Recently, I’ve noticed that the email signatures of some colleagues have grown significantly. Some even include images, along with privacy disclaimers, etc… It’s annoying. Especially when one of them asks me if I got the attachment they sent? What attachment? This is a conversation I had recently with someone I communicate with frequently. I had come to expect that all this person’s emails would have attachments. That’s how many email programs and servers handle inline images. They might include them in the body of the email, but they almost always also attach them to the email itself. It all becomes noise. I’m sure it’s not what the sender intended when he/she spent valuable time building that elaborate, branded email signature!
By itself, that’s really not a big deal, but in the last year, I have become much more active with my Social Networking. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr just to name a few. Which one do I include in MY email signature? Do I include them all, and risk others tuning-out my noisy email signature too?
There has to be a better way!
Yesterday, the power of Twitter (@Mashable, to be more precise) brought a solution to my inbox. A new website/service called Magntize (link). It took me minutes to set up my personal landing page. It doesn’t take the place of my website, blog or any social networking I’m involved in. Lord knows, I already have enough website logins to remember every day!
Instead of Magntize being “one-more-thing”, it’s a “thing” that ties all the other “things” together. A virtual business card, if you will. It’s free and very effective. Thank goodness it doesn’t take the place of a real website or blog, or I’d be out of business.
One virtual business card or online personal “feed” display. It takes minutes to set up and solved a couple challenges for me:
- A better email signature with the power to show everything about me, without blasting every email with unwanted noise.
- An easy to setup, single place on the Internet that can display all my social networking interactions in a simple and clean way.
I liked it so much, I opted for their “Pro” upgrade, which included my own domain name!
See my new email signature below:
Best,
Erik Kullenberg
My Card: ErikKullenberg.com
November 25th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Thanks so much for taking the time to write about your experience of Magntize! You’re right about the email signatures beginning to get out of control. Way to keep it simple!