Add holiday deals and gift ideas to the 2009 Buy Local, Buy Smart holiday guide

In November, BuyLocalMN.com will begin publishing a holiday guide to shopping local. This guide will be promoted at a November 19 press event and related activities by the Metro Independent Business Alliance. Sign up now to add a deal or gift idea from your business!

Please enter no more than three gift ideas. We want to keep the guide fair for every business that participates.

If you already have a BuyLocalMN.com user account, please scroll down to find instructions for you.

Instructions: I don't have a BuyLocalMN.com account yet

Step 1

Sign up for a BuyLocalMN.com account. Click the "SIGN UP" link at the top of the page to go to the user registration page.

Step 2

Fill out the user registration form. The "username" field is for your own personal use and reference to log into the site, it will not be displayed publicly. The "Owner profile" information is partly for our internal use (phone and address). However, if you enter an Owner Statement, it will appear along with your business listing as a statement about your values or interests as a small business owner.

The "CAPTCHA" part of the form helps us fight spam and keep illegitimate business listings out of BuyLocalMN.com. As in the image above, please fill out the letters and numbers you see in the image, and click "Create new account" to submit your user registration.

Step 3

You will receive an e-mail containing your new user account information, as in the image above. You will use this username and password to log into BuyLocalMN.com. If you do not see this e-mail within 30 minutes: please check your SPAM or JUNK e-mail folder. Sometimes an e-mail from a new website can fall into a spam or junk mail filter. Check for a message from info@buylocalmn.com.

Step 4

Step 5

Look for the "Create a gift idea" link in the welcome bar at the top of your screen. Click that link.

Step 6

Fill out the Gift Idea form basic details. Give your gift idea a short title using the "Title" field. Since you just created your account, you will need to type in the name of your business. If your business is already listed in BuyLocalMN.com, please contact us after you submit your gift idea so we can link the gift idea and your user account to your business. This will allow you to maintain your own business listing.

If your business is not yet listed in BuyLocalMN.com, you will want to create a listing for it. You can do so before submitting your gift idea or after. When you are ready to submit your business to be listed, just click here to start.

Step 7

Add an image to your gift idea. An image will make your gift idea more attractive in the list. Images that work best are roughly square, or somewhat taller than they are wide. If your image is more than 1600x1200 pixels in resolution, or larger than 5 MB in file size, it may not work properly. For best results, use a web-sized image (smaller than 1024x768 pixels in resolution). Please use a JPG or GIF file for your image.

First, click the "Browse" button. This will pop up a window that allows you to choose your image file from your computer. Once you've selected the image and clicked OK in that window, you will need to click the "Upload" button on the gift idea form. When your image is finished uploading, it should look something like the above image.

Step 8

Finish your gift idea. Enter some text description of the gift idea or deal in the "Description" field. This can be as long or short as you want.

Finally, click the "Save" button. You will be presented with your finished gift idea. Your gift idea will be submitted for moderation, and will not appear in the public gifts page until one of our moderators has approved it. If you want to make further edits to your gift, just click the "Edit" tab (right under the title of the gift idea) to return to the form.

Instructions: I already have a BuyLocalMN.com account!