A website is like any other piece of machinery: it needs tending. If you want to get the most out your site or tailor it to meet a specific need, that will most likely involve widgets, plugins, layout tweaks, or knitting in third party software.  With increased functionality inevitable conflicts and performance issues  crop up. Trust me. I’ve been there. When they do, what to do?   First, don’t panic. Secondly, use some or all of the following suggestions to find a solution.

1. Realize that there is no issue that hasn’t been confronted, solved, and discussed somewhere by someone else. You are not alone.

2. Write down the issue, formulate questions you think need to be answered and try to be as specific as possible. Don’t censor yourself. There are no stupid questions.

3. Use Google. Google is indeed a good friend.

4. Join a discussion forum. For example: Wordpress.org has an extensive knowledgeable and a very active and engaged community; as does Thesis.  Remember that there are many people online who will be happy to help those who ask for help. But, be prepared to roll up your sleeves and sweat a little. Don’t expect someone else to do all the work for you.

5. When you find information you think might be helpful, read carefully. Sometimes crucial pieces of information are right in front of you if you would only slow down long enough to really understand what you’re reading. The more you seek, the more the hints will accumulate and point you in the right direction. Note to self: remember this when dealing with non-technical issues as well.

6. Be patient.

7. Relax.

8. And when it seems that you are no closer to the answer than when you started, step away from the computer and get some fresh air. Take a walk or ride a bike. Ice cream works too.

9. Sleep on it. I’m always amazed when solutions materialize seemingly out of thin air after a good night’s sleep.

10. Keep some perspective. Not finding an answer immediately is not the end of the world. But, have confidence that you will eventually find a solution if you stick with it.

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With a flood of media interest promoting and evaluating the uses of social media during the last few years, social media is becoming a permanent fixture in our cultural landscape.

If different social media platforms are used in a coordinated fashion, these applications can be tailored to effectively build a personal or business brand. But as powerful as these tools are they are most useful when harnessed to a specific business or social goal: building relationships, introducing a product, raising awareness.

An obvious and conventional use of broadcasting a message about a product, a service, an opportunity, or an issue is only one use. More important is the creation of a place for dialog, information sharing and exchange in an environment that reflects a certain personality. Building community in this way –within the context of specific interests or expertise, is similar to designing a home and hosting invited guests for a meal.

Cultivating relationships, creating conversation, building a community and serving that community is what being social is all about in a physical space and an online community is the same. Even though it seems merely virtual, an online community can easily transition to real world relationships.

Social media platforms are among the most useful tools the internet age has spawned. The five platforms I use regularly are listed here with a brief description and a recommendation for further reading.

1. A Blog Based Website
My website –the one you are reading this post on, is a Wordpress content management blog platform. This website forms the hub of my web presence. On it I can maintain a simple blog or incorporate an e-commerce platform if necessary. Through the use of plugins, functionality on the site can be basic or more fully developed. Ideally, a Wordpress blog should be on your own domain and while relatively simple, does require some rudimentary technical knowledge, and patience, to set up and maintain.
Recommended reading: Copy Blogger

2. Facebook
I’ve found Facebook ideal for connecting with people I’ve known. No surprises there, are there? At first I felt constrained by the memories that built older friendships. Seeing a collection of people from different corners of our lives can dislodge forgotten memories through the reconnection. Building a community of old friends many of whom have no common history with each other other than through you, brings on a vague sense of vertigo. Facebook is a Venn diagram of friends, acquaintances, new faces, mixed interests and perspectives. Sharing ideas and events in your life today by posting commentary or links, photos and videos, keeps the bonds with your past alive, and offers the opportunity for building new memories and new friends from old. Recommended Reading: Facebook Marketing An Hour A Day, Chris Treadway and Mari Smith

3. Twitter
What a free spirited, twitchy, free-for-all this platform!
140 characters makes an art of brevity; an exercise in pithiness. In contrast to Facebook there is no barrier or limit to finding and following people. The tendency here is to think that the more numbers you have, the better, but that’s not necessarily the case. If you follow thoughtful people interested in providing useful information and you reciprocate, you’ll find fewer than you would otherwise and you might eventually discover you’ve made some real friends. Twitter is about finding people you would like to know, and those who would like to know you. Recommended Reading: Twitter, An Hour A Day, by Hollis Thomasas @hollisthomasas

4. LinkedIn
Of the three platforms, LinkedIn was an enigma that at first seems almost impenetrable. This platform has a reputation for being a no-nonsense corporate environment that isn’t creative friendly. At first I thought the reputation was well deserved. I couldn’t figure out how to make connections outside the few contacts I had within the limitations of my own email list, and everywhere I turned there was a barrier. What I’ve discovered is that one key to connecting with people is in joining groups within LinkedIn that involve your particular interests. Once you find a group, listen in and then join the conversation when you have something meaningful to say. The one thing to be aware of with LinkedIn is that this is about making connections, not making sales. Help people solve a problem if you can and make note of your contacts’ strengths for future reference. You never know when you’ll be able to pass on a name and ‘pay it forward.’ Eventually it will come back in a good way. Recommended Reading: Understanding, Leveraging and Maximizing LinkedIn, Neal Shaffer.

5. YouTube
Images are compelling. Media is even more irresistible and YouTube is the way to go when delivering video content. Setting up a YouTube account is easy, free, and freely available. Video adds immeasurably to a personal or business brand and may be incorporated into blog posts, Facebook pages, and Twitter posts. Videos can be used to conduct interviews, provide instruction, offer opinion, entertain, demonstrate or review a product or service. As a personal and business branding and marketing tool it provides attractive content and adds a dynamic dimension to any web presence. All that’s needed is an inexpensive camera with a video feature and a point to be made. Recommended Reading: YouTube and Video Marketing An Hour A Day, Greg Jarboe

The content on any one of these platforms can be, and should be referenced on other platforms within the context of the total online property mix -blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN , YouTube, and any other social media platforms. Such cross-platform sharing will reinforce the message being delivered and elevate the visibility of the main platform –website or blog, by providing inbound links from such high value sources as social media platforms.

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Directed by María Novarro 1991

Maria Novarro plays the lead role as Julia, a telephone operator in Mexico city. Her life is enhanced by weekly dances at the Salón Colonia where she’s partnered for years with Carmelo (Daniel Rergis). When Carmelo disappears, Julia embarks on a quest to find out what’s become of him. I had a few favorite scenes, especially the expressiveness of the dancers feet in the first few minutes.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jl8Dn6TlSs

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Just recently I was asked by a friend to build a website.  He operates two local businesses and seems to earn a comfortable living. Overhead expenses are kept low and personal spending habits are within means. Marketing is minimal with an ad in a local paper once a month and postcard mailings of specials, special events, and other pertinent information mailed out regularly. He’s a generous and considerate person, and I like him.

Our initial meeting was about 10 minutes and it started out with his handing me a sheet of letterhead with some text and a few post-it notes attached. He told me he was considering a single page that displayed information on his two different and unrelated business interests. The layout he wanted consisted of a header above two columns. There would be no images. The text he provided was sparse.

Since he didn’t own a computer, didn’t have an email account, and had no intention of getting either a computer, or an email address, he wanted it clearly stated on the webpage that the way to get in touch was by phone –landline, he doesn’t have a cell. That’s what he wanted, and every effort I made to suggest he might at least consider an email account, he told me he wasn’t interested. Not interested at all.

I thought about the project for a day or two and we met again. I explained the fixed domain and hosting costs and suggested that developing the site on an hourly basis would probably be the best way to price the project. I also told him that even though I knew he wasn’t interested, he should reconsider having an email address for practical reasons; mostly so that we didn’t have to jump in the car to drive ten miles every time we needed to discuss detail.

I went on to explain that he didn’t need to use the email otherwise, but there had to be an email address not only for the convenience of our working together, but for dealing with the domain registry and hosting provider.  He’d have none of it. We chatted a few more minutes, shook hands, and I left.

I’m not a betting man but if I had to place a wager, I’d say my friend won’t be doing this project any time soon. Someday he might come around and engage with the Internet, but I’m not counting on it. I’ve had a few of these conversations recently with people who on the one hand indicate interest in doing a project. but shy away in a big way and talk themselves out of it. They then dig in their heels and are adamant about keeping the wheels of change from turning. It’s a little hard to understand, I must admit.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=f44qgQA1B-g

I know, I know,  blog in a niche. That’s feeling a little too boring and restrictive tonight.

Thanks for the upload to the Daniel Seides channel on YouTube. Thanks Daniel!

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I’ve played around with different content management systems over the last few years including Typepad, Joomla, Drupal, Indexhibit, and Wordpress. Of these five, Wordpress is my favorite and in my opinion it’s the easiest to set up, configure and administer. For most users, Wordpress offers all the functional capability that could be needed or that most users would want.

But there are two Wordpress versions: Wordpress.com and Wordpress .org. What’s the difference?  Basically, Wordpress.com is free and you don’t need to do much. Wordpress.org is free and you can do anything you want.  Confused? Let me explain.

WordPress.com
If you sign up for a blog at Wordpress.com, your blog is free and all you need to do is fill in a few registration details and get going. Well, it’s almost that simple and yes there is a slight learning curve. For example, you’ll probably want to pick a theme –of which there are many, to create a look  and you’ll need to learn how to operate the backend for styling your content, uploading photos, videos, and adding widgets.  But, you won’t have to worry about upgrades, backups, or security. The people at Wordpress.com will take care of all of that techie stuff.

This is a relatively painless route to take but the downside is that your account is ultimately benefiting the Wordpress.com domain with search visibility instead of your own. All that free content –which search engines thrive on, uploaded daily by thousands of registered site owners feeds the search engine beast, for Wordpress.com. It might be your content, but you are working SEO –search engine optimization, for Wordpress.com.

Wordpress.org
If you walk over to Wordpress.org, what will you find? Exactly the same Wordpress application. At Wordpress.org you –or your favorite technical developer, can download all the files that make up the Wordpress application to a local development environment. There it can be configured to suit individual need and then uploaded to your hosting company that services your domain. Doing this now allows you, the domain owner, to reap the search and optimization benefits that come from adding fresh content to a website, through your Wordpress blog application. And it really is yours.

Is there a downside?  Not if you have technical skills optimally knowing enough about PHP, MySQL and APACHE to get around. If you do, then you’ll appreciate the freedom that comes from having full access to the code. You –or your developer, can dig into the core to see how everything works, and have full control over every aspect of the application. If you don’t have that special gene, then you will be in for a bumpy ride. Either way though, downloading the application you, and you alone, will be responsible for everything including upgrades, backups, security and figuring out what’s going on when problems arise.

Wordpress.com click here.

Wordpress.org click here.

Further reading comparing Wordpress.com with Wordpress.org.

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In his autobiographical book  Come and Gone: A True Story of Blue-Collar Bike Racing in America, author Joe Parkin describes how the great Belgian bike racer, Eddy Merckx, was so obsessed with adjusting his seat position to improve performance, that team mechanics were asked to keep tools out of his reach. Many racers at one time or another share this habit of being overly concerned about bicycle setup. A rider in peak form though doesn’t bother with finicky adjustments and can comfortably ride almost any bike. Having reached that elevated state of physical and emotional fitness where pain, suffering, and equipment hindrances cease to register, a rider in form can crash, then get up and back into the chase with undiminished focus, strength and endurance. A racer without form though will worry over torn handlebar tape.*

A Website That’s Out of Form

A website publisher tasked with developing and maintaining a web presence that is not in peak form, shares similar traits of a bike racer who hasn’t acheived peak fitness form. With such a site, the focus is turned to endlessly tweaking superficial details: the background image; or font choice, color, or size. Ultimately focusing on such refinement distracts from fulfilling the main purpose of a site: to efficiently deliver high-value, high-quality content to a targeted audience. Some of the main characteristics of an out-of-form site are the following:

• Lack of an established and clearly defined purpose
• Not understanding the needs of a target audience
• Design elements that draw attention away from content
• Overuse of flashy attention-diverting functionality
• Site focus on broadcasting a message instead of engagement and interaction

A Website in Peak Form

A website that performs at a high level has an entirely different feel. Without ignoring the important support role that design performs for the user experience, a well-tuned site provides a visitor with relevant, easily found, high-value and pertinent information. Here are some of the traits of a website in good form.

• The site purpose is clearly defined.
• The site targets a specific user profile.
• High-value content has a higher priority than graphic design.
• Functionality plays a secondary support role to content delivery
• Engaging with visitors is a high priority.

I need to make one thing clear: I love graphic design. Who doesn’t? I know there are many examples of great design where the design is the message and the high-value content. Not to belabor the point but in my experience people too often try to find expressive satisfaction in styling a web presence to their unique vision. This is a trap. Within a development team this can rapidly become a power struggle that culminates in a lose/lose situation.

Unless a particular site is meant to be a personal creative outlet, toning down visual statements and distractions will do more to guide visitors to important information simply  by staying out of the way. As is often true in other situations, less is more.

* Joe Parkin, ‘Come and Gone: A True Story of Blue Color Bike Racing in America’,  Velo Press 2010  AVAILABLE AT AMAZON

Photo Credit: Christian Klempp

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This morning I helped  set up a book fair at a local elementary school and had the chance to speak for a few minutes with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while.

After some idle chit-chat I asked how her craft business was doing. She told me that sales on Ebay were flat, but that a few months ago she’d sold an item or two. Those sales were encouraging, but business had tapered off.  I empathized about the state of the economy and the difficulties of marketing and finding customers and so on and so forth.

‘So, do you have a Facebook page? Do you do anything with social media to meet people who might be interested in what you’re selling?” I asked.

“People keep badgering me to be their friends on that thing, but I don’t want to spend five hours a day sitting behind a computer,” she said.

‘Well, what about a smart-phone? That would give you some mobility and you wouldn’t be bound to your home or office,” I said.

She then went on a five-minute rant about computers taking over the world, and people hiding behind cell phones and that if she had a phone –which she doesn’t, her kids would be calling her all the time and who needs that and on and on it went. And no she doesn’t know about Facebook business pages.

‘Does it cost money?  Who has time to learn about all that stuff anyway?” she said.

In thinking about it afterward, I congratulated myself for holding my tongue. I’ve learned from experience that when such firm opinions are expressed, offering a contrary point of view can be perceived as a hostile act. No thanks. Technophobia is nothing to mess with lightly. I’d rather wrestle a wild boar.

While I understood her angst and justified criticism about misuses of technology and the avoidance behavior it allows, her throwing out the baby with the bathwater is all too common.  She wasn’t open to seeing the greater picture; that the tools she held such contempt for could give her access to information and people anywhere, at anytime. And if she knew how to use these tools, she could meet people she would never meet otherwise who want what she has to offer! By learning to use Facebook, and Twitter, and LinkedIn, and a blog,  she could reach a bigger audience than she has yet to realize.

It’s my hope that someday my friend comes around and sees the light. But she’ll have to adjust her attitude a bit and if she wants some help, I’d be more than happy to oblige. We might even open a market for her goods, in Brazil. Now wouldn’t that be exciting!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl2WJdn3qOE

Bebel Gilberto -- Samba da Benção

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So, you’ve decided to give Twitter a whirl and see what it can do for you. You may or may not have a specific objective in mind and just want to see if Twitter is a fit for you.  That’s perfectly fine, and the way I approached it. But however you start, and for whatever reason, there are few simple things you must do if you want to give yourself the best chance of developing  relationships with real people.

Of the many options that should be configured in your Twitter account settings  panel, there are four essentials that should be tended to right away. For arguments sake, I’m going to assume you want to use Twitter for business.

• Name: Use your real name when registering a personal account. Using a false persona makes it difficult to develop a long-term  relationship especially if one of your goals is to using Twitter as a marketing tool for business. A real name builds confidence and trust which is critical for a  meaningful relationship whether online, or offline.

• Picture: Like your name a picture of yourself will strengthen trust, and represent you in the best possible light. The most common Twitter photo is a cropped photograph of your face. Sometimes people use their Twitter Photo to make a statement, overlaying their image with symbolic graphic additions such as ribbons or borders. The free site Twibbon (http://tibbon.com) has many design choice suggestions. Visuals are powerful so use this feature wisely.

• Weblink: Insert a link to a website home page, blog, Facebook personal or business page, LinkedIn profile, or any other link that you think would provide useful information about you, your company, and your offering. Eighty percent of your tweets should be useful information rather than self -promotion. The URL you have listed on your Twitter homepage will serve as your proxy giving people the option to chose for themselves whether or not to find out more about your. Remember, Twitter is about meeting people, not forcing yourself on them

• Bio: In keeping with Twitter’s character, the bio line gives you a chance to further define yourself, in 160 characters or less. This could be strictly business, or personal, or a combination of both. Or empty. I’d recommend filling it out though.

Happy tweeting and remember: it’s not the number of followers you have or the number of people you’re following but the quality of the tweets and the relationships you build. Give Twitter a chance to produce results, and for that, I would suggest working it for a year, at least. The results will come, but you must be active with your engagement.

Follow me on Twitter:  @johnsutton4

Recommended reading: ‘Twitter Marketing An Hour a Day’ Hollis Thomases

Illustration: Leyla Torres

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Lately I’ve been making a concerted effort to use the RSS feed-reader  to aggregate favorite spots in the cybersphere. It’s a practical tool and easy to use for collecting favorite blogs, news sites, Facebookers, or Tweeters under one roof. So many are way ahead of me on this, but I’ve finally realized what a time saver the feed-reader is. Every morning when I sit down at the computer, checking the feed is my first stop, along with LinkedIn. My RSS feed of choice is Google Reader.

This morning I started by reading a collection of posts in  discussion groups at LinkedIn. And then I moved over to Mike Magnuson’s blog: Mag’s Sentence. I’ve always liked Mike’s writing –like it a lot actually, and it was great to see so many of his posts in one spot. I was riveted to the screen for half an hour. No exaggeration.  His descriptions of the Tour Of California and the luminaries that raced there this year, along with his personal accounts of training in Los Angeles, remind me of a cross between John Belushi and Hunter Thompson.

I was first introduced to Mike’s work a few years ago when I found his book Heft On Wheels in my  local book shop, The Northshire Bookstore, here in southern Vermont. In this book Mike describes how rediscovering the bicycle turned his life around. He would probably say this is an understatement. Mike’s book was an inspiration for me and reading it accompanied a turning point in my own life. But that’s another story.

I’m not going to tell you about Mike or his work work, except that he’s taught creative writing at the graduate level, and that you should read his blog. If you have a creative bone anywhere in your body, you’ll learn something valuable. I promise. Whatever you take away from his work is yours to find and have, but what I see in his work is a raw honesty that is non-the-less genuine, a quality which I believe everyone should try to emulate if not as a writer, then at least within the privacy of inner dialog.

Yes, I know, in business there are taboo subjects. If you’re building a presence on the web or on any other platform  one of the last things you want to do is to risk offending potential clients by expressing points of view  that that might be perceived as coarse or controversial and therefore offensive to some. Right?

If you’re genuine, and honest, and have the courage of your convictions, it’s almost a certainty that ruffling some feathers is unavoidable. But in the end, honesty will take you down your own path and not that of the herd. Walking your own path you’ll find the right people who want to do business with you, who want to associate with you.  And you’ll also have a lot more respect for yourself.

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