Web Savvy Marketers

Free Tools for Making Easy GIFs

how to make GIFs
Made with Giphy

Now that we’ve covered different ways to use GIFs in the last post, what about how to make them? When you want to create and share your own unique content, GIFs are the perfect way to express emotions, show some snark, capture a live event, and turn a serious problem into a quick fix.

There are a number of easy GIF-making sites, giving you the potential to become a GIF-creating connoisseur in a matter of minutes. Here are a few of the best online tools.

Fast and Free Online Tools for Making GIFs

Recordit

Want to make a quick and easy GIF straight off your computer screen? How about that tricky step in a software program, or a DIY quick fix you’re tired of trying to explain in tiresome text?

Next time you’re about to throw your hands up in exasperation, make a video instead. Recordit allows you to make a recording of up to five minutes, turn it into a GIF, and share with a URL. Your problem is solved and everyone is happy, because who isn’t glad to see a GIF in action?

Next time you need to explain something over and over, do a screen capture of it with Recordit, and solve your problem with a GIF anyone can watch as often as they need.

Giphy

If you have a video clip, YouTube or Vimeo file, or even a live iPhone photo you want to turn into a GIF, Giphy makes it easy and fun. It’s perfect for the GIFs you want to add some text to, giving your GIF an added pop of humor or commentary.

You can create GIFs using mp4, mov, mpg, and m4v file formats. The maximum file size is 100 MB, and the movie files can’t be longer than 15 seconds. Because Giphy is a favorite place for viewers to find and enjoy GIFs, you might want to make an official brand account on Giphy. Go to giphy.com/partners to contact the Giphy folk.

Free Gif Maker

If you want to make a GIF out of a series of photos, this platform lets you do that using up to 10 photos, as well as using a YouTube video.

If you want to add some fun effects, Gif Maker has a number of unique animated effects all demonstrated with Mr. Bean photos. You can even make a GIF and then make it play in reverse.

Picasion

A fun feature here is the ability to split a GIF into individual frames and share a single frame. If you have a need to separate and splice a video or live photo, here’s your solution.

Picasion lets you select a size for your GIF before creating, as well as choosing an animation speed. You can also directly import photos from Picasa, but since that was recently “retired” by Google, this is probably not a strong selling point.

Make a Gif

Easy buttons make creating GIFs a no-brainer here, but the best part is the GIF extras. You can learn everything you need to know from the Tutorials (coming soon!), order a flip book of your GIF, or add an extension to Chrome. There’s even a GIF TV page; just click the channel to change selection.

Gickr

If you have a Flickr account, this makes it easy to grab photos for instant GIF creation. It’s very similar to Picasion, and dates itself by mentioning MySpace.

Imgflip

This platform has its own cult following who enjoy competing for upvotes on their GIFs, memes, and pie charts. Given the ability to add text, an off-center sense of humor dominates most uploaded GIFs, but don’t let that deter you.

There is a tiny watermark in the lower corner, something you won’t find with Giphy or Gif Maker.

4 GIF Apps for Use With IOS

DSCO

In response to the GIF-making craze, photo editor app VSCO made a GIF app for its IOS users. You can find some of the same artistic filters, but it seems you need both apps so you can save your photos directly to VSCO.

GiphyCam

This has the appeal of a GIF messaging app with lots of versatility. You can directly send instantly created GIFs a-la-Snapchat-mode through text or Facebook messenger, or you can share to your other favorite social media sites where they don’t disappear like Snapchats.

There are overlays, filters, and text you can add for supreme fun and entertainment. Thanks to the Giphy folks, you can carry your GIF addiction around with your iPhone or iPad.

Phhhoto

This app is now also available on Google Play for Androids. In addition to making GIFs – what it calls “instant moving pictures” – it’s also a popular teen social network device. You can share your GIFs with other users in “parties.”

You can also easily save your GIFs to your camera roll. Just select the share arrow below the photo, then hit Save GIF. Or press the Down Arrow in the top left corner of any Draft. If you have saving to your camera roll enabled, it automatically saves when you post a photo to Phhhoto.

Phhhoto takes 4 images to create your GIF, with new filters often added daily. You can’t take images from your camera roll to make GIFs; only those shot using the app can be used.

Boomerang

For all Instagram fans, you’ll want to get this IOS app for instant GIF recording. Boomerang takes your photo bursts and turns them into GIFs expressly for Instagram, although it also autosaves to your camera roll.

So get photo-bursting and make some fun GIFs when you’re out and about.

Creating animated GIFs is easy with these free, customizable, and click-to-upload online services. Just be sure to refrain from overuse. Too many GIFs is like too much noise. It will make your audience want to run and hide. But used well, GIFs are the answer to giving your followers engaging and original content.

Have Fun With GIFs In Your Marketing

Have fun with GIFsIt all started with emoticons. Then it was online memes. Today, GIFs are more than corny banner ads or headache-inducing social avatars.  The animated GIF is a common staple seen across social media, blogs, and websites.

Like video, GIFs are visual eye candy that will grab your audience’s attention, but their format is short and sweet, only about five to fifteen seconds long. They can be a series of still images or a short video clip that plays over and over again.

They don’t (usually) have audio, giving GIF’s a retro appeal with their silent film feel. Besides, there’s something annoying about repeatedly hearing the same sound, whereas we can watch something many times over without the same aversion.

Images invoke emotional responses, break language barriers, explain complicated ideas, and prompt imagination — all at a glance. Make them come alive with GIFs and you’ve got a riveting story in motion.

Marketers have jumped on the official GIF bandwagon with new ways to use them for stand-out content that delivers its message fast. Why use words alone when a GIF can – literally – stand up and do a jig for you?

5 Ways To Use GIFs In Your Marketing

1. Social Media

Facebook joined the ranks of platforms that support GIFs, along with with Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, and Google+. Because images generate more likes, reactions, and shares than plain text, posting GIFs makes your content more clickable and increases engagement.

So what are you waiting for? Now that you can easily add a GIF to social media updates, the internet relies even less on words. Why say anything with words when a moving image says it so much better?

2. Blog posts

Why settle for static images when you can boost your blog with GIF-appeal? Follow suit with sites like BuzzFeed and Unbounce and make your posts jump off the page with an occasional GIF.

GIFs give your audience an immediate message. Compared to asking your audience to click on a link or watch a video (which they might not even do), a well-timed GIF doesn’t require asking for anything.

3. Free Ebooks and Whitepapers

Creative use of GIFs can change boring static ebook images into looping graphics of relevant text, charts, and quotes. Spice up your offerings with captivating GIFs instead of settling for the same old inert images.

4. Announce New Features

Anytime you have something new to shout about, whether it’s new software, a new service, or a new product, GIFs are a way to call attention from the rooftops of your corner of the internet. Their instantaneous nature make them effective attention-grabbers.

Attach them to your newsletter, send in an email, or include them on a landing page, in your “About Us” page, or on your home page. They take up less place than posting a series of single static images. 

5. Describe How To Do Things

Have you ever tried to explain something in text but were unable to keep it short and simple with just words? Try making a GIF to describe how you did it.

Whether it’s how you manage your files, a step in your software solution, how to do a quick install, or any quick fix. Think of ways to highlight a key function or feature, such as a series of GIFs demonstrating a short tutorial or illustrating the steps to a process. The sky’s the limit with what you can record into a GIF.

Look for how to make GIFs in the next post.

How To Persuade People With the Ugly Green Drink

ugly green drink

Persuading people to agree with you and do what you’re asking them to do is difficult. Whether you want them to buy your product or service, vote in a particular way, or make different lifestyle choices, it involves understanding the Ugly Green Drink.

For my son, drinking smoothies is all about flavor. Imitating Starbuck’s new smoothie glamour or pushing veggie health won’t convince him to drink the Ugly Green Drink. I tried that.

It has to taste good, and if it’s green, then that’s just not possible according to the Book of Hungry Teen Boys. Despite being ugly and green, it’s just as good as purple or red smoothies, but try telling that to a green-phobic youth.

He helped me earn my badge in the art of persuasion. Now it’s your turn to learn the Ugly Green Drink technique and get the help you need to persuade people.

Say What You Have To Say

How you say something is as important as what you say. If you say something with anger or resentment, your listener will put up automatic defenses. If you say something with drama and self-judgment, it will be received as dramatic and worthy of judgment.

When I said the Ugly Green Drink was better for him than fruit-only smoothies, and if he couldn’t see past the green then he wasn’t trying to be an adult, I was the know-it-all mother. And he held fast to his question-mom-in-everything thinking.

Like the story in Seth Godin’s Poke the Box when the 1860s Hungarian doctor realized washing hands would save lives. No one listened to him. Can you guess why? Because he knew it all and didn’t bother to pretend otherwise. He was a pompous jerk.

Say what you have to say by taking into account how you say it so your audience will think you have something worth listening to.

Frame Your Story So It Fits Their World View

People suffer from what can be called a “moral empathy gap.” This inability to comprehend moral world views that are different from our own renders us incapable of persuading others to adopt our position.

In other words, you can’t persuade someone to take a different course of action or buy a product you want them to buy when you use your own system of belief. Without empathy, your attempts at persuasion will fall flat.

The Ugly Green Drink didn’t need to be healthy or a status symbol. Unlike Mikey of the Life cereal ad, persuading my son to like it was not as simple as shoving a bowl in front of him. I needed to use empathy and step inside his shoes.

“This is the ugliest drink you’re ever going to try; it’s as disgusting looking as the bottom of your backpack.” However, if I can persuade him that green doesn’t mean it tastes like cooked spinach, I’ve won. But first I have to get on his plane of thinking.

They’re Not Wrong

It’s close to impossible to persuade people that they are wrong and then have them do something differently. You can convince them with facts and figures by appealing to their intellect, but you can persuade them by “appeals made to the will, moral sense, or emotions.”

Godin reminds us that marketers don’t convince, they persuade. Moms serving Ugly Green Drinks must also learn the fine art of appealing to the passions, fears, and fancies of their target teens. Forget the brain and go for the heart.

Unless it’s brains you’re eating. “It’s so gross! If you drink it, you’ll be drinking monkey brains!” That was enough of a challenge for Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes to eat his smelly dinner. It warrants a try.

Help persuade your audience to make a change or a new decision instead of admit they’re wrong. Arnold Schwarzenegger shows us how with his bold, four-asterisk word in an appeal to our future.

Use Placebos To Surround What You’ve Built

Godin’s Placebos begins with a story illustrating how placebos work. A guy walks into a health food store with a nasty cold and asks for the strongest placebo they’ve got. Unfortunately, that particular store didn’t carry any.

“A placebo is a story we tell ourselves that changes the way our brain and body work,” Godin says. You have to first make something terrific that works, and then you have to build a story around it to break through all the noise and competition.

This is emotion again, the appeal to the heart and soul of your audience by going beyond the obvious features and benefits. “With the Ugly Green Drink you can forget about having to fork up boring vegetables. And you’ll be chugging down added protein you want for sports. All in mere seconds!”

I’m thinking Popeye the Sailor Man. He’s probably thinking The Expendables. Whatever works. Build a story around your great idea, product, or service, and let the placebo effect kick in.

Make Metaphors Happen

The Ugly Green Drink is my metaphor. It gives you imagery, helps you to understand the idea, and makes it easier to communicate it with others.

Put your metaphors at the beginning of your story. This way your audience doesn’t have to work so hard to understand your argument. The metaphor is the lens that focuses them in on your idea and helps to persuade them to think and act differently.

When you get others to drink the Ugly Green Drink, you’re persuading them to do something they might not want to do otherwise.

Pay It Forward

Simple reciprocity is a great persuasive device. Give someone an unexpected gift and you will create a need to reciprocate. Like the notion of pay it forward, people like to return favors as a way of showing their gratefulness. Think of how in your personal life you’re more inclined to ask someone for a favor if you’ve done a favor for them.

Businesses are applying this principle every day by offering free ebooks, free trial memberships, free samples, etc. The feeling of gratefulness for the free information creates a tendency to feel obligated to return the favor and make a purchase or a recommend to a friend.

Make sure you understand your audience and what they want before using reciprocity to influence their choices. Persuasion is most effective when the right favor is granted.

Offering my son a bowl of tortilla chips to go with the Ugly Green Drink will be far more persuasive than a dish of crunchy kale. Maybe I’ll work on kale chips next since I’m on a green roll.

7 Deadly Sins and Heavenly Virtues of Social Media Marketing

social media marketingUnless you’ve hired a divine saint to sit before the keyboard, your brand is not immune to the seven deadly sins. Like the temptations in our daily lives, social media marketing falls prey to the same vices.

The concept of seven deadly sins and their contrasting virtues are centuries old, handed down to us from the middle ages from an epic poem, Psychomachia, or Battle of Souls, written by Prudentius. It’s an allegory that describes defeating the seven sins through the opposite seven heavenly, or contrary, virtues.

To overcome the vices that can bog down your brand, you can use the seven virtues of generosity, temperance, kindness, patience, humility, diligence, and chastity. Breaking the bonds of the vices of greed, gluttony, envy, anger, pride, sloth, and lust means working the seven virtues as they apply to social media marketing.

So grab your halos and get some divine inspiration to see how you can battle these social media evils. And don’t forget to bring your sense of humor along.

Practice Kindness, Not Envy: Don’t Bore People

There is no greater sin in social media than boring your audience. When you defeat boredom, you are prevented from falling prey to all sorts of other lesser vices, such as ineffectiveness and irrelevance.

In turn, you will stir up the envy you want your competition to experience when they visit your social media pages. Put an end to boredom and spread around the best of your brand with helpful social media posts.

Keep your articles and images not only interesting and informative, but surprise your audience with some tasteful humor. Sometimes people just want to be entertained.

Be Generous: It’s Not All About You and Your Brand

The opposite of generosity is greed, and being greedy on social media is when you make it all about you. Your audience might want to learn more about you, but only in ways that are going to give them something in return.

For example, when posting about a new product, service, or recent work, find a way to relate it to your audience. Always ask, what’s in it for them? When it’s about you, it’s still got to be about them, your audience.

Have you been to the center of the universe? I guarantee your brand’s not there.

Practice Patience: Don’t Annoy Your Followers

It’s easy to be patient when everything is going well. When things get ugly, however, how well do you react? Do you stay calm or do you give the troublemakers something to be sorry for?

Patience is the virtue that counters anger, and it comes in handy when followers make rude or untrue comments meant to incite your brand’s wrath or cause you harm.

In other words, no matter what happens, don’t annoy, irritate, or otherwise anger your audience. When it comes to best practices, deviating from this virtue will swiftly turn the tide against you. Whereas it’s expected that followers can be angry and impatient, your social media posts and comments have to reflect the very best behavior.

There are only so many times you can blame your lapses in judgement on autocorrect.

Be Diligent: Share Content Every Day

Being diligent means fulfilling your duties, cultivating a strong work ethic, and developing your talents. Diligence is the virtue that counters the sin of sloth and being lazy instead of having a zealous attitude.

Your social media marketing can reflect either a virtue of diligence or it can be wrapped up in the vice of sloth. Which attitude do you present in your social media campaigns?

When you share content on social media, be sure to include original content as well, such as your own blog posts or other articles. The opposite extreme to posting daily content is overindulging and dominating your followers’ feed, as the next vice, gluttony, describes.

In other words, diligence goes rogue.

Practice Temperance: Don’t Waste Time

With social media, the inverse of efficiency is true. The more time you spend on social media marketing, the less efficient you are. The more you practice temperance instead of its opposite, gluttony, the less you will fall into the trap of overindulgence and lack of moderation.

Being successful means engaging with your audience – but not wasting your valuable time by overdoing it. Social media is a valuable means of communication, giving brands and people a way to spread the word. There is so much more to content marketing, so don’t waste time with hours spent posting when it’s just one crucial component.

This has me wondering. What do Facebook employees do to waste time while at work?

Be Humble: Care About What You Share (and With Whom You Share It)

“Pride and excess bring disaster for man” because the secret to pridefulness is the disregard for everything and everyone else. Before pride causes your brand to crumble, remember that you owe everything to everyone.

Without your customers and followers, you wouldn’t have anyone to engage with in social media. Self-promotion is allowable and even expected as long as your ultimate goal is centered around your followers’ interests.

An over-appreciation for your brand’s self-worth is unattractive, unless you’re a peacock. Then strutting your stuff is expected.

Chastity: Pure in Style and Conduct

Most brands understand the value of a simple and modest presentation. If you know how to use it, sex sells, and has been since its earliest known use in 1871 by Pearl Tobacco.

If, however, you’re content to practice a more restrained approach in your social media marketing, then find a style that has decency, modesty, and is free of embellishment.

Are there safe ways to be chaste and sexy at the same time? Unsexy brands are finding a unique way to be attractive despite their blahness. See “How to turn something as unsexy as car rental into a social media hit“ and decide what works for you.

Good luck practicing the seven heavenly virtues on social media with your brand. Remember, as W. H. Auden said, “We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don’t know.”

One thing’s for sure, they’re here, and so are you, so let’s make it good.

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

Facebook emoji buttonsThere’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.

New emoji buttonsOn 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.

A Curious Collection of Motivational Quotes for Your New Year

New year quotesIf 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.

Are You Making These 5 Social Media Mistakes?

small businessSocial 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

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.

Small Businesses Make Big Targets for Hackers

cybercrime
“Out” by bradhoc, used under CC BY / Modified from original

If you’re a small business, don’t be under the illusion that you’re too small for singling out by hackers. You could be one of the growing number of small businesses who have moved into the cyber crime spotlight.

According to Symantec Security Response, 50% of all targeted cyber attacks are on businesses with fewer than 2,500 employees. In 2012, businesses with fewer than 250 employees saw an increase in attacks from 18% to 31% in just one year.

The top businesses and occupations targeted are:

  • Manufacturing –  received the greatest number of attacks in 2012; at 24% of the attacks, they got twice the number as government organizations.
  • Finance, Real Estate, and Insurance – hit with 19% of the attacks.
  • Research and Development – highest target for job occupations at 27%.
  • Sales Representatives – 24% of targeted job occupations.

So what are cyber criminals looking for? When you look at the use of the stolen data, the information tells us they want trade secrets, products plans, and customer and employee data. All your proprietary information that can be used to help competitors gain an advantage or be sold to unscrupulous organizations. Your social security and driver’s license numbers, addresses, credit card numbers, health and financial history, purchase information, and other private details are up for grabs.

The news is continually warning us about data breaches that occur at all levels and includes major retailers, hotel chains, government organizations, and other businesses. In July the headlines were about the breach on government systems affecting 21.5 million people and is related to the previous month’s government breach compromising an additional 4 million with stolen sensitive information.

This government incident is “not without precedent,” and “cybersecurity in both the private sector and the public sector” must be raised, said Michael Daniel, the White House cybersecurity coordinator.

Cybersecurity has been a documented issue going back to 1997. In a cover letter to the President on the Report of the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection, it reads, “We did find widespread capability to exploit infrastructure vulnerabilities. The capability to do harm—particularly through information networks—is real; it is growing at an alarming rate; and we have little defense against it.”

So what are we doing about it? What measures should you be taking to protect confidential business data and private personal information?

INTERPOL, the world’s largest international police organization with 190 member countries, is committed to becoming a global coordination body on the detection and prevention of digital crimes. They advise that we do two things to protect our business and personal data.

Update your OpenSSL.

For website owners, it’s important that you have an updated OpenSSL. The Heartbleed vulnerability in encryption software which is used by the majority of online web servers is leaving nearly everyone open to one of the biggest cyberattacks in the internet’s history.

Heartbleed lets its attacker anonymously download a random chunk of memory from the server, including secret keys, passwords, and other personal information. The secret keys are the most problematic because this opens the door for even more secret information to be revealed.

The bug went undiscovered for two years until being uncovered in April of 2014, and it’s predicted that the ripple effects could continue for years. Vulnerable versions are still being used on websites, most likely small e-commerce sites that don’t have the administrative support to patch things up.

If you’re concerned about a website, you can use this handy Heartbleed checking tool to check if it’s vulnerable.

Speaking of updating, keep all your software programs and websites up to date and backed up for added security.

Change your passwords.

INTERPOL says to use unique passwords for each of your online accounts and to change them often. While this may be wise in theory, in reality it’s difficult to carry out. Start by changing important accounts, ones that have financial information on them, for example.

Create strong passwords that are at least eight characters long and use a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. Don’t use words from the dictionary (the use of symbols comes in handy here) and don’t use personal information that is readily available, such as your name, birth date, or apartment number.

What else can you do? Here are a few more preventative measures to use in protecting yourself from cybercrime.

Get two-factor authentication.

When a site offers this step, use it. If you are a site owner, enable it for your customers and subscribers. One of the largest attacks on banks occurred in 2014 when failure to enact two-factor authentication at one of the bank’s servers caused a weak point in the bank’s security, allowing the hackers to access 90 other servers in their network.

Be careful what you click on.

One of the ways hackers manage to steal information is through infecting your computer. Malware such as remote-control Trojan programs, worms, viruses, and botnets can affect computers using sophisticated techniques.

Spam email, infected files on downloads, and malicious pop-ups and links can all infect your computer, which in turn can be used by hackers to launch DoS attacks or send spam with even more malware.

Always think twice before going to a website that’s unknown to you, and if you do, type a legitimate address in a new browser tab instead of clicking on a suspicious link. Never trust an email from an unknown source.

Put barriers in place.

Utilize the best tech barriers you can afford, like this cloud-based security app for mobile phones. Anyone operating their computer without some serious security software is taking a huge risk. Install and regularly update virus protection and adware/spyware removal software programs to keep malicious applications from invading your privacy.

Good luck — it’s a digital wild west out there.

3 Secrets To Getting Your Customers To Trust You

customers to trust youTrust is a hard-won commodity. Gaining your customer’s trust is a process that takes a business at least two years, according to a global study by SDL. Strengthening your relationships with your customers is an investment that requires good communication, but just how else do you build trust over time?

With these three secrets, help your business grow as you practice building trust. 

  1. Be Imperfect

Today’s social media makes your business far more visual and public. Your business communications on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and other social media platforms reflect your ability to be accessible and transparent.

The key to conveying accessibility and authenticity to your audience is by sharing content that reveals you’re imperfect. Authentic storytelling involves a willingness to admit your faults and mistakes, as well as your accomplishments and successes. The more you engage with your followers in a familiar and realistic manner, the more effective you’ll be in persuading them to accept and trust you.

Gone is the perfect brand image with impeccable stock photos to tell your brand’s story. The trend in images on social media echoes the user-generated content taken by the smartphone in your back pocket. The natural technical errors and the added filters help create imagery that’s familiar and relatable.

There’s a right balance between professional, polished content and authentic storytelling that depends on your audience and business. Just remember, the more transparent and realistic you are, the more your audience will gravitate to you.  

  1. The Law of Diminishing Returns

The law of diminishing returns is the theory that the more you do something, the less value and effect it has. It applies to things you enjoy doing, like eating your favorite food or riding your favorite amusement park ride, and to performance-based efforts, like studying for an exam or practicing for a competition. The more you experience it or work at it, the more you grow tired of it or feel burned out from it.

This theory is similar to a diminishing law of credibility. The bigger your claims are, the less likely anyone will believe you. The rule here is to “never tell them more than you think they’ll believe.”

You might have the most powerful vacuum cleaner ever made, thanks to its high-tech filter. So how do you get your audience to believe you? Instead of rattling on about how and why it’s the best, start by telling the disadvantages first. Tell them the filter is the most expensive on the market. Then eventually get to that’s why it’s also the most effective.

This doesn’t mean you don’t get to sound excited about your product or service. It means you aren’t afraid to be upfront about some of the limitations in order to establish credibility and trust. This is a tool you probably use in your everyday life without realizing it.

For example, when talking to a friend about your exercise regime, you are more likely to tell another avid runner all about your struggle with 12-mile daily runs than you would discuss it with someone who never runs. You would be more effective in encouraging this friend by talking about the hard-won benefits of walking.

Telling people the truth, but only as much as they can accept and want to believe, will not only resonate with your audience, it will make you easier to trust.

  1. Start With the Why of the Golden Circle

Why should people choose your product or service over your competitor’s? Is it better quality? Less expensive? Will it last longer? Most businesses sell themselves with similar claims, offering no unique point of reference.

According to Simon Sinek, the way to stand out from the competition is to use what he calls “The Golden Circle.” The circle consists of a bull’s-eye in the center of the circle and two concentric layers. In the center is the why, in the middle is the how, and in the outermost circle is the what.

To communicate with your customers, Sinek says to begin in the center with the why. He says that few organizations can explain the why to their existence, so to be unique and meaningful, you must start from the inside of the circle and work outwards. The why of your business is how you will build trust and loyalty, Sinek says.

Don’t let these three secrets stay a secret. Share this post with your colleagues and help to spread valuable trust in your corner of the world.

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