In a post on Global Neighbourhoods Shel Israel announced tBASH, the Twitterville book launch party will be held from 4-8 pm, Sunday, Aug. 23 at the Hiller Aviation Museum, San Carlos CA. The first 300 copies of Twitterville by Shel Israel will be on sale, ten days before it becomes available at most places that sell books. Shel’s Announcement :

At about 9 am Pacific tomorrow morning I will open [currently closed] signups to anyone via twtvite. Space is limited to 250 people for now, and at this moment there are 160 open spaces.

I will announce when signups go public on Twitter and then it will be first-come, first registered. You need to enroll with a Twitter handle. If you are bringing a guest who doesn’t have one, use your own a second time and add the word “guest.”

Network Solutions is a sponsor and I am excitedly looking forward to attending. Follow @shelisrael to see when he announces the signups and hope to see you there.

There were many sessions and the one with Shashi was titled “Making Social Media Make Money”. Here is a great write up from Zac Johnson who attended the conference as well:

The “Making Social Media Make Money” panel, which I did not expect too much from, actually ended up being the best panel of the day, in my opinion. To start it off, each speaker had their own slides to run through, instead of an open panel discussion, like the previous sessions. The speakers on the panel were Jay Berkowitz, Shashi Bellamkonda and Larry Bailin. Jay Berkowitz went through 50 slides in roughly 10-15 minutes, but he had everything memorized in his head, so it was an awesome run down of many sites and how they are banking and taking advantage of social media. Shashi, from Network Solutions also gave his views on social marketing and how his company it using it to interact with customers. Lastly, Larry Bailin was up and his presentation was also great. In addition to being a great speaker, Larry had some great content to share as well, along with a short video he created for a client (which was in-turn also used for social marketing).

Other excellent resources recapping the event include the Affiliate Thing podcast, where Lisa Picarille and Shawn Collins recapped the recent social media conferences including this one. Also, on Shawn Collins’ blog, there is also a mention of Shashi’s work here Network Solutions bringing in tools like Twitter to really help customer server.

It looked like a very informative and productive day for attendees. Plus, Shashi got some great photos of the event. Check them out below in this new slideshow:

Well, Network Solutions has taken a completely different approach and created a beautiful site dedicated to all things Network Solutions.

Because I have a background in User Interface (UI) design I am often critical of sites that don’t properly layout their information or are just plain lazy in how they market themselves. Granted, marketing web sites are different than e-commerce web sites but they do have one thing in common, they must sell/convince the customer to buy from them. Many companies who throw a web site up without a concern for brand continuity or good messaging are just hurting themselves. They wouldn’t waste money on print collateral or send out proposals that are ugly. Well, they might but they will never win any clients. This is why I come back to the fact that companies must spend time on all aspects of their web presence, including the “About Us” section. Here is what is so great about the new “About Network Solutions” site that you should apply to your own site:

Show customers that you are strong and reliable

People don’t buy from companies that they don’t trust. You should definitely have what you do as a tab with your product/service offerings so you look like a focused company. More importantly, you should talk about customer success stories because nothing says it better that you know what you are doing when other people who have bought from you are willing to share it publicly.

If you have been around a while, give them a time line of your progress and growth

Sure, you can give people an overview of your company, but what makes the “About Network Solutions” site stand out is their use of an interactive time line. The time line uses flash in a proper context and goes into not only a history of Network Solutions but the evolution of domain names and how everything came to be over the last 50 years. Very cool and educational.

Don’t just list careers or job opportunities, tell people how great it is to work there

Almost every company web site has a careers page where you can search for available positions. This is kind of expected with established companies that get lots of resumes and post jobs on a regular basis. It is a great way to manage submissions into a resume database. But after the listing and maybe a page on benefits, what else do you know about the company? The Network Solutions Careers part of the site does a great job by talking about the culture so you can see if you are a good fit before you think about sending your resume. It also includes testimony from staff that work at Network Solutions and what it is like to work there. This a great approach to emulate on your site.

Use photos of your people instead of stock photography

Most web sites use generic stock photography to covey their message or idea on a certain page. This was fine for a while but many people end up using the same images. It makes you look like you were not very creative and quite possibly lazy. Each of the pages on the “About Network Solutions” site has candid pictures of Network Solutions staff relevant to that particular part of the site. In fact, our very own “Social Media Swami”, Shashi Bellamkonda is the one you see when you go to the Online Community page that mentions our Solutions are Power blog.

Check out the new “About Network Solutions” site today

To see what I am talking about, check out the new “About Network Solutions” site at about.networksolutions.com and give us your feedback in the comments.