When I speak to groups about social media, typically people want advice as to what to post.
Here are my top 5 tips to use as a guideline:
Interesting :: Only post something that you find interesting. If you think it is dull, imagine what your readers will think?
SME :: Write posts that position you as a SME, that is a subject matter expert. You can never go wrong posting things that show off your expertize.
Limit Sales Talk :: Limit posts that are too salesy. I think 20 percent is the limit. If every post says what a great deal you offer, people will quickly start ignoring you, unfollowing, un-liking and un-everything 🙁
No Politics :: On business accounts, stick to your business. Don’t post political rants. (unless of course you are a politician or in an industry that works with political parties) Otherwise you piss off those who who have opposing views. In this business climate you want to conduct business with everyone you can.
Mix it Up :: I try to have a mix of helpful tips, occasional relevant quotes, company news, information about offerings and occasional sales content. Once in a while we brag about something, but keep the bragging to occasional as to not sound obnoxious. Pictures are great and when I launch new site I always post a screenshot and link to the new site. Images are especially effective on Facebook as people love to go through photos and these are the most popular posts on that site.
So an often asked question is: How do I know if I am effective? I use re-tweets in twitter as barometer. If I am re-tweeted on a regular basis, chances are people like what I am posting. In Facebook, likes and shares are a good measure. In Google+, plus 1s are a good indicator, though I don’t see this practice in use much.
Please let me know what you think are are good tips for social media posts by commenting in the form below.
Note: Barry Roos is available to speak to your group on Social Media strategy as well as other web topics. Contact us to schedule.
Those of you who are regular readers of my blog know how big a fan I am of WordPress. That being said, I have a few things I’d like WordPress to implement.
Revisions: The ability to see and revert to previous revisions for posts and pages is spectacular. It allows you to fix errors and go back. This happens quite often, as WordPress is so user friendly, non-technical users can make their own changes and add content. But people make mistakes and you need to be able to fix them. But under Appearance > Editor you can make changes that can do irreparable harm to your site. This forces you to either revert to a full backup (if you have one), and that is not always ideal. So if WordPress could make it so you can see revisions of all files, that would make life easier.
Plugins: Another thing I would love to see is a little bit more testing of plugins. Part of the problem is that some plugins have updates that can really screw up your site. For instance, one of my very favorite plugins has always been the NexGEN gallery. However, lately it has had severe problems and people have been left with broken galleries and/or missing functionality such as lightbox effects. It would be great to be able to roll this back to a previous working version. Perhaps even a reporting system for WordPress so when a bad plugin update is is out there, people can report it and WordPress can temporarily disable the update until the bugs are addressed.
Security: As WordPress is so popular, people are constantly trying to hack your site. WordPress should take steps to harden the software. First off, forbid the username “admin”. Some of the software installation programs install with the default username of admin. (I will go into client sites and change this in the database, but non technical users can’t do that). WordPress should just ban the username admin and make secure passwords mandatory. I also think some of the security plugins are excellent. I think WordPress should consider purchasing one of the excellent ones like Wordfence and make it part of the core offering.
I would love to know what you would like to see WordPress implement. Please leave me your opinions below.
