catalyst Email Issue History.

Read the Update from Adobe Business Catalyst Here...

This is the first email down issue of the year, but we had problems 2 or 3 times last year. All just as bad, all just as frustrating. Even through the email trouble lasts for only 2-3 hours, it's 2-3 hours and it's up and down for 3-4 days. Leaving us to answer the phone and go through WebMail instructions, apologies, and generally just wasting everyone's time - especially or clients.

However, I must say (in Adobe's defense) that the email accounts were only down for a limited amount of time in the morning and then in the evening. Granted it was during a business day, but it's not like email went dead for 2 or even 1 solid business day. So, in the end, no one died - so to speak :)

The Knee-Jerk Reaction.

We first thought we should maybe just stop offering the email, or just tell our clients that Business Catalyst Email is a "Use at your own risk" option. Then, we started to look at hosting the email ourselves, like on MediaTemple or RackSpace - both companies have a fantastic record and we currently do business with each. Since we can't just drop BC Email from our current clients, it's a tough spot to be in.

It's going to require some planning, so we can't just "FIX IT" as some have said :)

Our Fix = We're working on it.

For our current clients (and future), we are looking into the logistics of offering an alternative, professional email add-on - something super secure and dedicated to business. Although email is not considered (by definition) to be "Business Critical" - we understand that a lot of our clients have built their businesses around using email and just expect it to work 100% of the time.

Our goal right now is to find a solid fix that brings joy to our clients and that makes sense in the long run. In the meantime, Business Catalyst is working on moving the email servers to a newer system that should minimize, if not remove this type of problem. I trust it will be O.K. - for a little while, but we're certainly not going to just "Trust" this new system. At this time, EBWAY Creative is dedicated to finding an email alternative, we just don't know what that looks like yet - or what it costs - or how to implement it with our current clients. It takes time.

Reasonable Expectations.

Even though we've failed to do this in the past, we should say that every BC Partner and Re-Seller (or web professional of any kind) probably needs to start talking about reasonable expectations... you know, what you can really expect from an email client verses what the cost of that client is.

In the past email has "just worked" and we freak out when it doesn't do what we expect it too. But, have we forgotten that we're still working in an envirnment that changes constantly ( I have) - I mean, everyone has come to understand that a website isn't up 100% of the time, should email be any different?

The Positive Back-Up Plan!

During this "crisis", as it were, we started to use Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to communicate with our clients, telling them what was going on, etc. Think about the drastic change in our digital world, isn't it cool that even when a major peice of communication goes out, we still have a way to stay in touch! I know, we have phone's - but with one click I was able to send an update to hundreds of clients that follow our twitter feeds. That's cool!

So, please make sure to sign up and follow us on TWITTER or on FACEBOOK and you'll be in the know, never having to call and find out what's going on. You see, it's not such a bad thing after all - I would recomend that all my clients start to use Twitter and Facebook to stay in contact with their clients as the email issues will never go away completely, so you'll always need a back-up plan.

Thanks for your patience as we work to improve the email account part of our service offering.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Hinshaw

Facebook Admins, How to choose one

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 20:52:00 GMT

So, Who Should You Trust To Manage Your Company Facebook Page?

Facebook may have the title of "Page Admin" to represent the person in charge of managing your Facebook page, but that doesn't mean it's a job for just anyone at your company. No way!

Before you figure out who will manage (and maximize) the social media presence for your brand, you should quit looking at your open position as one that requires, “little or no experience." That includes you!

 Inspiring action on Facebook not only takes a healthy dose of determination, but it also takes creativity. Before putting someone in the hot seat, make sure they have the ability to get a firm grip on your brand, and the time and resources to follow through with your efforts.

Please don’t just leave it up to the intern who has the most Facebook friends. Plan your Facebook marketing efforts with the same type of thought and effort you put into all your marketing.