Forget licking envelopes. This year go electronic with your holiday greeting.
When thinking about Christmas cards this year, and the ever increasing price of stamps, you might be opting for electronic versions of your Christmas cards! Here are a few ways to accomplish that and a couple of tips to remember when doing cards electronically
• First you can go for the cheesy e-card. This definitely wouldn’t replace the traditional “Christmas Card” but it’s a fun, unique way to tell your friends and family merry Christmas. There are several different websites that allow you to do this like Hallmark and Bluemountain, or you can go with this fun Christmas themed one… www.allthingschristmas.com
• If you are looking to replace your typical card/newsletter type you have three main options email, blog or social networking. In either case you will probably still want to create a fun card for people to see. To accomplish this you can visit any of the many online scrapbook sites. I used scrapblog.com to create this image very easily.
What is great about websites like that is that some sites will allow you to publish the image directly to a blog or a social networking site like Facebook. Or you can also download the image to attach in an email.
Now that you’ve created a great Christmas card, you want to make sure your family and friends see it. Here are your sharing options…
• Email – You can write the entire newsletter in an email and then attach your Christmas card image to the email. A couple of things to remember when sending out a mass email like this are that first some email providers can’t accept messages that are over 1 Megabyte. A good rule of thumb is to keep your attachment under 1 MB and most email providers will not reject it. The second thing to remember is that some internet service providers will limit how many emails you can send at a time (to try and keep the spammers at bay). The limit is typically 25 emails. So if you have more people to send to than that, try and break it up into groups of 25.
• Blog – This is a fantastic medium to post your Christmas card and newsletter. Simply insert the image into your post and then write your newsletter. The only issue here is that some people may not know about your blog, so make sure to send an email to all of your friends and family with the blog address so they can visit.
• Social Networking – This is another great place to post your Christmas Card and Newsletter. In Facebook you can create a new note and attach your image to the note. Like this
The last thing to remember when posting your holiday card/newsletter online is that the information becomes public. If you have personal information in your newsletter you may consider going with a more private medium like email, or doing it on a social network site where only the people that can see it are your accepted friends. If you wanted to post it on your blog you might just consider making your blog private, or not revealing detailed information about your family. Have fun, and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
• You could also do something really unique and create a youtube video with your family singing a Christmas carol, or a new twist on a Christmas carol like the 12 days at the Kimmel home or something… like this www.inhouseit.com
• Last you could do a photo slideshow of your entire year. A good site is slideroll.com
Sarah is a technology expert who uses that information to help organize her life and the lives of others. You can visit her website at www.tech4mommies.com and www.dailyhomeplanner.com
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