Dec
22
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas
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Sorted Sites would like to take this opportunity of wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year for 2009.
During the festive period the office will be closed from 1.00 pm on Wednesday, 24 December 2008 and will re-open on Monday, 5 January 2009. We will also be closed on Tuesday, 6 January 2009 and re-open on Wednesday, 7 January 2009.
Technical Support will be available during this period via email to support@sortedsites.com (emergency only call John 639702649)
Thank you for your continued support during 2008 and we look forward to continuing our business relationship with you in 2009.
Dec
17
Sorted Sites guys strut their stuff
Filed Under General Stuff | 4 Comments
After months of vigorous rehearsals and preparation we finally have our Christmas Dance up on Youtube. I would like to thank Carol backstage for helping to choreograph and direct the Dance 
Dec
17
We are delighted to announce the launch of the redesigned Wimpen Leisure Management website. This easy to navigate website allows you to view Holiday Rentals and Timeshare Resales in many of the popular resorts in Tenerife, Lanzarote and the Costa del Sol. Thanks to Ian and Tony from Wimpen for their input throughout the project.
Wimpen Leisure Management
Dec
15
Server problems with DreamHost
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A number of our blogs are hosted on DreamHost servers, they are currently experiencing some networking issues with one of their servers. DreamHost have stated on their blog that this might take a few hours, we’ll keep you updated on this post once the server is back up online.
Dec
12
Have you ever thought seriously about how your readers view your business blog? Does it come across as useful and trustworthy, or do people think of your blog as a severe case of blowing your own trumpet?
Trust is the foundation upon which every successful business blog is built, which is why we were delighted to read the very insightful article that our client Jean-Paul Pangalos, Sales and Marketing Director at Gomasper, just forwarded this morning. The article, Health Check: How Trusted is Your Coprporate Blog?, by ‘blog doctor’ Jeremiah Owyang, is basically an 8 point fitness test for your blog.
However, before you read it and see how your business blog measures up, we want to just chime in and tell you not to be alarmed if you happen to get the worst diagnosis, which we can only hope was written with tongue very firmly in cheek:
Terminally Ill: Lastly, if less than 25% of your criteria is good or great, you really need to consider shutting it down –you’re not getting it and your culture, strategy, or team should focus elsewhere. Giving you the advice to take two in the morning ain’t going to cut it, it’s time for euthanasia.
You see, today there is really nothing incurable when it comes to blogging - at least not if you get hold of some of the latest radical gene therapy and re-engineer the bits that are broken. So, let’s run through Dr. Jeremiah’s checklist and outline the solutions you should be adopting to fix each of your blog’s shortcomings.
1. Writing Style:
Dr. Jeremiah’s advice: Write in a human voice.
Gene therapy: Build trust by throwing out the corporate mindset and bring in a good dose of human DNA into your business blog. Write from the heart and don’t be afraid to say what comes to mind as long as it’s useful to your readers. Self censorship will show through and kill your blog (whether it’s you or your boss doing it) so drink a glass of your favourite wine, beer or whatever and open up.
2. Topics
Dr. Jeremiah’s advice: Discuss the lifestyle (or workstyle) of actual customers
Gene therapy: Put your customers (current and prospective) at the focus of your blog. You’ll need a microscope and a sharp scalpel to cut all the ‘you’ out and make it about them and their wants and needs.
3. Humility
Dr. Jeremiah’s advice: Admit when you are wrong. Discuss in open the shortcomings of the company and product and show how it will be improved
Gene therapy: Nothing is perfect and your company is no exception, of course. So if something is wrong, admit it, then explain in your blog how you are fixing the root cause. Build trust through honesty. Doctor’s orders! A layer of makeup won’t cover anything up. You need to go straight to your company’s DNA and replace the genes that are misfiring.
4. Linking Behaviour
Dr. Jeremiah’s advice: Links out to other sources, even competitors or critics
Gene therapy: Spread the link love! Contrary to popular belief it you won’t catch any diseases, but exposure to the link gene pool out there will make you stronger in turn, partly because you show your readers that you are not afraid of the competition, and partly because you’re bound to get your share of links back.
5. Customer Inclusion
Dr. Jeremiah’s advice: Let your customers write as guests on your blog, or include snippets of their experiences
Gene therapy: Revisualise your business blog and change your mindset to bring your customers even more to the forefront than in step 2. Give them a voice by letting them write in your blog. Interview them. Write about their real experiences with you or your products. (Take a look at the way our clients Pearly Grey write about their guests and owners for a great example of this. They have made customer inclusion into an science!)
6. Dialog
Dr. Jeremiah’s advice: Enable comments and let them be published intstantly
Gene therapy: Allow your business blog to be exposed to external information, even if it may appear harmful. Just make sure you have the right antibodies in place (see 7 below).
7. Comment Moderation
Dr. Jeremiah’s advice: Comments (other than spam or off topic) are allowed, including direct disagreements
Gene therapy: Get a good spam filter (like Askimet for WordPress) added to your business blog so you’ll be safe against those kinds of germs, but otherwise let the free speech flow. Don’t censor negative comments, but by all means reply to them and explain your point of view. Also, do keep an eye on obvious spam that might make it through the filter and apply a good dose of localised antibiotics where necessary.
8. Frequency
Dr. Jeremiah’s advice: Write a steady publication rate of posts appropriate to the speed of that market
Gene therapy: Well, not quite gene therapy. No drastic changes involved here, other than a regular amount of exercise in the form of new posts that will keep your business blog healthy.
So there you go! Focus on fixing each of the above points and even if your blog has no heartbeat at the moment, it will be well on its way to recovery before you know it. Better still, carefully engineer your blog’s genes to achieve optimum, trustworthy, gold-medal winning fitness! And if you need any other help or advice, just comment here or contact the Sorted Sites Blog Clinic directly. We’ll be glad to help out.
Dec
12
Congratulations Juan Carlos Albuixech
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We offer our congratulations to Juan Carlos Albuixech of Sands Beach Resort Hotel in Lanzarote, who has recently received an award presented by Manuel Chavez, who is the president of the Andalusia Community, in recognition of outstanding achievement in Hotel Management and to commemorate his 15 years of service in the Hotel industry.
Dec
12
Best of luck for tonight Liam!
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Liam Bollesty
We would like to wish Carol´s son Liam, the very best of luck for tonight in the Liga Canaria de Boxeo at the Estadio Olimpico de Las Americas. The event starts at 9.00pm and tickets are €12 beforehand, or €15 at the door. Go get him tiger!!! 
Dec
10
Jean Paul Pangalos is the new Sales and Marketing Manager at Gomasper
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We are pleased to announce that we are redesigning the website for Gomasper SL. Gomasper are one of the largest property developers in Tenerife and we are privileged to work with such an influential company. What makes this project even more exciting is that we are working with the new Sales and Marketing Director, Jean-Paul Pangalos, who is into social media marketing and is also a Seth Godin convert – which means that we don´t have to sell or encourage him about social media marketing – he is a believer! As well as having set up on Flickr, a Facebook page and a Blog, Jean-Paul has also joined our latest project, 7C Marketing, which is for Canary Islands Webmasters.
Dec
1
48% of Businesses spending more on Social Network Marketing to tackle the downturn
Filed Under Online Marketing, Social Networking | 1 Comment
When the economy gets jittery, marketing budgets get cut. For most companies with limited resources that is a fact of life.
Yet, as we have said time and again, the trick is knowing how to market smarter with less money, to achieve better results than before. Enter Social Network Marketing stage left.
Social network marketing combines the power of word-of-mouth with the massive reach of the Internet so that the online community actually helps you get your message out. Watch this slideshow for a 2 minute crash course on what Social Network Marketing is and why it is vital for your business.
Well, last week MarketingSherpa announced the results of a survey on current Marketing Trends in the Economic Downturn that found that 48% of businesses plan to increase their spending on Social Network Marketing, placing it as the top way to win new business in these tough times. (See chart below)
Social Network Marketing is no new marketing fad, but a powerful strategy that is quickly gaining widespread acceptance. Almost half of the businesses surveyed see Social Network Marketing as the way forward and want to do more of it.
Ready to wizen up your marketing so you see more results for less money?
Contact us to learn more about how you can manage your own Social Network Marketing campaign with little outside help, once it’s set up and running!
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