Guest Blogger Guidelines & Suggestions

We’ve had a fair amount of interest from people who would like to blog in the ACT! by Sage Journal, and as such, we have created these guidelines to help you. Remember that these are guidelines . . . we’re looking for bloggers who can express themselves and share high-quality customer management, sales management, ACT! experiences and related information with our community audience.

Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Adverstising

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) updated their guides concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising on 10/5/09.  Bloggers who are being paid for their services must disclose this clearly and conspicuously in their blog article. You can read the FTC announcement of these changes here. View the text of the Revised Endorsement and Testimonial Guides.

Topics
We’re open to articles on almost everything pertaining to managing a customer-centric business. Some of the posts that garner the most attention from our users are tips, how-to posts, and interesting and informative lists that they can easily digest. We’re always looking for best practices posts, marketing and sales tips, as well as those that walk people through a process in ACT!. 

Sub Headings
Subheadings are great for breaking up your posts, and help make them easier to read. Use the bold or h3 tag to wrap your subheadings.

Images
Images can really grab a reader’s attention and help visually explain the message you are relaying. If you can’t come up with an image that directly relates to what you’re writing about, think of abstract images that may illustrate your point. A few notes:

• Images can be of any size – but the maximum width is 600 pixels.

• You must have permission to use an image, or at least use one where there is no copyright issue. Proper attribution is required.

Blog Length
Typically, blogs can be of any length as long as they convey the message.  Keep in mind that blogs that are too long can be daunting for readers.

Editing
We regularly edit posts submitted to ACT! by our contributors and guest bloggers. We’re not going to rewrite your article, but may suggest grammatical changes, minor edits, title changes, image changes, and other changes. We may return your article with recommendations to help readers better understand the content.

In-Blog Links
We will allow links in your blog articles if they are relevant to the topic you’re writing about. We do ask that you link to any of your sources in order to give proper attribution. Linking to your blog or website is okay ONLY if relevant to the topic. Excessive linking is prohibited.

Byline / Signature
We want to help promote you as the author of your article.  Each author will be provided the opportunity to include a byline in your blog article as well as a brief bio. This may not be used as adspace. We’re looking for you to let people know who you are and what you do. We allow up to 2 links, but they may not promote products or services.

Submit Articles
Please submit articles to actsocialcrm@sage.com. If you need assistance or have questions, please let us know.