I earned a day off...but here's what I came up with!

So I figured that since I blogged twice in one day that I could take a day off, right? Made sense to me :) Anywho, I've been coming up with all sorts of ideas to blog about and here are the projects that I have come up with.

Photo Flashbacks: I have tons of pictures that I would love to share but they were taken months or even years ago. I always felt that I could only blog about recent events but now I've decided I'll write some photo blogs about past events.

Kirstin's Favorite Sites: There are so many fun sites that I frequent and I always tell people about how funny or amazing they are. I always promise them I'll send the links and since my memory is shot, I always forget to. So I thought of doing Kirstin's Favorite Link Of The Day for a month or so...but I don't think I want to commit to doing that every day and I'm sure there will be other things that I want to blog about along the way. So every once in awhile I'll do a write up about one of my favorite websites or web stores.

And of course, I'll always blog about the latest and greatest that is going down at Purple Monkey Designs.

But for today....I'll be watching the Redskins break my heart yet again

Super Happy Weekend

This past weekend my beautiful cousin Jesse married the love of her life and the newest addition to our big, crazy family, Kimmy :)

The weekend started off with a stay at an "interesting" motel. Lots of laughs and creepy people but the view of New York City was AMAZING!



We enjoyed a beautiful sunset and found panties in the bushes...good times with the family!







My little man...who is now 9 (scary), had a great time climbing on the rocks.



And once we finally found the right beach, it was time for the ceremony!





The proud parents...



Kimmy's twin brother and little Gabe <3







The LOVELY couple!



So much fun packed in to just two days...creepy motels, random panties, our first White Castle burgers, an amazing wedding, and great time with the family. I wish we could have stayed longer.





Love you Jesse and Kimmy! <3

I LOVE making blog headers!

And even more than that, I love making blog headers for people I love! Last night I threw together a quick header for my second mommy using a base image from shabbyblogs.com.

You can see her whole blog here: My Own Style.
I love that she loves it :)

Writing.....still one of my biggest enemies

I managed to crank out our first edition of the Purple Monkey newsletter but I don't feel too great about my writing. I want to be able to confidently write more content and have that content be valuable and not just my usual ramblings. So to turn things around I have started making a list of topics that I would like to blog about. My hope is that the more I write the easier it will get.

But there is yet another problem when it comes to my inability to write. Several months ago I had a very vivid dream with a detailed story line that would make an amazing book (if written well). The following night I had an equally vivid dream which was part 2 to the original dream. So now I have in my head the plots for two books and because I am terrified of writing, I'm scared that these stories are going to go to waste. Maybe after I start blogging on a regular basis I will be confident enough to attempt writing an actual book.

So now is the time for my to quit making excuses for not writing and not blogging. Writing this blog took just a couple minutes, so no more saying "I don't have time!" I am officially vowing to write at least once every other day. Let's see how this turns out :)

~Kirs

It's about time I get over my fear of writing!

We have reached over 200 people signed up for our newsletter so it's time for Issue #1 to come together! Writing about all the fun stuff that we do at Purple Monkey Designs is easy but I have a serious issue writing about myself and about WHAT Purple Monkey Designs is. I can only stare at a blank page for so long before I realize that I'm just not good at writing up even just a few sentences about who I am. So now is the time for me to learn how to write about myself and not feel like I'm being pompous if I say something nice about myself. I'm really pleased with how the rest of the newsletter is coming together. My goal is to be completely finished, proofread, and sent out by tomorrow.

The Proof Is In The Pudding...Or Website Hits!!!

In my last blog entry I mentioned two authors that I gained a ton of social media information from. I did some brain storming to try and find a way to really get my name out there in the gigantic cyber world. When I finally decided on the direction I wanted to take, I had no IDEA that the results would be as massive as they were. Prior to August 26th, my record for most hits in one day was 22. I always thought that was a lot for a tiny business like mine. I created a survey to gather information on what people want out of a design/marketing company and offered two free stickers for anyone who took this survey. Now, free surveys through surveymonkey.com put a limit of 100 on the number of responses I could get. I didn't think I'd get anywhere near 100, so no worries. I submitted my offer to a freebie site that immediately put it on their Twitter page. As the survey count got up in to the 60s, I got a little nervous about reaching the limit so I made a copy of the survey and put that link directly on my website. Over the next couple hours, I watch the numbers go up and they eventually both reached 100 and I shut them down after that (I only have but so many stickers!). So after this little marketing campaign this is what I came up with:

Completed surveys with full addresses: 148
Requests to be on my Newsletter mailing list direct from my website: before campaign, 0....after, 41
Website Hits: before campaign, 22.....after, 2126!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am blown away by the results of this simple idea and just wanted to share my story. I've got to get back to replying to emails and writing up contracts for new clients!

~ @misskirs

Two Authors Of Note...

I've been spending my summer working on launching my internet marketing section of Purple Monkey Designs. As the total nerd that I am, I checked out every book at the library on every kind of internet marketing topic I could find. Two of these books really blew me away so I thought I'd share.

In Social Media 101 by Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan), he went over every type of social media you could ever imagine. He focused a lot on the power of blogging which has really inspired me to stick to this blogging thing and not keep pushing it aside like I have been. He explained how to engage your readers and not run them off with boring, insignificant posts. I really could go on and on about everything that I got out of the book but I would suggest just reading the book cause he explains it a heck of a lot better than I ever could!

Twitter Power 2.0 by Joel Comm (@joelcomm) really shocked me. I really couldn't figure out how someone could write an entire book on Twitter which seems like the simplest form of social networking that exists. You type in your 140 characters and poof you're done. Not the case after I read this book :) There's so much more that goes in to writing VALUABLE posts that people will actually be interested in. He explains the best ways to attract followers (because without followers, you're just basically talking to yourself) and he explains the easiest ways to scare off the followers that you do have. Again, there's so much valuable information in this book I can't even begin to explain it all. I would stay up until 2am reading this book using the light from my cellphone screen cause I just could NOT put it down.

Anyone interested in improving your social networking skills DEFINITELY need to read these two books. I really can't say enough. These guys just make everything make sense!

Any you can always follow my uneventful (yet educated) ramblings on twitter @misskirs