As one of our most eccentric clients, Captain Fawcett’s moustache wax, specialises in all things hirsute we’ve launched an offer for the month of November for anyone looking for their own fully self manageable website.

You’ll no doubt realise by now that today marks the start of Movember – the month where millions of men all over the world grow a moustache in aid of male prostate and testicular cancer.

Being female it would be pretty hard for me to grow a wonderful handlebar moustache (as much as I’d love to), but we can offer you a beautiful new Squarespace website that you can manage yourself for £800 plus hosting, and what’s more we’ll donate 10% of all profits from this venture to the Movember cause.

Your website will include: 

• Homepage
• About page
• Photo gallery with up to 50 pictures
• Blog or News page
• Contact page
• Two further pages of your choice
• Social media links
• Full search engine optimisation

Squarespace is a fully hosted, completely managed environment for creating and maintaining a website, and is used worldwide by all sorts of people - from business owners and photographers to doctors and record labels. In fact, its flexible platform can power sites of all sizes including e-commerce and gives you total control over your content and site customisation.

All you need to do is get in touch via our contact form and let us know what you’re looking for, and we’ll get right back to you.

If you need any extra pages or functionality (for example e-commerce) let us know and we’ll send you a quote.

You can read some of the nice things our clients have said about us here, or view examples of previous websites we’ve built here.

If you'd like to read about 10 signs your website needs an urgent makeover, read our article for the HSBC Business Matters October newsletter.

This offer is subject to a 50% deposit before we start work on your website and we will advise you on purchasing your domain name before work commences.

The price quoted will not be subject to VAT.

I can only apologise for the lack of updates to our Journal recently, especially when one considers that I regularly lecture our clients about the importance of keeping their websites fresh and interesting.

The only excuse I can give you is that we've been inundated with new enquiries on a daily basis as well as finalising and launching The Party Pirate website. Beautiful isn't it? Within its first week of launch, The Party Pirate won a "Women on Wednesday" award from business woman, Jacqueline Gold. Congratulations Tamara!

If you have children, wouldn’t it be brilliant if you could buy invitations, birthday cards and ribbons, cupcakes cases and glitter, cake decorations and cookie cutters, bunting and balloons, cool paper plates and cups, party hats, wings and wands, tutus and fancy dress, unusual party bags and party bag goodies, all in the one place? Well now you can!

Whether it’s a princess, fairy or pirate, a 1st birthday or 8th birthday party, summer or winter, indoors or outdoors, it’s all here (and if it’s not, please let them know). We built the website on the Zen Cart open source shopping platform, and have had a lovely review from our client.

The other piece of very exciting news is that we've featured in the latest HSBC newsletter 'Business Matters'. The article is called "10 signs your business needs an urgent makeover" and it has resulted in more new clients than you can shake a stick at. Have a read and hopefully you'll find it useful too.

We'll be posting more updates soon but meanwhile why not check out The Party Pirate? If you don't have children, it'll make you wish you did!

Google+. G+. Google Plus, if you will. Should Facebook and Twitter be very, very scared? Or is it just yet another network to check in to? Ray Morrow takes a closer look…

Having spent seven years in creative with leading UK agencies, Ray now provides freelance planning, strategy, concepts and copy. Read Between The Lines, her business, is all about   applying creative curiosity to marketing challenges come up with hardworking solutions. And, of course, supplying the creative and practical support to turn considered strategy into successful reality.

According to Google’s blog, Google+ is a ‘social project’, borne out of Google’s desire to make a better social network – to ‘fix’ what it sees as a ‘broken’ world of online social sharing. It aims to bring in the nuances of real life, bringing in shades of grey on what you share, with whom, and in what format.

How does it work?

See for yourself: http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/demo/  “But that’s the party line!”, did I hear you say? Alright then. A quick run through follows, though you can skip to what I thought at the end of this article if you’ve been there and done that.

Well, it’s skulking about in a Beta-ish fashion at the moment, but thanks to Kind Friends, I blagged an invite and stepped into a world of Circles, Hangouts, Huddles and Sparks.

Circles – are groups into which you sift your connections – work, family, friends, uni and so on. You can then share content with all circles, selected circles or everyone on Google+. It’s logical and very easy to get to grips with. You can share with multiple circles or just the one and can ‘follow’ people who you’re interested in but don’t know, like Twitter. So far so good. Twitter is public (unless you’re on locked settings, you weirdo), Facebook is wholly personal (unless you’re a random friend-collector), while LinkedIn, in my opinion, should be purely professional.

Sparks – are something of a tumblr/traditional search/stumbleupon hybrid. It finds ‘contagious content’ to share and chat about with your Circles and the rest of Google+. I wasn’t hugely impressed – no options to filter results, and a lot of content returned was US-focused. It doesn’t appear to be intelligent either – there’s no way to ‘like’ and ‘not like’ results return to teach the search engine to interpret your tastes. That said, it might improve in time. I suspect this feature has been created with monetisation in mind – something I’ll come back to later.

Hangouts – online video chit chat. Like facetalk, skype and what have you, though you can have more than one person, which, if you like video conferencing (I’m a hater, but each to their own) or needed it for work, would be pretty damn useful.

Huddles – a collaborative way to chat and organise meeting up – professional or personal – online or using your mobile. I haven’t given this a go yet as not enough friends G+.  

There’s also ‘the Stream’– a live feed like Facebook – and the ability to ‘+1’ content, which is a bit like Stumbleupon/Facebook/LinkedIn ‘liking’.

Functionality-wise, it does everything you’d expect a social network to do – you can post updates, share content, and comment on posts. Privacy is easy to grapple, and simple to set up. And you can’t post to people’s profiles, presumably to thwart so-called friends who might share photos of you with sporting fake moustaches for eyebrows in front of your boss.

So how was it for me?

Getting started felt like hard work. Though, like most Google products, it is mostly logical, there’s a LOT to learn, new etiquette to figure, and not many people there to play with. That said, there’s a lot to love. The idea of the separate circle to share content with different people. For the first time, for example, I might consider including family members to a network. However, the default ‘all circles’ share option leaves plenty of margin for embarrassing error – post in haste, regret at leisure?

As a Gmail user, the integration with the email and chat services I use most is great. The intuitive upload interface is lovely – and, unusually, works beautifully on a Mac. The +1 feature is nice, and will presumably feed into Google search results in the future – great for good content that’s already ranking high, not so good for splendid-but-lesser-spotted gems. I very much like how it might act as a bookmarking tool for those too lazy/disorganised (like me) to properly bookmark. I may even dip my toe in the murky waters of video conferencing next week, when I have to catch up with a client whose team works in multiple locations.

I’m not so keen on the locked ‘wall’ feature, as I often use social networks as a light-touch way to keep in contact with friends and colleagues when busy. The lack of events-sharing functionality and integration with Google Calendar seems an oversight – I know we’re still in Beta, but that would have been a killer feature that would encourage take-up. Maybe they’re saving that for launch…?

Personally, I’m not sure whether I want or need single network to integrate everything – a one to rule them all as it were. I like a bit of separation in my networks, behaving differently with separate personas in each. I think of the different interfaces as different spaces: work (LinkedIn), a buzzing bar where everyone chats and networks (Twitter), a party with friends (Facebook). And I suspect I’m not alone…

But what about other users…?

“Not enough people have transferred, and to be honest there are a few bugs that could be worked out before I would openly suggest to someone to swap. But I definitely intend to eventually. For the moment http://startgoogleplus.com/ is helping.”

“Just checking occasionally. Twitter is still where it's at for me. “

“I'm using G+ as a cross between Twitter and Tumblr for now.
Have to admit that I never really got Facebook or LinkedIn. Will still check them occasionally, but I expect I'll use this instead…”

“I'm encouraging FB friends (the ones I actually like) to move over but they've got no real appetite for it. I guess they must have work to do…”

So a tepid welcome from my friends and colleagues, but it’s very early days, and all seem keen to make it work. And I’ve seen conversion efforts to put Evangelists to shame already!

There’s talk of integrating the whole Google Empire into one mega-network.  I’ve also heard whispers about a games platform being in development that’ll provide a commercial element whilst pleasing the I-have-nothing-better-to-do-with-my-time-Ville types, if every they migrate from Facebook. Which brings me onto my next point….

Marketing and monetisation

The Content Marketing Institute dived straight in, decreeing Google+ a useful tool for the content marketer – a great way to source content (through the ‘Spark’ feature) then share (through Circles), then collaborate with colleagues.

But could Sparks become much more interesting to the whole marketing team?  I, for one, suspect so. In fact, if I was the gambling type, I’d wager my favourite Kurt Geigers on Sparks becoming paid – a place where sponsored content masquerades as natural search. All outlined in a privacy policy. But who ever reads that…?

Imagine the heady combination of finely profiled users and opted-in audience. The ability to break down your audience with the detail of Facebook adverts, without the advert barrier.

With my marketing head on, absolute genius.

As a private individual, a major turn off.

Either way, if it happens, I suspect that many users won’t notice the difference – or care if they do, providing a whole new platform for marketing and advertising. From viral seeding to more direct campaign placement, I’ll be interested to see what happens.

Tomorrow's world

As far as growth is concerned, according to PocketLint, Google+ is going great guns:

“Facebook took over 3 years to achieve what Google+ has done in just 3 weeks – hit the 20 million users milestone.”

Impressive stuff. But will this exponential growth continue? Will loyal Facebook fans really migrate? And does it matter if they don’t?

A very hypothetical hypothesis

Of my 300+ Facebook friends, I’d estimate that under 30% are regular users. That leave at least two-thirds – let’s say 70% – ripe for the switching. Apply that to the whole of Facebook (750 million users) and you get 525 million potential G+ devotees.

Then there’s the older generation. As I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, I’m not ‘friends’ with family. In fact, I actively discouraged them from joining Facebook because I’m concerned about privacy – on my part (what you don’t know doesn’t hurt you) and theirs (Facebook privacy is a notorious minefield if you’re not a digital native).

But if Google Plus does what it says on the tin, I might be sorely tempted. And so might countless sons, daughters and grandchildren, opening up a whole new audience that Facebook and its ilk couldn’t dream of touching.

Now imagine if one in four of the hypothetical Facebook switchers (131.25million) mentioned above felt the same, and added two previously un-networked family members (that’s an extra 262.6million)... G+ is now bigger than Facebook with a whopping 1,012.5million users.

So let’s call it a billion users. A billion users sharing sponsored content – advertisements – building individual data profiles whilst propagating and growing and adding yet more users. A self-perpetuating profit machine. Very, very clever stuff indeed.

Question is though Google, what does it all look like on the old bottom line?

A whopping great big plus, by any chance…

Still with me? Recommended Google+ links…

Google Plus resources
Google vs. Facebook privacy debate

Some time ago we ran a Facebook competition and offered my infamous brownies as a prize. For those of you who requested the recipe, here it is.

Remember... be brave during cooking time (dry, hard brownies aren't good), eat them warm from the oven with a fresh coffee, and above all ENJOY!

Ingredients:

200g  Milk chocolate (organic), broken up into chunks
100g  Plain chocolate (organic), broken up into chunks
3/4 tub  Nutella
250g  Butter, cubed
5 Medium  Eggs, beaten
350g  Golden caster sugar
200g  Plain flour
1 dash  Vanilla essence
100g  Milk chocolate chips
50g  Hazelnuts, chopped
1 small bag  Whole hazelnuts

    
1. Preheat oven to 180°C/gas 4. Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Cool.

2. Line a large muffin tray with muffin cases (any sized muffins will do!).

3. Beat the eggs with the sugar.

4. Pour in the cooled chocolate mixture, vanilla essence, Nutella, add a pinch of salt and sift in the flour. Beat until blended and stir through the chocolate chips and chopped nuts.

5. Pour mixture into the cases in the tin, and put a few whole nuts on each.

6. Bake for 25–30 minutes. The outsides will look crackled and the inside will feel firm but will still be gooey. Be brave if they look on the point of collapse - they need to be soft and fudgy on the inside!

7. Allow to cool in the tin for at least 20 minutes.

4. Eat and enjoy!!

To make them even naughtier, top with milk chocolate icing, but you may need a year's worth of daily gym sessions to burn the calories off!

This journal entry is our second to be guest-written by Mike Saunders, owner of Saunders Artwork Ltd. Mike's career spans two decades of creative production at the sharp end of the UK's top creative agencies, academic institutions and newsprint.

Mike has written a new person's guide to Twitter, from a new(ish) person. We hope you find it useful!

What's Twitter? I don't get it. Yes I looked like you said but it was all random gibberish. What's a hash tag? RT? FF? Followers? Nonsense. I don't understand it.

These are all quote from friends I’ve tried to get to “join the conversation”on Twitter.

I’m a big fan of Twitter. I’m nosey, I like meeting people and I talk way too much so Twitter is perfect for me. I’ve ‘met’ people through Twitter that I now consider firm friends. I’ve had plenty of work opportunities too and when I’m on a booking (I’m a Freelance Creative Artworker) if I get stuck on something technical… I ask Twitter. I feel informed about all the things I want to feel informed about. It’s great! But I didn’t always feel like that… in fact, at first I felt the same as my friends, I just didn’t get it.

So what changed?

Well, I was lucky enough to work in a creative agency with people who embraced the importance of this new medium and constantly extolled its virtues. But even then I still didn’t really understand.

Then one day, the penny finally dropped. I realised Twitter is many things to many different people, but for me it is:

1)    Twitter is FUN!
2)    Twitter is also SERIOUS!
3)    Twitter connects you to literally EVERYONE!
4)    Twitter is the INTERNET, but DISTILLED to your own preferences!

The problem with Twitter, is that it doesn’t really come with any kind of guide to get you started. You sign up, then you’re on your own. Nobody ever explained that I had to ‘follow’ people. It seems so obvious now but unless you follow a few people it won’t make any sense.

1)    Twitter is fun!

It is you know. I follow people that make me laugh because I need that in my working life. When I’m immersed in stress and long hours, a little chuckle provided by my friends or a comedian is exactly what I need.

2)    Twitter is also serious!

We can change real-life things really quickly. Remember when people used to hand long petitions in to No 10? It must have taken forever to get that list together… you can do it in a day now. Look at the recent News of the World (#notw) scandal. Outraged people targeted advertisers so quickly and in such volumes, the major brands all pulled their bookings for fear of being tarred with the same brush. The best-selling Sunday paper for decades was shut down in under a week. People power in action.

Superinjunctions? Not on Twitter. Enough people did an “I am Spartacus” to make it impossible to prosecute all but the highest profile law-breakers (although I do hope they get Piers Morgan).

Close BBC 6 Music? That was a done deal until all the celebs on Twitter got together, raised a mob, applied sustained pressure and reversed the decision.

Interestingly, MPs love Twitter. Follow an MP, they’ll often follow you straight back, which leads to my next point...

3)    Twitter connects you to literally everyone.

It’s true. If you really feel like it, you can moan directly at @duncanbannatyne about the state of the showers in one of his clubs, tell your MP what you think about a particular issue, complain about bad service or praise good service for that matter. And while your intended recipient may ignore or simply miss what you’ve said about them, what you’ve said is ‘out there’, and someone, somewhere saw it. If you’re a business and someone has said something in your favour, you can gain free PR by re-tweeting it. If someone complains, you have a chance to put it right, if not for this time, then next.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter is open to absolutely everyone and it’s often astonishing how quickly exposure can snowball. Do something clever, and interest in your business can develop very quickly (for goodness sake though don’t do anything stupid).

Something else to consider about exposure. Where I work in the creative industry, your Twitter feed is considered ‘work’ where as Facebook is not (it’s more about chatting to your mates, isn’t it?) Many users have their feed on all day in the background but pay most attention around the time of natural work breaks i.e. late morning, either side of lunch, and the end of the working day. Play your numbers game right and your brand will gain the kind of exposure you’d pay a fortune for in above-the-line advertising.

4)    Twitter is the Internet distilled, just for you.

For me at least, the days of surfing the net are gone. I choose to follow people who tweet links to articles I find relevant and interesting, without wading through acres of rubbish to get there. After all, I’m busy! And so is everyone else. I used to visit around 10 sites a day to get my news fix, now I just log onto twitter and the people I follow do it for me. I follow and un-follow people, based on their the relevance of their tweets to me. If I see anything I like, I re-tweet it and my followers see it, and maybe even share it themselves.

Tap into that kind of super-concentrated focus group and you can find out an awful lot about your brand’s appeal (or lack of, if you’ve got it wrong).

Are you convinced yet? Good.

How to get started…

• Open your Twitter account (or accounts, you can have more than one). Choose a username very carefully, try and avoid something with numbers on the end – that looks like there’s thousands just like you. Go for something short to leave room for re-tweets and replies (I’ll cover those in a minute).

• Choose your ‘Avatar’. That’s the little pic that appears by your tweets. A small, screen version of your company logo is best for business users. Think how it will look very very small. Never, ever leave it blank – nothing looks worse, especially for a business.

• Follow some people. Your friends are a good start. If they’re good friends they’ll re-tweet (RT) your words and help you gain followers. Follow your followers back, and thank them for following, they’ll love you for it.

• Don’t ‘protect’ your tweets – it’s a huge turn-off. You want as many followers as possible, good or bad. Take the nutters along with the nice ones (and boy they’re all out there). If they get really annoying you can always ‘block’ them.

• Be succinct. You only get 140 characters, and leave some space for RTs. It’s not always enough but that’s Twitter’s charm. We’re all advertising copywriters now, consider it a test.

• Be funny if you can. The whole thing’s fuelled by humour as far as I can tell.

• Be friendly, professional and polite. Think twice before you tweet anything. Never tweet while annoyed or tipsy (do as I say here, not as I do).

• Come back and thank me in 6 months. This has never happened before. Friends I have convinced to join, who now LOVE it, don’t remember how they got started. There’s always a first time though, eh? Better still, ask me to quote for some design work for you @saundersartwork thanks!

• Look for good examples of how to do it. You can contact manage my website if you'd like some examples specific to your business or interests.

Terminology…

This, I think is what puts people off Twitter more than anything else. And I’ll stick my neck out here and suggest that some Twitter people consider themselves superior to  Facebook people because of it. They’re wrong. It’s so simple even I can understand it, so here is an average person’s explanation of basic twitter Terminology:

RT (Re-Tweet)

This is why Twitter works. When you see something you like and you want to share it with your own followers, you can RT it in a number of ways. If you’re using twitter through a browser, there’s a simple re-tweet button. This will go straight to your followers. If you want to add a comment, you’ll have to copy the message, type RT @the_person’s_username then add the message, with your own comment at the start. For example:

Good luck young man! RT@saundersartwork Big interview tomorrow!

You’ll get the hang of it… The best day in your Twitter life is your first RT, when someone re-tweets something you’ve said. It’s far, far better than a Facebook ‘like’. Like’s are, like, cheap, man. It’s good etiquette to thank someone if they RT you.

Hash tags (#) and trending

Hash tags aren’t strictly as necessary as they used to be on Twitter, but as a statement of intent, they show you’re trying to start, or contribute to a ‘trend’. Twitter is real-time. Right here, right now. There’s a column which shows what’s trending over on the right. You can filter this by location i.e. worldwide, UK, London etc If you have a comment to make on, for example, The Apprentice, you should finish any comment you make with #apprentice. People ‘searching’ under that subject will see your tweets along with all the others, even if they don’t follow you.

Mis-use of hashtags is a pet hate of mine. People using these in the wrong way, specifically to make a point in an irrelevant context i.e. on Facebook. I’m such a pedant about this, I’ve even de-friended people for doing it #justsaying.

Searches

Are you looking for what people are saying on a particular subject? There’s a search feature, either in your browser at the top, or elsewhere in your specialist application (I’ll cover those at the end). Say you’re in the business of wedding flowers. Search under flower, wedding and let down, last minute etc etc you’ll find someone who needs your help. Tweet them, and occasionally you’ll get a response. It’s got to be worth a punt. I recently complained on Twitter about an awful customer service experience with my mobile phone provider. Within hours I received a reply from Carphone Warehouse, who I’ll probably go to first next time.

FF, ff, #ff, #FF it’s all the same…

FF means Follow Friday, and it’s kind of in decline these days but basically it’s your chance to recommend to your followers, people you think they’d like to follow. You can only do it on Fridays. Getting an FF is even better than a RT. If someone FFs you, it means they like you, and recommend you.

Specialist applications for Twitter.

Everyone starts with a browser. The problem is, the browser interface isn’t very good and a few months in you’ll want to do more. That’s the time to consider a proper Twitter App, of which there are many. My personal favourite is Tweetdeck but I suspect that’s more of a bloke thing. I like seeing all my replies, mentions and Direct Message (DMs) in multiple, constantly moving columns. It makes me feel like I’m in The Matrix.

And that’s it. You really need to just get out there and do it. Why not go and have some fun first with a personal account? Chances are a few of your friends are on there already. That way you’ll know what you’re doing before you start your business account. Remember to come back and thank me in 6 months, OK?

Ever get the feeling that these wedding stationery designers just aren't listening to you? This journal entry is guest-written by Mike Saunders, owner of Saunders Artwork Ltd and a guest at the fabulous Sowerby wedding, which this post is based on. Mike's career spans two decades of creative production at the sharp end of the UK's top creative agencies, academic institutions and newsprint. It marks the launch of our new wedding branding, print and website service which has launched today.

What's the best day of your life so far? That's quite a tough question if you think about it carefully, and not always one you'd answer honestly (I could tell you mine but unless you're an Arsenal fan, you'd think it was silly).

I reckon if you asked Mark and Jenny Sowerby that question though, they'd say "our wedding day" and they'd be right too.

Like most people, I've been to all sorts of weddings over the years – some really good ones (some shockers too), but Jenny and Mark's one was in that very exclusive bracket I'd call "amazing".

There are loads of reasons for this: Jen and Mark are dear friends, lovely people, well-suited and head over heels in love with each other. All good reasons and of course you can never overstate them, but what made their wedding more memorable than most of the others I've been to?

I wondered about this on the 200 mile, rain-lashed drive home with nobody to argue with except the sat-nav (my wife couldn't make the trip). I thought about the lovely couple, the vicar, the speeches, the food, the copious drink and smiled.

Then I started thinking about the details – the invitation (beautifully designed around a hand-drawing of a tractor), the church flowers (wonderfully wild-looking with rustic ties), the real-live tractor employed to tow the wedding party from the church to the reception at Huntstile Organic Farm, (an amazing venue most people wouldn't even know about). I thought about the way the whole theme was tied beautifully together in as good an example of practical brand application as you're ever likely to see. Then I realised… the best weddings I've been to have all been for friends in the creative industry.

Planning a wedding is effectively event management. Now… this lovely couple and their team happen to know a thing or two about event management and the creative industry. They knew how to brief the designer, their friend Poppy Hennig, and got a stunning result, they knew how to find a unique venue, but mostly they know the value of good design and a consistent theme, and how it can really help shape the feel of a 'best day of your life' – your own wedding.

Everything was so perfect, so memorable – the rural theme, the tractor, the bales of hay, the massive bonfire, the sunset, the tent, the band (Sheelanagig), the camping friend in the sleeping bag jumpsuit that made her bum look big, everything.

But then I felt sad. I thought about most people spending huge sums of hard-earned money on their weddings and not getting anything like as much value out of it. I like to spend my spare time helping friends with little design projects, and I did a little bit for this one too with beermats designed amid the excitement of the Royal Wedding this year as a humorous little addition to the day.

Mark, Jenny and Allie work in the creative industry, they know how to brief a project, to get things done, to get the results they are expecting. They have friendly working relationships with top-caliber creative professionals like Poppy Hennig – and me of course ;) I personally still undertake regular work for top-20 London agencies. Between us, we don't half know what we're doing.

It breaks my heart to think of the money new couples and their parents spend on overpriced, off-the-shelf wedding design that just doesn't reflect how special they really are, and says nothing about their personality. Why can't everyone have the benefit of friends in the creative industry?

And then I thought, "hang on a minute… they can!"

I held that thought when manage my website asked me to write a little journal entry about Jenny and Mark's wonderful wedding. All of the skills needed to pull that perfect day together are here.

If you're planning a big event and you want a bit of creative support, you could do a lot worse…

If you've enjoyed reading Mike's article and are planning your own wedding or big event, you can find out more about our complete event branding, print and website service by clicking here or by contacting Allie or Mark.

Ladies and gentlemen. Boys and girls. Existing customers. Potential clients.

Don’t worry, you haven’t stumbled across a wedding speech (although I shall be writing one of those soon) you have actually managed to find my first official journal entry as part of the Manage My Website team.

Time for the formalities.

My name is Mark Sowerby. I’m male, 32 years old and live with my soon-to-be wife in Bath along with our mainly cute but sometimes feisty ginger cat – Garvey. Elbow fans out there will be nodding in appreciation at this point.

Now for the work bit.

I started out in marketing over 10 years ago. My formative years were spent developing, managing and delivering successful public relations programmes for a range of blue-chip clients, including the likes of JCB and Birmingham City FC.

This gave me the chance to hone my communication and project management skills in addition to building an understanding of the importance of planning. I even managed to pick up an award or two along the way, which was extremely satisfying - and useful for annual appraisals.

As my career developed I moved to a full-service marketing agency with specialisms in PR, advertising, design, live events and – as it was then known – new media. Exposure to new areas of marketing coupled with full responsibility for delivering integrated campaigns helped me to understand the true meaning of brand – and how best to make people sit up and take notice.

Fast forward to the present day and the reason I’m writing this entry. I’m delighted to have been given the opportunity to work alongside Alex and help her build on the great work she has done at Manage My Website. Over the last two years she has worked extremely hard to build a portfolio of happy clients – a great number of which she can now call friends too.

I’m hoping to bring focused project management ability, marketing insight, proven copywriting skills and digital experience so she can continue to meet the great demand for websites and marketing support that the company is currently experiencing.

Hopefully, we’ll find some new friends along the way too.

I've had another Hipstamatic Adventure posted on Facebook!

After launching Captain Fawcett's moustache wax website in November 2010, he asked me to represent him at the World Beard and Moustache Championships in Trondheim, Norway on Sunday 15 May. You can read more about that here.

My good friend Laura and I arrived in Trondheim armed with plenty of moustache wax, business cards and leaflets but didn’t really know what to expect.

We met many of the competitors and winners and they were the loveliest people - obviously eccentric - and hilariously funny. I don't think Laura and I have laughed so much in a long time. There were parties in the local bars most evenings too, so we got a chance to mingle and peddle our handmade moustache wax to them. We both left Trondheim with a new appreciation for men with facial hair!

While I was there I posted regular updates and took a lot of photographs. Most of these were taken using the popular iPhone app Hipstamatic that, in their own words, "brings back the look, feel, unpredictable beauty, and fun of plastic toy cameras from the past."

Hipstamatic have now posted an "Adventures in Hipstaland" album of my photographs, which was shared with their 63,800 Facebook fans. You can view it here.

If you have a “bucket list”, add the World Beard and Moustache Championships to it. The next one will be held in Germany in 2013.

Check out more photos from the collection here and here.

Since launching the Captain Fawcett's moustache wax website in November 2010, we've been very busy assisting the Captain with his social media marketing and PR as well as planning our trip to Trondheim, Norway to represent him at the World Beard and Moustache Championships this weekend.

If you've been following Captain Fawcett's Journal, Facebook and Twitter pages you'll know that he recently got himself into a bit of a scrape on an expedition to the Arctic and the poor soul is now recovering from scurvy at a sanatorium in Bognor Regis.

The World Beard and Moustache Championships is a biennial competition in which men with beards and moustaches display lengthy, highly-styled facial hair.

The first Championship took place in Höfen-Enz, Germany, in 1990. In September 2007, competitors of the world's most hirsute faces from the UK, America, Germany and other countries convened for the championships in Brighton. The 2009 event was held in Anchorage, Alaska, and this weekend the 2011 Championships will be in Trondheim, Norway.

My good friend Laura and I will be arriving in Trondheim on Friday evening armed with plenty of Captain Fawcett's moustache wax, business cards and leaflets. We hope we'll do the Captain proud.

The wax is handmade to an original recipe from the 19th century, known then and now as "The Gentlemen's Stiffener". It is made with the purest ingredients and is available in three colonial flavours: Lavender, Sandalwood and Ylang Ylang and has been endorsed by such luminaries as The American Mustache Institute, The Chap magazine, The Handlebar Club, The Moustache Mafia, PAM and the 'Stachetastic iPhone app.

If you're attending the World Beard and Moustache Championships, please make sure you say hello and invest in a jar of his finest pomade!

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This week's guest Journal entry is written by Anja Hubrath, owner of BettyLicious vintage-inspired clothing and lingerie. She tells us about how the idea came about, and what setting up her first online shop involved.

When people ask me how I came up with the idea of setting up BettyLicious - an online shop selling vintage-inspired clothing and lingerie - this is what I usually tell them.

I just love quirky stuff, in particular anything vintage such as 1940/50 dresses and sexy lingerie.  I enjoy visiting vintage fairs. They always have a great atmosphere and you can see some really interesting people there, all dressed up in their vintage gear. I have to admit though, that I am not a huge fan of rummaging through vintage clothing. The items are often not labelled, so I have no idea what size I’m looking at and there is also the added hassle of having to look for something that is in good condition and made of good quality fabric.

And it goes without saying that I would not touch vintage underwear in a million years!

So after giving it a lot of thought I decided to set up a shop that sells 1940s/50s faux fashion and lingerie. The name for the shop was what followed and became vital to anything I did after that.  Don’t ask me how I came to think of the name BettyLicious though. Let’s just say my online dating persona had something to do with it and the name has become an integral part of everything I do.

BettyLicious sounds innocent and yet very seductive, in a Bettie Page way.  I like to think it describes a lady with exceedingly high expectations who is stylish, classy and fun. And that’s exactly how I wanted the look and feel of the website to be.

When researching other vintage clothing websites there wasn’t a single one that looked like the one I had in mind for my store. Betty had to be hot but not cheap, seductive but not overly sexual, 1950s but not your usual pin up girl. Betty had to be classy but fun, loved by guys and girls alike.

I had a rough idea what the logo should look like but really no clue about the visuals. That’s where manage my website and Flipside Studio came in - they translated a very basic brief into an amazing website.

I also thought that I’d like to offer more than just a shop. I wanted a little bit of cheeky entertainment to infiltrate my customers’ lives. Reading a blog that is somewhat different from the usual would cheer people up perhaps.  So I created Betty’s blog… which is really a soap opera about Betty’s life… with all the ups and downs that accompany a sexy, fun, entrepreneurial-minded lady who knows what she wants (perhaps more so when it comes to men and dating). The blog is set in the 50s and written from Betty’s perspective, using a language that is just a teeny bit out of date.

So why did I decide to create an e-commerce site selling vintage inspired fashion rather than have a shop presence in the high street? The benefits are endless.

One major factor is cost. Running an online shop is much cheaper as overheads are kept to a minimum. There is no rent to pay, just a small monthly fee to keep the website running.

Your customer pool is much bigger online, as you can reach people anywhere in the world. Twitter and Facebook make marketing to a worldwide audience really straightforward.

For me personally it was also important that I could be based anywhere in the world, and an e-commerce site makes a potential move to another country much more viable.

Of course it isn’t all plain sailing, and setting up an e commerce site can be complicated and time consuming.

As well as the creation of the visuals, there is also the technical side of it. Most designers specialise in either one thing or another, so a word of warning: beware of designers who are techies but say they can do both! The site often looks naff and uninspired!

There is also the fact that you need to integrate an online payment system and open a merchant account, which is easy enough to do but only if you know how.

I was very lucky to have found manage my website who were able to take care of all of these aspects while I continued doing the job I was meant to do. What could have been a nightmare, was actually a very positive learning experience on all levels and I’m very happy with the outcome thanks to manage my website, Flipside Studio (the designer) and Kinetic Pulse (the developer).

www.bettylicious.co.uk is now live…it’s been a little over a year since I first came up with the idea and I’m really pleased with the result.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewVintageBetty

Twitter: http://twitter.com/bettyliciousuk