Beth Devine – Page 11

Pay-Per-Click – What is it, Do I Need it and Can I do it Myself?

February 26, 2016 Beth Devine

Pay-per-Click or Adwords is a paid program that buys you ranking for your website. Most often referred to as Google Adwords, a good pay-per-click program can be effective across multiple search engines like Bing and Yahoo. This is an advertising campaign where you only pay if someone clicks on your ad.

If your industry is highly competitive, you don’t add content to your website frequently or are a fairly new company, getting on the first page of Google can be a challenge. Although we recommend investing in an overall content marketing program, it can take time for the search engines to rank your site. Pay-per-click allows you to have a strong on-line presence while you wait for your natural ranking to improve.

Can you manage your own campaign? Yes and No. Pay-per-Click programs give you the tools to create your own campaign however, unless you have a great deal of time to commit to becoming an expert, I would not recommend managing it. Search engines change their algorithms frequently. To run a truly effective campaign you need to have an thorough understanding of these changes.

We have worked with clients that have managed their own programs and once transferred to a company that does this alone have seen results that are twice as effective for half the cost. Managing a campaign is a combination of art and science and requires constant education to stay on top of it.

Please contact us at 860-432-8756 for help with your Pay-Per-Clicks (Adwords) Campaign.

Love Is In the Air With Facebook’s New Reaction Buttons

February 25, 2016 Beth Devine

There’s a whole lotta new reactions going on in Facebook. No longer are you limited to “Like” when responding to a Facebook post. You now have five new emoji buttons to click: “Love,” “Haha,” “Wow,” “Sad,” and “Angry.”

The emoji buttons will automatically be added to your computer Web browsers, but to get the new feature on your iPhones and Android phones, you will need to go to the App Store and update the Facebook app. It appears that Windows and Blackberry phones are not yet in the loop.

On the left is a post with the new reaction buttons displayed, and on the right is the post after you choose an emoji.

Using the new Facebook reaction buttons is easy. For desktop applications, simply hover over the Like button for the reaction emojis to pop up, then tap on one. For mobile devices, hold down on the Like button to get the buttons to appear. Once you’ve chosen your reaction to the post, the total reaction tally goes up.

To determine the breakdowns for the six buttons, simply hover over each emoji for a list of names, or click on any emoji to get the total count for each one. So far, love is the most popular button, with the new reaction emojis making their global debut this week after a trial run in Spain, Ireland, Chile, the Philippines, and a few other countries.

You can only choose one reaction at a time and even change your mind as often as you wish, while keeping the total tally the same. So while you might feel a strong urge to share the “Love,” an overwhelming need to express a “Wow” could surface, followed by a crazy “Haha” moment, which no one can really blame you for feeling. Now it’s all possible, but you have to pick just one, so make a choice already, for crying out loud.

Speaking of crying, you can finally express “Sad” when something calls for it, instead of settling for an awkward “Like” when it seems insensitive in response to a post about a pet who’s died or the latest news on the state of the climate. With the political debate in high gear, the “Angry” reaction could get some good use too, although “Haha” serves as a pleasant alternative.

Whether you choose to love or laugh, be sad or mad, this information is going to help Facebook and businesses. The new emotional bandwidth data gives users the satisfaction of expressing more specific feelings, while brands get the benefit of using these reactions to gauge future messages.

Marketers can use this knowledge along with Facebook Pages, where you have to dig to see any negative feedback. In the Insights category, you can see how many people hide a post, report spam, or unlike a page due to a post. The new information from reaction buttons can be helpful in understanding how each post is received. Before this when a follower hides a post, it could simply mean they don’t want their Newsfeed cluttered with brand posts and not because they don’t like the message.

How will the new reaction buttons impact Facebook? How will they affect society? Sandi Krakowski, a top social media influencer and thought leader, had this to say about the original “Like” button:

“The psychology behind a LIKE button and how we respond to this tiny button has changed our world and brought global strangers into a connected neighborhood. Studies reveal that people feel a reward when they are able to LIKE our content as a brand. They want to BELONG!”

That message calls for a giant WOW reaction. What we do with our emotional emoji buttons just might change the world again.

How to Get Found on the Internet: Nobody Cares What I had for Breakfast

February 24, 2016 Beth Devine

Whenever we approach the subject of blogging with our manufacturing clients we get the same push back…

Nobody cares what we had for breakfast, or
Our customers already know that

We’d like to address these two misconceptions.

First, a company blog has nothing to do with what one consumes for the first meal of the day. The concept of blogging is often confused with a teenager tweeting or posting their mundane life updates on Facebook. When in reality, blogging is simply a way to add content to your website. Blogs can be presented in various formats from a written piece to a video blog. All formats can be useful as long as the information presented is educational and written with the audiences needs in mind.

Second, as far as “our customer already knows this”, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they know you do it. We can say with almost 100% certainty that every manufacturing client we’ve worked with for the past 20+ years has told us at one time or another, “I can’t believe my customer didn’t know I did this”. The reason they didn’t know was that the one time they shared with the customer all their capabilities, the customer only had the one need, so they didn’t retain information about the other services/products. Blogging helps to keep all your capabilities in front of them at all times.

Blogging is essential for several reasons…

Your search engine optimization depends on frequent updates to your site. The most recent content gets ranked higher and therefore, sites that publish more frequently get better ranking.
Adding content to your site helps to ensure you can be found on a search. If you don’t have the right keyword terms on your site, how are people to find you when searching those terms?
A good blog helps to establish you/your company as experts in the field. People are more interested in having a conversation with someone who obviously knows what they’re doing.
Blogs can be used to help you to stay in front of your customers and prospects on a consistent basis (can be used to as content for an e-newsletter).

Many of our manufacturing clients are concerned with SEO (search engine optimization) as they want to be found on searches that apply to their business. These days SEO is all about content. Therefore, content creation is critical and blogging is the way to go.

Please contact us at 860-432-8756 for help with your content creation (aka blog).

Also from our Blog: 5 Reasons to Blog for Your Business: Blogging Resistance Beware

Are You Being a Bore On Social Media?

February 12, 2016 Beth Devine

Social media is a fickle place. There is no room for a boring business. Platforms keep changing features and formats, and you’re competing for the attention of followers who are on multiple social sites, as well as with the 89% of other businesses who are active on social media.

Short attention spans and the growing competition, plus the accelerating demand for optimising your social media presence add up to a frenetic need for un-boring content. It’s crucial for businesses to avoid the stamp of “BORing,” spoken like only the bumbling Homer Simpson can.

Because when you’re a huge bore on social media, the only thing you’ll attract is the unfollow button.

One critical area to focus on is images. Here are some desperately needed image resources for fueling engagement and getting attention on social media. If you’re posting text without image content, then you might as well post computer code and hope a programmer out there is watching.

Give Your Images a Boost With These Free Resources

Free images with simple creative common license information is your solution for finding attractive visuals. No worrying about improper image use coming to haunt you one day with licensing nightmares and legal fines.

I’ve written about great free sources before, and even more free sources, and here are a few additional winners to give your online content a boost.

Albumarium

Don’t think aquarium or aluminum, think album upon album, and you’ve zeroed in on this catchy title and free image site. All the images are organized into albums, so there’s no specific photo search, just a like grouping by theme.

This is a useful tool when you find yourself looking for a group of photos with identical themes or settings, or photos taken by the same photographer for a uniform feel. This free photo site will allow you to share images under the CC 2.0 license, making attribution necessary, but it’s always a gracious gesture even if not required whenever the artist is known.

Free Images

Yes, this is an actual site, with nearly 400,000 free photos and images to use as you wish, with only minor restrictions. See their license agreement for the full scoop.

This charitable phenomenon of stoking creatives with free images probably began long before Free Images got their footing, but I dare say they were one of the first. Enjoy the fruits, and if you’re dabbling in the photo-shooting arean, don’t be stingy. Share your bounty here.

Good Free Photos

This is exactly what you will find on this site. Good free photos to enhance your social media posts and give you new stunning landscape photos, most of which are located in the United States album.

Be sure to check out the textures album for some great background ideas for your images, all free to use on the public domain. It’s going to be a party on your platform with these freebies.

Kaboompics

Don’t blame me when your image euphoria reaches its zenith. Blame Kaboompics and its brainchild creator and photographer Karolina Grabowska. She’s responsible for all the downloading photo-fun and creating you’ll have, because there’s nothing that screams free and beautiful all at the same time like this photo site.

So have at it, and don’t hesitate to report the lack of cats. It’s the one sad affair this site is having and it must end now.

Upicm

“Free pics, no tricks” on this site, and you won’t be disappointed in the vast array of offerings. While there isn’t a search option, there are many categories to choose from, including some unusual delights, such as graffiti, doors, memes, and icons, logos and buttons.

They say you can use their pictures on anything, from books and posters to album covers and products, and even your toenails are open for business. But don’t stop there. I’m sure you can outdo them with application ideas. Just don’t let on that I encouraged you.

Re:splashed

At 963 images and counting, Re:splash is a fabulous collection of free, high-def images from Crew, the same marketing team who does Unsplash, another free photo source. Apparently they’ve got a lot of free photos on their hands.

The search function is based on photo tags, and the growing collection features some of the most fascinating photography you’ll lay eyes on this side of the web. Get in the mood for something brilliant with their high-reaching, moody shots, and give your content something to shout about.

Google Advanced Image Search

Generally speaking, you do not want to find your images with a Google image search. However, most people aren’t aware of a custom image search feature on Google. The trick is to follow your Google search with a couple more clicks.

Once you enter your search words, click on the “search tools” drop down, followed by “usage rights.” Then click on “labelled for reuse with modification” so your image search will only include those that you can use for free, commercial use. For each image, check for any other usage restrictions, such as attribution requirements.

There you go. You’ve just uncovered Google’s little free image secret.

Public Domain Images

Get to the search function by clicking on weekly images, then peruse the archives of images hand-picked by a husband and wife team. They wanted to see a public domain collection of high quality images on a site that is clean and image-focused, so they built this resource just for you.

See what’s for offer here and find some unexpected entertainment in the stories posted with some of the images, such as their surprise encounter with terrorists in Chicago that turned out to be the Transformer filmmaking shoot. You definitely won’t find boring here.

Stay tuned and get more ways to avoid boring on social media in the next post. I hope you’re up for it, because no one aspires to boring, not even politicians.

Social Media of the Future Is Here

January 25, 2016 Beth Devine

Social media of the future is going to be more exceptional and carry bigger impact. It will be a more prominent go-to tool for self-expression. What does this mean for small businesses in 2016? How do brands prioritize the increased engagement that’s required to establish and maintain customer loyalty?

Every brand should have social media as part of their marketing strategy. Consumers want to have relationships with companies, and they want companies to participate in the narratives and systems that are being built to accommodate these relationships.

Here are three areas to focus your attention on in social media for 2016:

1. People Power Rules the Social Planet

Personalization is more important than ever. In the relationship between brands and customers, social media is a valuable asset in creating personal connections. There are three elements that are growing in the social arena to pay attention to:

User-generated content is a growing trend that gives companies a great way to engage with customers. Since Doritos began its Crash the Super Bowl contest, the user-generated concept has moved into other platforms, such as Instagram and Vine.

Lately, user-generated content is making waves in “unboxing” as brands jump in on the resurgence in popularity. While unboxing has been around as long as video-sharing software, the format is experiencing a rejuvenated appeal due to the rise in video sharing platforms and smartphone video technology.

Wikipedia defines unboxing as the “unpacking of new products, especially high tech consumer products. The product’s owner captures the process on video and later uploads it to the web.” It’s expanding to include cosmetics, fashion, cars, and toys, and brands are getting involved by sponsoring the unboxing stars.

Employee advocacy needs to be encouraged in companies for its positive effect on generating a wider reach and more personal appeal. Link Humans defines employee advocacy as” the exposure that employees generate for brands using their own online assets.” Your employees are your biggest advocates, and they will help build a more authentic trust for your company.

Instead of advancing more of your own marketing content, recruit your employees to talk about your company on social media, including forums and discussion boards. Create brand ambassadors to share a human perspective to your brand that customers will gravitate to. Most of your employees’ lives are already intertwined with social media. Enlisting their help to maintain and nurture company relationships as brand ambassadors is also a way to empower them.

Influencer marketing is a way to reach the audience of an influencer in your market. By establishing a long-term relationship with a key influencer, you establish trust with your customers while promoting your brand. Because audiences are so fragmented on social media, influencer marketing can help build your presence on multiple platforms.

2. Social Video Takes Over the World

Video is flourishing on social media. Facebook surpassed YouTube with daily video views, Twitter launched its own native video, and Snapchat reports it’s getting 6 billion views of video daily. U.S. adults watch an average of 5.5 hours of video every day.

Video shoots of the past are morphing into new formats. No longer does the prospect of costly professional video prevent you from creating and sharing video content. Today’s video, live photo, livestream apps like Periscope and Meerkat, GIFs, 8-second Vines, 15-second Instagram videos, and Snapchat video messaging are all easily adaptable to the novice videographer.

70% of companies now say video is the most effective tool in their online marketing belts, with video content dominating social media, thanks to the growing number of platforms and features. Video is set to become one of the most powerful communication tools of 2016. Be sure to engage with social video using your most creative content. Try out livestreaming services such as Periscope, Blab, Snapchat, and Meerkat. Video offers an immersive experience for your customers, giving you an opportunity to communicate in the moment.

3. The Moment Is Now With Messaging

Companies are gradually entering into social messaging as the number of active users grows, with 75 percent of internet users worldwide accessing messaging apps on their mobile devices. Business Insider reports that messaging apps are now bigger than social networks. Their growth will continue to accelerate as the apps change and more features are added.

Messaging gives internet users what they have come to expect, instantaneous responses and answers. Google’s high quality and fast delivery, and social media’s constant updating and auto-loading are conditioning people to expect consistently fast results.

While social messaging for brands might be in an undefined grey realm, it’s only a matter of time before businesses are courted by new data for marketing purposes. Already, one-on-one customer support and direct service has moved into the messaging channels. The major social platforms all have a messaging component, making 2016 the year for companies to tap into the social messaging potential.

For 2016, you can expect new challenges and opportunities in digital — how will you use them to grow your business? Get your story out using the rising power of people, video, and messaging on social media.

What Does Your Online Presence Look Like?

January 22, 2016 Beth Devine

Do you have a solid footing for your online presence for 2016? As another year begins to unfold with all its possibilities, once again we are confronted with goals, predictions, trends, expectations, and best-laid plans.

In order to have the competitive advantage, you need to create a strong identity online. To help you succeed in the year ahead, consider these three areas when establishing your online presence.

1. Make a Good First Impression With Your Website

An established business needs a professional website if you want to promote growth. Your site should reflect your current success as well as set you up for further advancement with a strategy that matches your business model. Your first impression is critical in attracting new clients and retaining current ones.

Your main internet tool is your website. Your customers aren’t looking you up in a phone book or the Thomas Register. A continually updated website helps with your SEO, so when people search for you online, they find you.

Does your home page address your customer needs? The immediate message should describe how your customer will benefit from your product or service. This is far more meaningful than an explanation of what the company does, what products and services are offered, and the who and when of the company’s background.

Frame your content around your customers rather than making claims about how great your company is. You’re more likely to elicit skepticism and indifference with self-promotion. Impress your customers with testimonials instead of giving them unsubstantiated claims that falsely inflate your business.

Don’t forget to keep your website updated. A good first impression will be lost if your site gets hacked through plugins that weren’t updated or you’re operating under the misconception that your small business site won’t be targeted.

2. Other Ways to Build Your Online Presence

There are many opportunities to grow your online presence once you’ve established a professional website. Does your business write white papers? Would short videos of your processes or service be of interest to your audience? Do you have a blog for sharing information with your customers? What else will help with your website activity?

When you create compelling content, you’re opening wide the doors to your website. The more you offer, the more your online presence grows. The more good content you share, the more your SEO will improve.

Remember, there’s no such thing as digital writing. Writing for SEO is dead, but writing for the reader is what’s going to help the search engines — and your readers — find you. So give your customers something to search for in addition to a well designed website.

3. Building Relationships on LinkedIn and Social Media

People want to do business with companies that share useful and relevant information. Today’s social media is a giant indicator of how important relationship building is in the business world. And for professionals, the social network is LinkedIn.

With over 380 million members, LinkedIn is growing in its B2B transactions. It’s the place to be for businesses, no matter what your expertise is. Connecting with your contacts just got a lot easier with the updated Voyager app, helping you stay informed about the conversations and content that matter the most.

Search also improved, and is 300% faster for your jobs, people, and group searches.

LinkedIn has also acquired Lynda.com, an online education company that features thousands of online video courses on a wide variety of topics. Employers can see what courses prospective employees have taken, and members can grow their skill sets.

Your online presence is incomplete without social media. Get involved in the online networking community and give your website more internet exposure.

Know Your Audience

Each of these three online areas has an important ingredient in common. To better understand your customers and their needs, all of your online strategies have to include audience awareness. Getting to know your audience’s demographics involves doing some market research. Entrepreneur defines market research as:

The process of gathering, analyzing and interpreting information about a market, about a product or service to be offered for sale in that market, and about the past, present and potential customers for the product or service; research into the characteristics, spending habits, location and needs of your business’s target market, the industry as a whole, and the particular competitors you face.

The ideas you get from your market research will inform your content ideas, helping you to target your audience’s needs. With the right information you’ll be a better online communicator whose online presence will reflect your concern to meet your customer’s needs.

A Curious Collection of Motivational Quotes for Your New Year

January 6, 2016 Beth Devine

If you’re looking for run-of-the-mill motivational quotes, you’ve come to the wrong place. Handpicked to help you begin your new year right, this is a curious collection that I hope will spur you into action. And unless you’re my clone, or you write for a living, I doubt you’re familiar with every last one of these words of wisdom.

Don’t let 2016 be a hamster wheel of sameness or inaction. Help stop your unproductive days from spiraling into endless lethargy. Instead, focus on creating a steadfast and resolute mindset despite being surrounded by a never-ending to-do list, energy-sucking news, and mindless chatter.

Ring in the new year with some solid motivational and edifying quotes on work and life. Bookmark them, pin them, post them, share them, or just read them out loud. Give yourself the chance to kvell over how well you’ll do in 2016 with a fresh start and a new perspective.

“When you think you can’t go anymore, when your brain says you’re done, you’re only 40% done. You can push yourself much farther.”

~US Navy SEAL David Goggins

What a concept! Build your confidence with this mantra, and give yourself a dose of what you need to tackle whatever else comes your way. Goggins idea is to pursue excellence by challenging yourself to go to the next level, to get uncomfortable and face whatever it is that’s stopping you.

Why use the 40% rule? Because “No one ever drowned in sweat.” ~USMC Officer.

“We got to stop thinking we have a secret sauce when in reality, it’s nothing but thousand island dressing.”

~Marcus Sheridan of the Sales Lion

Sheridan is talking about his secret to success. It’s what he calls the golden rule of content marketing, and it’s simple. “They Ask, You Answer” is also the title of his book.

He took the leap and began answering his customer’s questions, even the ones that competitors were unwilling to, because transparency is the key to earning trust.

When I first read about this amazing businessman, I was encouraged to learn that you can be yourself, you can begin at something and be really bad at it, and it’s okay. Because making honest progress is the only thing that matters.

“Our story is never written in isolation. We do not act in a one-man play. We can do nothing that does not affect other people, no matter how loudly we say, ‘It’s my own business.’”

~Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Think of it this way. Nothing you do will be insignificant. Your every decision, every move, and every word has potential to make an impact.

L’Engle wrote many books, but she waited ten years before her first book was published. You might have heard of it. If you haven’t read A Wrinkle In Time, read it. Better yet, make an impact and read it to a young person.

“Your life is your story. Write well. Edit often.”

~Susan Statham

Another day is another opportunity to live the way you know you must. You can edit your life. You can scratch out the parts and characters you don’t want in it. What are you waiting for?

“I missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times. I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

~Michael Jordan

If you haven’t heard it by now, you haven’t been reading much motivational writing. Failure only happens to those who don’t try. I found this quote on social media, and I like the visual of shooting for the basket as a metaphor for shooting for success.

It doesn’t matter how many times you miss. What matters is that you keep trying, if that’s what really matters to you. Do you love what you’re doing? Do you want to improve your game? Then keep on giving it your best shot.

“You have to take care of yourself in order to have the alignment and the power in order to take care of others at the capacity that we do.”

~Jada Pinkett Smith

She was talking about finding a balance in life for mothers – but it applies to everyone. Neglecting to take care of yourself leads to looking to others for your happiness instead of taking responsibility for it yourself.

Find the balance between personal, family, and work. It’s a three-legged stool and without a solid seating using all three legs, you’re going to struggle to stay upright.

“Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.”

~Charles Swindoll

There’s so much more to this than meets the eye. Everyone is tempted to play the blame game, but it’s when you own your life and work to make it what you want, using your unique gifts, that you’ll rise above all the bad stuff that is bound to happen.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

~Viktor Frankl

Frankl has inspired many in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, where he begins with an account of his experiences in Auschwitz and other concentration camps, and then turns these realities into remarkable insights. This book might alter your outlook on every manner of thing you’ve held dear.

In the end, it’s your choices that matter. Ask yourself daily, “Who is in control of my life?” Don’t ever forget who’s in the driver’s seat of your life.

“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”

~William Ernest Henley

“Invictus” is a short Victorian poem written in 1875, one you might recall from the film of the same name with Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela. Invictus means “undefeated” or “unconquered” in Latin.

Will your 2016 be a year of undefeated conviction in working toward your success?

“The way we see things is the source of the way we think and the way we act.”

~Stephen Covey

In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey demonstrates how your perceptions, or your paradigms of thinking, determine the way you behave. He uses the analogy of maps to convey how people view the world. Each person has their own map or paradigm.

How are you going to view your year? Will you assume that your map is the only way to see things? Will your attitudes and behaviors be based solely on your built-in map, or will you consider how other people see things differently?

“Sometimes, through our own doing, we make little problems big by taking them way too seriously.”

~Nick Vujicic

In Life Without Limits, Vujicic takes us through the challenges of growing up without arms or legs. His perception of what constitutes limitations will make anyone rethink their paradigm of what defines wholeness in a human being.

Several years ago I met this amazing man. Already overwhelmed by tears as I approached him, his hug — he’s known as the hugging machine — spoke volumes to me about true inner strength and courage.

“.. Fear is often described as False Evidence Appearing Real,” he writes. Let go of your aggravations and annoyances. Change your paradigm and change your life!

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.”

~C.S. Lewis

But don’t let that discourage you from trying. You’ve probably figured out by now that without a healthy dose of reality and sincere effort, you won’t get too far or stay there too long. Besides, being genuinely good will return rewards tenfold — when you do it for no reason but to be good.

As Lewis also wrote, “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”

Your new year is waiting. Go out there and live it well, be good, and don’t worry when you mess up. That’s called making progress.

Cyber Attacks on Manufacturers

December 16, 2015 Beth Devine

Manufacturers operate using a network of systems including equipment, machines, and processes that are run in a centralized manner and are often backed up on a company owned server. The increased level of cyber attacks occurring within the industry are forcing manufacturers to strengthen security for company data and systems through security software, firewalls, and other security devices.

Manufacturers are well aware of the cyber risk of data loss and systems control. The threat of these cyber attacks comes from individual hackers or groups, organized crime rings, or under the auspices of foreign governments, with the purpose to steal trade secrets and intellectual property.

Despite all the security efforts to protect your company network and its proprietary information, manufacturers often overlook a critical security loophole — your company website.

The Cons of a Company Server

Having a company server doesn’t automatically qualify you to host your own website. Whereas the confidential company data on your server is password protected and encryption-enabled, and you continually update internal software vulnerabilities, the challenge is maintaining the same level of security with your website.

Hosting your own website leaves you open to hackers who are looking to get into your server for blueprints, your banking system, and your customer’s bank accounts. Manufacturers make attractive victims for cyber criminals due to your unique assets and the fact that you are often easy targets. In fact, believing you aren’t a target is one of the most common contributing factors to a manufacturer’s vulnerability.

A client-server model of networks has its own set of computer security vulnerabilities. Remember, your network is only as secure as your administrators and designers make it. There are many ways your server is vulnerable to cyber attacks, including the choice of server and how it’s configured and encrypted.

Here are three possible threats to a client owned server:

Data theft due to improper configuration of servers.
Misuse of user rights.
Denial of Service (DoS) attacks on a server causing it to crash and lose data.

There is no way to prevent cyber attacks, just as there’s no way you can prevent someone from attempting to rob you. However, although no one is immune, you can reduce the risks by choosing strong cyber security programs and a website hosting service who’s dedicated to maintaining a secure server and continually managing it for optimum performance.

Your web hosting company will help you keep your site up and running, giving you reliable and advanced security, uptime, and disaster recovery. The greater the cyber defense of your website, the less likely you are to attract the interest of cybercriminals, and the safer your business will be.

If you do choose to host your own website with your confidential information, there are two important elements to be aware of to maintain website security:

Keep an eye on your website analytics. If there’s something amiss, keen attention to your site’s analytics can reveal unusual activity. For example, if you see a sharp increase in unexplained visits from a foreign country, it could be a sign that you’re being targeted.
Update everything. This means your antivirus software, operating systems, and all your website software, including WordPress software, its plugins and themes. The majority of these updates are security based. Hackers will take advantage of any security hole you’ve left wide open by not updating.

Manufacturers should always plan for the worst outcome. By assuming cyber criminals will target you, you will be prepared by giving yourself the best protection to your data and systems. The best safeguard for your manufacturing company isn’t a one-time effort or expense. It’s an ongoing process that involves utilizing security at all ports of entry, including your company website.

Are You Making These 5 Social Media Mistakes?

December 15, 2015 Beth Devine

Social media feels like a gift from the internet gods whether you’re on a tight budget or not. As a small company, you want to maximize creative and low-cost (or free) methods for promoting your business, but social media has you feeling overwhelmed.

Using social media to build your brand involves many options, and in order to optimize the various platforms, you have to dig deeper to discover what will work for you. Here are a few social media mistakes I found when digging that reflect small business needs.

1. Not using Google Analytics to measure and track your efforts

If you want data on your website’s visitors, Google Analytics gives you a ton of information. It also gives you eight reports created specifically for measuring your social media activity.

Here’s the basics for keeping track of your social media ROI, but check out Hootsuite’s article for the in-depth how-to.

Overview report at a glance for conversion value.
Network referral report for traffic from various social networks.
Data Hub activity report for details on your site’s engagement, what URLs are shared and how, and what was said.
Landing pages report shows you the engagement metrics for each URL.
Trackbacks tell you which sites are linking to you.
Conversions reports the number of conversions and their monetary value from your referrals.
Plugins is a report for your site’s social share buttons, telling you which have been clicked on and for what content.
Users Flow shows you what paths your social media visitors took on your site.

2. Not removing the URL from a Facebook post

How many times have you seen this done? When you want to post an update with a link in Facebook, you have to paste the link to share it and to create a clickable image. Leaving the URL at the top of your post just looks like you don’t know what you’re doing.

It’s a tiny mistake that carries a glaring message. Make sure you delete that extra bit of unnecessary information and keep your newsfeed looking professional.

3. Posting without images

Guy Kawasaki, one-time chief evangelist for Apple who now works for Canva, an online graphic design and editing tool, figured out a way to double his engagement on Twitter. For his tweets, Kawasaki says, “There’s no doubt in my mind that every post needs a graphic—and not a tiny thumbnail, but one that’s optimized for each service.”

Canva is his go-to graphic tool, allowing him to create images quick and easy. Try it, it’s free, and it’s designed to work with your social media posts.

Tweets with images take up more space in the twitter feed, grab more attention, and drive engagement up 200 percent. What’s not to like about that?

Facebook is another image-loving platform. Since 40 percent of users respond better to visuals than plain text, according to Zabisco, this is a no-brainer. While you’re busy uploading images onto Facebook, be sure you’re using the right sizes. Follow what Facebook recommends for pixels to give your photos their best quality.

4. Not taking advantage of hashtags

Both Twitter and Instagram are hashtag-loving social media platforms, making it a great way for your business to get involved in the conversation. There are many to choose from that are widely used and recognized.

To find popular hashtags, check out your Twitter home page under trends in the left column, or try a free version of Trendsmap to see localized trends and get ideas. You can search on Twitter using topic keywords and hashtags on anything relevant to your company, or use current events that you’re interested in.

On Instagram, hashtags are unlimited and therefore prone to overuse. Twitter doesn’t suffer from this issue due to its 140 character limit, but Instagram knows no such restrictions.

Just be sure to use hashtags that directly apply to your business when you attempt to get involved in the conversation. Spam is not something users want to see when they filter through their posts.

5. Talking too much and listening too little

Social media is all about giving your followers a forum for feedback and sharing. It’s a place where users can benefit from social relationships — both individuals and companies. But instead what we are seeing is the same thing that happens in real-time interactions.

Ted Rubin, social marketing strategist and keynote speaker, has had enough. In his new book How To Look People In the Eye Digitally, Rubin discusses how we can fix this problem by applying people skills to the digital world. In an interview for his book, he says the first and foremost skill is to be “‘present’ when you’re talking to someone.”

In face-to-face situations, this isn’t happening when you’re constantly distracted with checking your phone or other people in the room. Online it involves different signals, but the same disconnect happens when you don’t treat your social media followers with the gift of being present.

Social media works best for building your brand, not for directly making new customers. But done right, you can build relationships that can develop into new clients.

4 Things Not To Do When Writing for Your Website

November 23, 2015 Beth Devine

mistakes not to do — “Cat on a Mac” by Wendy Seltzer, used under CC BY / Modified from original

Are you a writer? Of course you are. You write emails, texts, possibly even a short note to a friend or family member. Should someone ask you if you’re a talker, you wouldn’t say, “Well, no, I don’t talk.” You have conversations, you’re a talker. Same with writing.

Except it’s not the same. Because instead of sitting down and writing, we become worried about the rules and the spelling and the various techniques for different mediums. There is validity in these concerns, but don’t let that stop you from writing.

And don’t let these five things not to do when writing for your website stop you. Just don’t do them. And don’t let anything stop you from writing.

1. Scream As Loud As You Can

(a.k.a. Be precise and clear)

When you wish to be heard over all the noise, you tend to raise your voice. When you scream as loud as you can, someone is bound to hear you, right?

In writing, this method of getting attention could be compared to stretching the truth, or writing just for SEO. Instead of writing titles and headlines using precise and correct information, the tendency is to claim the impossible and grab attention with clickbait words.

Writing “welcome to the funniest YouTube channel ever” is hyperbole that’s more accurately described with descriptive details such as “get your video-addiction fed here with side-splitting and off-the-wall humor.” The more you make extravagant claims, the more likely no one will listen.

2. Save Your Wittiness for Just the Good Stuff

(a.k.a. Bad news requires it too)

The same thing goes for your tone. Don’t stop at being precise and honest in your writing. Try being upbeat and friendly. Develop a tone that is inviting and unique to your brand. Take every opportunity to use your voice to stand out from the crowd.

Method soap, the “people against dirty,” take their honest and playful tone everywhere in their writing. On their foaming hand soap refill packaging, they describe getting the “foam party started” as “easy-peasy,” with “juuuuuust about enough to refill your bottle 3x.”

The party doesn’t end with the fun stuff. Method keeps the same tone for the not-so-fun-stuff, when it’s easy to slip into boring, more formal language. When a refill is no longer available, they write, “it’s a bummer when you want something, but can’t have it. like this product, which is no longer available. sorry.”

No need to go all dry and lifeless just because the news isn’t so good. Keep up with your charm and appeal and write like you’re offering to help no matter the situation.

3. Use Your Smarty Pants Side

(a.k.a. Be less technical/write like you speak)

Being smart is obviously a good thing, and sharing the things you know makes for great content. This is a reason your readers come back to your website, and a reason they could eventually choose your business when they decide to buy.

But they won’t keep coming back if they can’t understand you. And if they can’t figure out what you’re trying to sell, they won’t want to buy from you either.

The solution is to stop writing like you’re a walking textbook, or worse, a soulless automaton. If you’re writing like you speak and they still can’t understand you, then you’ve had your head in institutional sand for too long.

Remember who you’re writing for, and don’t use dry, formal language. If you’re concerned you will sound too informal or unprofessional, then you’re forgetting how spoken language has evolved to express our thoughts and feelings, and is as near to perfect that a form of communication can be. It involves natural emphasis, cadence, and rhythm. When we speak we sound angry, upset, happy, or worried. Speaking is much more direct and intuitive. When we write, we must try to communicate these nuances in order to be effective.

Michelle Schaeffer, known as the Girl Blogger Next Door, said one of the Three Big Blogging Mistakes You Can Avoid is to write like you were taught in English class. She said she forgot the all-important rule: “I didn’t understand that I was writing for readers, I had the wrong perspective on it.”

4. Use Your Best Digital Writing

(a.k.a. SEO is dead)

Writing for the internet is still writing for the reader. There are no shortcuts or freebies you can take to improve your site’s searchability. Your best digital writing is not about sticking in keywords and inserting links wherever you can to optimize your site.

Because there is no such thing as digital writing.

It’s true that there was a time when black hat sites figured out how to trick search engines into looking for their keyword-laden content. This created an atmosphere of SEO or sink, where site optimization with keyword stuffing was key.

Now Google hides the search words you type if you’re logged in, giving fewer keyword clues. Search engines today look for good content that best fulfills what people will like to read, not a labyrinth of poor navigation, design, and text.

In their Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Google says that “you should base your optimization decisions first and foremost on what’s best for the visitors of your site. They’re the main consumers of your content and are using search engines to find your work.”

Sure, you’re writing for the web so you want to do your homework and pay attention to certain search engine requirements. But you’re writing for people first, and people want to read well-written, helpful content.

Write in a way that’s best for your site’s visitors. They’re the ones who are ultimately searching for and reading your content, not the search engines. Give them something they can consume with ease.

Let your inner writer go free. The worst thing that can happen is it won’t want to return.

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