Blogging is one of the most important social media channels available to any business. It’s great because it’s free and it’s easy to do. The only problem is that most people have no idea what to blog about. My response to all clients is the same: Blog about your industry and what you know about it.  Here at kohactive we have two separate blogs: Think is our philosophical approach to social media, web design and anything digital; Labs is our creative playground where we test and share stuff. Note that we blog about what we know and do. And not only that, but blogging has made us money and it can absolutely do the same for you.

Calm down, I know you’re getting excited but I need to set up the situation. A few months ago I was looking for a solution to a problem with regards to Flash Web Development and MailChimp Integration and when I couldn’t find the answer I decided to develop my own. After a few hours of hard work I solved my problem and then wrote a blog about it. I didn’t just write about the problem, I provided a solution and source code available for download.

At the time, I didn’t realize how many other people were looking for the same solution. Without knowing this I went ahead and notified MailChimp about my supreme accomplishment and then immediately posted a link to the article on their website. That was HUGE! One of the largest and most popular Email Marketing company in the world had posted a link to our blog on their website. They did it because it provided solutions for their clients and it was resourceful. It was mutually beneficial.

Over the course of a few months I saw thousands of visitors searching and finding that article. We had thousands of hits and everyone seemed happy. One day a London based company approached us about the code. They thanked us and asked if we were “experts in flash”. Consequently, they hired us for a project, which will inevitably lead to future projects. We plan on maintaining a close and personal relationship with this company.

This is just a small example of many companies and bloggers who have gained business leads and clients through blogging. How does this effect you? it’s quite simple. If you want a blog that matters than you should follow these simple rules:

1. Blog about what you know and do
2. Don’t just talk, provide solutions or answers
3. Provide insight and knowledge to beginners or other industry professionals
4. Always maintain professionalism and integrity
5. Always site sources (if applicable)
6. Use Twitter and Facebook to spread the word
7. Share with our industry professionals or related businesses

Now these simple rules are not going to help every business succeed, but I believe that giving will always provide a return of some sort. Don’t be hesitant to give out “secrets”, unless that secret makes billions of dollars.

If blogging has ever earned you business let us know in the comments below!

While building our awesome new website, we wanted to ensure that users could easily subscribe to our newsletter through the Flash version, without having to be redirected anywhere else. Convenience is king, and we wanted to deliver it!

We use MailChimp, the best email marketing platform available! And luckily, they have a great API to work with. Through Flash, we were able to add subscribers to our list and also return any results, i.e. error or success.

While searching Google I found an article by Christian Cox on MailChimp’s API and AS2, but that wasn’t enough.  We needed a nice AS3 version of the code. So Justin and I put together this nice, simple code that should work for anyone. If I had more time I would definitely make a class.. Perhaps later this month.

//api and list id keys
var _api:String = "MAIL_CHIMP_API_KEY_HERE";
var _listID:String = "LIST_ID_HERE";

//text box handler
emailAddress.text = "email address";
emailAddress.tabIndex = 1;
emailAddress.addEventListener(FocusEvent.FOCUS_IN, txtFocusIn);
emailAddress.addEventListener(FocusEvent.FOCUS_OUT, txtFocusOut);

function txtFocusIn(e:FocusEvent) {
        emailAddress.text = "";
}
function txtFocusOut(e:FocusEvent) {
        if (emailAddress.text == "") {
                emailAddress.text = "email address";
        }
}

//button setup
submitBtn.buttonMode = true;
submitBtn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, submitForm);

function submitForm(e:Event) {

        var email:String = emailAddress.text;

        //check if valid
        if (isValidEmail(email)) {

                //set response text
                responseText.text = "sending...";

                //disable the submit button
                submitBtn.removeEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, submitForm);

                //setup POST
                var variables:URLVariables = new URLVariables("method=listSubscribe&output=xml&apikey=" + _api + "&id=" + _listID + "&email_address=" + email + "&merge_vars=");
                var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest();
                request.url = "http://api.mailchimp.com/1.2/?method=listSubscribe";
                request.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;
                request.data = variables;

                var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
                loader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.VARIABLES;
                loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, completeHandler);

                try {
                        trace("loading...");
                        responseText.text = "loading...";
                        loader.load(request);
                }
                catch(error:Error) {
                        trace("unable to load URL");
                        responseText.text = "Oh, that's embarassing. something went wrong, please try again. Thanks!";
                        trace(e.target.data);
                }
                function completeHandler(e:Event) {
                        var _t:String = unescape(e.target.data); //decode the uri

                        var _xml:XMLList = new XMLList(_t); //parse the xml
                        trace(_xml.@type);
                        if (_xml.@type == "array") { //check to see if there is an error
                                trace(_xml.error);
                                responseText.text = _xml.error;
                                resetForm();
                        } else if (_xml.@type == "boolean") { //check to see if successfully added
                                trace("successfully added to list");
                                responseText.text = "You have beeen successfully added to our list. Thank you!";
                                resetForm();
                        }
                }

        } else {
                trace ("email invalid");
        resetForm ();
                responseText.text = "invalid email!";
        }

}

//validate given email
function isValidEmail(_e:String):Boolean {
        var exp:RegExp = /^[a-z][\w.-]+@\w[\w.-]+\.[\w.-]*[a-z][a-z]$/i;
    return exp.test(_e);
}

//reset the form elements
function resetForm(){
        submitBtn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, submitForm);
        emailAddress.text = "email address";

}

Done and done. Pretty easy, right? You can also download the mailchimp_api.

UPDATE: A new version has been created that includes First and Last Name data collection [mailchimp_api_1.3].