We've moved! Shoe Leather, the Behind the Seams blog from The Gumshoes at Shoestring Magazine, has moved to ShoestringMag.com, the home of all things good for the wallet and good for the planet. Follow us on Twitter @shoestring, become a fan of Shoestring on Facebook, and sign up for our free weekly newsletter, The Gumshoe Files, to stay up to date on all things Shoestring.
~ Melissa, founder & Stealfinder in Chief
For me, high school was not the "best years of my life." I do not look back fondly on my experiences, and senior prom, yeah not so much. I'm not going to lie, I went through a real awkward phase from about 4 to 17: big glasses; 80s perm; and so on. I have not, and probably never will, attend a high school reunion. Yeah, I know, I'm bitter. Get over it. For years, I've been hounded by friends and family to hop on the social networking bandwagon. The thing is, if I sign up for these sites, people will be able to find me. Not just people I'm friends with now, but people I was once friends with, or acquaintances from once upon a time, or that dude I meet at a bar one night 5 years ago. I've done almost everything humanely possible to make it more difficult for people to find me. I've changed my last name, I've moved 5 times, and I've kept my web presence to a minimum.
All that changed a few months ago when I Googled myself. The problem with running a web 2.0 business is that your name is everything. As Melissa and I send out media kits, and ramp up the magazine, I actually want people to find me. One of the key rules of SEO marketing is "links, links, and more links." You need to link out to relevant sites as well as have relevant sites link back to you. So, when I Googled "Meghan Udell," I found out that I have a doppelganger; one with whom I really didn't want to be associated. The other "Megan" had a huge web presence. Now, in the past, when I wanted to use social networking I had used my alias (it's an alias, so no, I'm not sharing). This enabled me to "cyber-stalk" people if I wanted to, but not actually have them know who I was. This plan worked remarkably well until a 15-year-old in Sacramento started to get all media savvy.
So I created a real Facebook account, a real Twitter account, and yes, I started to write on this blog. I've managed to wipe "Megan 2" off my first page of Google results, but it's a huge amount of work. People have started to "friend" me on Facebook, I have to post "tweets" every day, and I've actually been taking lame quizzes on Facebook. My Google search results have started to dictate the start to my day. Red (my husband) thinks I'm crazy. He's refused so far to even sign up for a LinkedIn account. I admire his ability to cling to anonymity, but he doesn't run his own company.
I'm a little confused about how to balance a professional web presence with a personal identity, especially when my professional life is so personal. My personal brand is my professional brand, and vice versa. What are your tips for keeping your "real life" offline? Or separating your personal and professional "brands"? Would love to hear your thoughts.
~ Meghan Udell (the real one)
p.s. That's me at prom. I look happy, but it's a lie.
With the first New Year's Resolutions issue of Shoestring just about wrapped, and our own resolutions to make Shoestring an even bigger success in 2009 in full swing, Meghan and I have been reflecting on our accomplishments so far (plus things that were left on the cutting room floor, like this old logo, above left.) In particular, we've been cherishing all the vital feedback from our readers, whether that's analyzing our metrics in Google Analytics or screening our Comments sections, and love all the ideas we've gotten so far on how to continuously improve our site and our services. (Hint: reader survey coming soon...brainstorming and additional feedback much appreciated...)
Since many of you have joined us at different points along the way, we also thought this was an opportune time to recap the most popular stories and blog posts from Shoestring Magazine and our two blogs: Shoe Leather (aka, this blog), a "behind the seams" look at producing, editing, and running Bargainista Media; and Shoestring Saves, our way to share The Good Life by covering opportunities to give back to our communities and volunteer with or donate to charities around the world.
Without further ado...The 20 Most Popular Shoestring Stories of 2008:
Top 10 Shoestring Articles of 2008
1. DIY: Building a "Cloffice" (Closet Office)
2. DIY: Vintage Vinyl, 5 Gifts from $1 to $50
3. Eat & Drink: 12 Best-Value Wines Under $12
4. Budgets & Banking: Free Tools for Money Management
5. Live on Less: The New Swap Meets are Online
6. Cheap & Chic: 2008, The Year of The Private Sale Site
7. Live on Less: The Best Online Coupon Sites
8. Eat & Drink: Bubbly That Won't Break the Bank
9. (Starving) Arts: The Working Stiffs' Office Party Survival Guide
10. Budgets & Banking: Behind the Bailout
Top 5 Shoe Leather Blog Posts of 2008
1. Shoestring Shopping: 4 Little Black Dresses Under $40
2. Frugal Feathers: Trendy Accessories Under $20
3. Ode to Sock Monkeys: Cheeky Gifts Under $25
4. Shoestring Travel: Premium All-Inclusive Vacations
5. Frugal Foodies: The Pop Culture Pot Luck
Top 5 Shoestring Saves Blog Posts of 2008
1. Shalom Orphanage, Karatu Tanzania: Goodbyes
2. Shalom Orphanage, Karatu Tanzania: Day 2
3. Gifts that Give Back: Save the Animals from $5 to $500
4. Climbing Kilimanjaro: Summiting, Uhuru Peak
5. Tweetsgiving: Build an Orphanage Through Social Media
What have YOUR favorite Shoestring articles or blog posts been so far? What were your least favorite? Why? Let us know by posting a comment!
I'm a Boston girl—always have been, and probably always will be—which means two things: 1) Frugality is in my blood, and 2) I'm a Red Sox fan. And, as our hometown ball club and the Kerry-Heinz ketchup empire have taught me over the years, "Good Things Come to Those Who Wait."
With Shoestring, that's become a mantra—especially in the past two weeks, as Meghan and I faced the daunting reality of finding a new programmer for the web site at the 11th hour, pushed back our launch date (for the third time), and went back to square one with a business plan that started to seem impossible.
In other words, it was time to start over yet again. Surprisingly, though, it isn't bumming us out. It's actually been pretty rejuvenating, and is proving to me just what tough broads both this magazine and the women behind it have turned out to be.
If there's one other thing that Shoestring has been consistently over the past 10 years, at least, it's been patient, and I've started to realize that I'm no more in control of the right time for this launch than I am over what kinds of deals I'll find at Filene's Basement on any given Saturday. Sometimes, you just have to let things reveal themselves to you in their own time, and stay committed to the adventure for it's own sake.
Since 1999, Shoestring has lived many lives (some only in my head or on paper, some actually tangible): print magazine, daily newsletter, blog, and now one-stop online resource for finding The Good Life for Less. Like Carrie Bradshaw, I've also had multiple (business) partners since then, each as different from each other as Big from Berger from Aidan, but each one adding passion and perspective, maturing Shoestring—and me—in priceless ways. I love each one of them dearly, and I couldn't possibly be here writing this if it weren't for all of them. But, in business as in romance, we can never look back, only ahead, and take time to ponder what we've learned about ourselves and others when it doesn't work out. Kim and Petey, Jen and the Emerson gang, though you're not with Shoestring now, you have been before and you will be again soon. As the cliché goes, timing is everything. For me and Meghan, the time is now. Almost.
I should be no stranger to the upsets and setbacks that life and the start-up world can throw at you—making you change your course on a dime or go back to the drawing board completely—now having worked for two start-up publishers and four start-up web sites. (Hello, my name is Melissa, and I'm a start-up junkie.) But, for some reason, this time it's different. Maybe it's because this time, it's personal. It's my dream, my baby, my passion project. Whatever you want to call it, it's become an extension of me over the last decade, and it's been the thing that's sustained me when times were rough in my writing and editing career. Even though I feel like I can make it move like my own arm or pinkie finger, just by willing it so or trying with all my might, sometimes it controls me. I think all entrepreneurs will probably tell you that takes some getting used to.
In 2000, Kim and I pitched Shoestring as a print magazine—after dreaming up the idea late one night in the office of our student newspaper at UNH—to one of my editors' husbands, someone who worked as a consultant (and a very successful one at that) connecting publishers, advertisers, and venture capitalists.
"Bingo!" we thought. "We really can make this happen. Sweet!"
Not quite.
"It's a great idea," Steve told me. "But it will never work. Advertisers won't pay for space in a magazine aimed at people without money to spend." Hadn't he ever met old, stodgy wealthy people? They didn't get that way by spending it—just look at the Brahmins! Sigh.
It was the first of many crushing, but not fatal, blows. I took his feedback to heart, went back to the basics, and tried to strengthen the pitch, the business plan, and find more research on our demographic. Before I could pitch it again, though, a little magazine called Budget Living
While I wanted to be resentful of their team, I found it insanely hard to pout. Instead, I pored over every issue, the writers and editors became like old friends, and I saved everything, reading each article over and over even today. They did a fantastic job. Sarah Gray Miller was the woman I longed to be doing the job I longed to have and writing about the things I'd longed to write about. (Not only did she found Budget Living, but also my other most-favorite-and-now-defunct book, Organic Style
But, among other things, both were tough love lessons that needed to be learned—and both Steve's advice and Budget Living's rise and fall set me on the path I needed to find for Shoestring so that we could get to where we are today. Never take just one person's advice as "the word," no matter how experienced they are. Ask for opinions, from dozens of people, and never forget your audience. Always go with your gut before the "trends." You'll never really know until you give it a try.
So try we are, and soon—dear friends, family, loyal readers and random strangers—Shoestring will be a living, breathing, code complete reality. For now, however, we're still sifting through the dust that's settled around our most recent explosion, searching for the gems of wisdom to get us out of the rubble with grace and glory.
Stay tuned for more tales from our adventures, as we wear out the Shoe Leather and bare our soles chasing this dream of bringing you The Good Life for Less.
~ Melissa
Founder and Stealfinder in Chief
Shoestring and Bargainista.com
