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WordCamp Orange County 2018: Awesome Moments

June 14, 2018 By Carol Stephen 6 Comments

WordCamp Orange County 2018: Awesome Moments

This year, once again, I traveled to Orange County for WordCamp for the sixth time. In case you’ve never heard of Wordcamp, it’s a conference that focuses on all things WordPress. It’s run by volunteers and has the friendliest and most generous people of any conference I’ve ever attended. If you haven’t gone, you simply must go! And if you’d like to read some past posts about WordCamp, here are the ones about Orange County:

The People Are Key

Some of my very favorite people are at WordCamp, such as Pam Ann Aungst of Pam Ann Marketing, and Bridget Willard, my besties for years and years. This year, the three of us met after not having seen each other for five years.

People at WordCamp Orange County

Being Surrounded by Smart, Enthusiastic People

What I’ve found at Orange County Wordcamp in particular is there are so many people having cool conversations. You could talk about nearly any topic with anyone here. If you work alone, like many of us do, then having meaningful conversations is doubly important. I look forward to seeing so many people every year.

Fun and Interesting Topics

Some of my favorite topics included Intermediate Google Analytics by Pam Ann Aungst, Ransomware: Don’t Pay That Toll! with Yvonne Conway-Williams, and 90 Days: Finding Your Place in the WordPress Community by Joe A. Simpson. The image above is Joe Simpson speaking about the health scare that caused him to change the course of his life.

Joe Simpson at WordCamp

The Venue

For the past three years, Wordcamp Orange County has been held at University California at Irvine. It’s so comfy that we tend to take it for granted. There’s plenty of parking, electrical outlets all over the place, and good WiFi, too. And air conditioning.

Bridget Willard with a Big Hello

Photo by mjhbower

The Awesome Swag

There were many fun pieces of swag, but my favorite was the Lego person you could build yourself. GoDaddy had the best swag this year, in my opinion.

DIY LEGO Figure from GoDaddy

The Food Trucks

Who doesn’t love food trucks? This year, there were more food trucks and the lines didn’t seem bad at all. I suspect this had to do with the wonderful volunteers.

Lunchtime with Food Trucks

Have You Ever Been to a WordCamp?

If you have, let me know in the comments! And thank you.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: WordCamp, WordCamp Orange County, Wordpress

How to Excel as a Twitter Chat Guest: 10 Best Ways

June 7, 2018 By Carol Stephen 2 Comments

How to Excel as a Twitter Chat Guest: 10 Best Ways

There are a number of things a person can do to be a better Twitter chat guest. Having been on both sides of that digital divide, here are my favorites. If you’re new to tweetchats, here’s an article that could be interesting: TweetChats: How to Participate.

Introduce Yourself

People often forget that others may not know them in the chat. So introducing yourself is a good way to make yourself known. And you may need to say your name at the end of the chat, too, for those late joiners.

Get There Early

Often, regulars to a chat like to show up early to say hello. If you’d like to e-meet more people, show up early and see what’s happening.

Use the Hashtag

People often forget to use the hashtag. They don’t do it intentionally, of course. If you use an app, such as tchat.io, it can automatically add the hashtag for you, so you don’t have to think about it. Want to learn more about hashtags? Check out Hubspot’s The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Hashtags for 2018.

Retweet Others

A great way to get more reach is to retweet the questions. Sometimes in a fast-moving chat, people miss the questions, so this is really helpful. You can also retweet some of your favorite replies to questions. By the way, using Twitter on your desktop is the best way to engage in a tweetchat. Being on a tweetchat with a mobile phone isn’t nearly as fun.

Watch the Chat Before You Join

If you can be on a chat the week or two before you join one, you’ll get a feel for who the regulars are. And you’ll see how formal or informal the chat is, too. The chat I run with partner Larry Mount (@Lazblazter) weekly, #DigiBlogChat, has quite a few regulars, and those who drop in from time to time, too. If you’d like to join us, we’re there every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. pdt.

Squelch Trolls

Occasionally, there will be a troll. Not very often, but it does happen. Although the chat moderator may be the one to block the troll, your blocking the troll can be very helpful, too.

Hang out Afterwards

Stay on for a few minutes after the chat if there is more to discuss. Sometimes discussions will go on for hours after a chat has ended.

Photo by Landre Photography

Connect with Everyone

People on chats are the most engaged people on Twitter. Follow as many as you can! Go back through the tweets and follow those you might have missed.

Photo by Horasis

List People on the Chat

Create your own list, or subscribe to a list, if you feel like it. This way you can easily access those you’ve met on the chat. If you’re unfamiliar with lists, you might like Twitter Lists for the Power User.

What Constitutes a Good Twitter Chat Guest?

What constitutes a good Twitter chat guest for you? Let me know in the comments! And thank you.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: how to be a good tweetchat guest, Tweetchat, Twitter Chat, Twitter chat guest best practices

How to Discover a Wealth of Friends with Social Media Hashtags

May 31, 2018 By Carol Stephen 8 Comments

How to Discover a Wealth of Friends with Social Media Hashtags

Connect, Don’t Disconnect, on Social Media

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about loneliness and isolation. And I got to thinking about social media. We’re all on at least one or more platforms, right? But how often do you hear about people connecting through social media, even though it’s supposed to be social? More often, you hear about how everyone is becoming more isolated.

A Stranger is a Friend You Haven’t Met

Recently, I traveled to Japan, and met a couple of people that I knew only through our social media connections. I knew a few people in Japan–mostly relatives–and have been tweeting or posting along with others. So I thought “why not try to meet some people in real life?”

Shinjuku and Flowers

The first person I met was Chiaki F, who I’ve known since forever on Twitter. We met for coffee in Shinjuku. Since we ended up hitting it off, we went shopping together, and ended up talking for hours! It was such fun to meet her, even though we’d already done some of the work on Twitter and Instagram. And now, when I see her flower posts on Instagram or Twitter, I really understand where she’s coming from. Flowers are a big deal in Japan. So when the cherry blossoms bloom, for instance, everyone gets involved and goes to where the blossoms are. I can’t imagine people here in the United States having the same reaction to beautiful trees–although I wish they would! There are also wisterias, azaleas, and autumn leaves which are also a huge deal.

Kimonos and Tea

The next person I met was Mizuho. We crossed paths in a more roundabout way. I’m part of a Facebook group, and a friend of hers had posted about the beautiful kimonos her mother had left her. I took my mother to meet her at her studio, and we had tea and osembe (Japanese crackers), which is always a winning combination. And I purchased an antique kimono from her. I really loved hearing her stories about her life in the U.S. It turns out that Mizuho had been to Santa Cruz, and had also studied in Colorado. Such a small world! We have been connected on Instagram, and sometimes use the same hashtags there.

Follow the Hashtags!

If you’re traveling, and have the opportunity to meet someone in real life that you’ve only known through social media, I strongly recommend connecting with them. And although you may be following local hashtags, you might want to begin following the hashtags of the places you are going to visit before you get there. So for me, those might be #Tokyo, #Japan, and so on. Where do you plan to visit? Leave me a comment, please!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: friendship, Social Media, Using Hashtags to find friends

How to Get out of Social Media Overwhelm

May 3, 2018 By Carol Stephen 10 Comments

How to Get out of Social Media Overwhelm

We’ve all been there. That is, feeling completely overwhelmed, with no idea of what to do next. Too many projects piled up and too few hours in the day. Even as a social media manager, this feeling can be overwhelming. People often feel overwhelmed at work according to this article: 10 Ways to Stop Feeling Overworked and Overwhelmed from Inc. magazine. Here are some of the ideas that have helped me.

Use a Timer

Always pay attention to the time passing as you’re posting. Otherwise, you could end up on Facebook for the rest of your life. I use a program called Let’s Freckle, but there are plenty of inexpensive or free ones available, too. By the way, here’s an article you might like: Social Media in 60 Minutes a Day. Yes, it really is possible!

Schedule

Use a scheduler like Hootsuite to help you plan ahead. Keep a nice backlog of posts so you can engage in real time, too. For instance, you might want to keep a Word file or a Google doc with some ideas for content. Forbes has a terrific article, 15 Social Media Management Tools That Can Help Your Business Thrive.

Search for Content

I like to save my searches on Twitter so that I’m always searching for the same keywords. You can see my saved searches above. To save a search, simply type what you’re searching for into the search box. Then tap on the three little dots at the top of your Twitter (I’m using desktop) and click on “Save this search.” That’s it. I also like to use lists of people/brands with great content so that I can figure out what to post next. If you’d like to know more about lists on Twitter, here’s a post you might like: Twitter Lists for the Power User.

Outsource

If you’re completely overwhelmed (and your business isn’t doing social media), hire someone else to do it for you! And did you know that you can hire someone when you go on vacation to help you, too? Give me a call or send me an email and I’ll help you get out of overwhelm!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: overworked and overwhelmed, social media overwhelm

This is What Happens When You Buy Followers

April 26, 2018 By Carol Stephen Leave a Comment

This is What Happens When You Buy Followers

You might have heard that you shouldn’t buy followers. Or have you? Were you dreaming? Or was that something that you really heard? Probably fake news, right? Wrong! You should definitely avoid buying followers! Here’s why.

There Are Lots of Reasons

Your hair will fall out, your skin will turn blue, and people will stop talking to you. You’ll become an orphan if you’re not already. A toilet seat will fall out of the sky and kill you. Oh, wait. That was a t.v. show. By the way, I wrote about this (long ago). You might like Who Has the Most Fake Twitter Followers? Which just goes to prove, this isn’t a new phenomenon.

Photo by NEC Corporation of America

People Can Tell, and They Won’t Admire You

If you have three posts, and a million followers, that looks odd. Why? Because it takes time to build a following if you do it organically. And people who do know probably won’t want to follow you. They’ll squint at you and your bogus followers, and never follow you. Or, if they do follow you, it’s only because they’re your family. Those who have been caught buying followers were nearly all embarrassed, and ready to blame someone else.

Throws Off Your Analytics

When all your “followers” live in Russia, how will you be able to check your analytics to see when they’re on Facebook? The answer is: you won’t! And if you want to know when your real followers are online, you’ll have to start over. And that would be not so fun. After all, knowing your audience is half the battle if you’re trying to conduct business on social media. “When you check your analytics on any social platform, you can access insights or varying capacity on this front – but if all your followers are fake, that data is useless.” says Andrew Hutchinson in Should You Buy Followers and Likes on Social Media?

You Support People Who Steal People’s Identities

If you’re considering the purchase of fake followers, then I highly recommend this article from The New York Times: The Follower Factory.

If you read the New York Times article The Follower Factory when you buy followers you support people who steal other people’s identities. So it doesn’t just hurt you. There are probably thousands of people who have had their identities stolen. The article follows a couple of them.

Your Engagement Is Thrown Off

How will it look when you have 100,000 followers on Twitter and Facebook, and yet nobody ever, ever, EVER likes anything you post? Will that seem a little strange to anyone? Why yes, yes it would seem strange. Although, you can buy “likes” and retweets on sites, too. Still, these bots do not offer genuine engagement. So your account may lose thousands of followers overnight if you’re caught. Or you can be shut down.

But it Seems So Cheap!

Yes, but is your time cheap? Is your reputation cheap? How much will it cost you to start over? That $25 or $100 doesn’t take into account how you’ll have to go through the embarrassment of telling your staff what happened. Or that you’ll have to trash your accounts and start over. And how will that look to your followers, when you have to explain what happened (or make up a clever lie)? Not so cheap anymore, right?

What Do You Think When You See Someone Who’s Bought Followers?

Leave me a comment! And thank you.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: buying followers, Social Media, this is what happens when you buy followers, why not to buy followers

How to Use LinkedIn That Will Help You Build Your Business

April 19, 2018 By Carol Stephen Leave a Comment

How to Use LinkedIn That Will Help You Build Your Business

Lately, there’s been a resurgence of interest in LinkedIn. Maybe because that other social media platform (that one based in Menlo Park) has been scaring off a lot of people.

Vanity Metrics and Buying Followers

Although the number of followers should not be the end-all, it’s nice to have a few followers. Whatever you do, though, don’t buy followers on LinkedIn or any other social media platform. You might want to read Why Not to Buy Followers on Instagram, from Hootsuite. And by the way, you’ll get the same lack of engagement on other platforms, including LinkedIn, if you decide to buy followers.

Photo by Michael Vadon

Start Conversations

You might not want to talk to every follower you have, but if you have conversations with those who are in your target audience, that could be a start. And if your target market is everyone, then we need to have a talk. Your target market is not everyone unless you’re selling water or air. In most places, those things are free. You might like this guide to engagement if you need help starting conversations on social media.

Photo by MoneyConf

Have a Brand Identity

Who are you and what is your brand about? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Where are your best opportunities? If you want to know about creating your brand identity, I highly recommend Clement Lim’s Creating a Kick-Ass Brand Identity in Six Easy Steps. It’s one of the best articles on brand identity I’ve ever read. Every time I read it, I get something more from it.

Photo by theps.net

Drive Conversations Offline

Some of the best conversations online end up being friendships. Once you meet people in real life, you don’t know what could happen. Often those friendships end up as business partnerships. And you can have an awful lot of fun meeting people, in any case. You might like Why Friendships Are Absolutely the Best ROI of Social Media.

Photo by eekim

Find Collaborators

Collaboration makes work easier and less tedious. When you run out of steam, others on a team can pitch in and help you, either by doing work for you or with encouragement. Many entrepreneurs suffer from loneliness without some human contact. LinkedIn is a great place to find collaborators.

Photo by Stig Nygaard

Publish

Are you publishing on LinkedIn? It’s one of the best reasons to be on LinkedIn. I’ve found that people connect with you more easily if you publish your own work and also share others’ posts. Here’s an article that you might like, too: Here are 10 Surprising Stats You Didn’t Know About Marketing on LinkedIn.

Photo by Fort Wainwright Public Affairs Office

Why Are You on LinkedIn?

Leave me a comment! Thank you.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: buying followers, collaboration, LinkedIn, ROI of social media

How to Be Less Annoying on Social Media

April 12, 2018 By Carol Stephen 6 Comments

How to Be Less Annoying on Social Media

I already know what you’re thinking: Less annoying that what? Or Less annoying than whom? Before I can answer that question, we’d have to set a benchmark, right? And without knowing you personally, that would be impossible. So for the purposes of this post, let’s just say we all want to be less annoying.

Photo by grepsy

Some Super Annoying Things

Here are some ways you can be really, really annoying on social media. Sending DMs or private messages or videos the instant someone follows you on Twitter or Facebook. Nobody likes that in-your-face kind of old-school sales anymore. Those are just a few examples of things not to do. The best and easiest thing to do is not to send a direct message when someone follows you. At all.

Being Divisive on Social Media

Being divisive on Facebook can be really annoying, although sometimes those controversial posts can get a lot of attention. Still, at what price? By now, we mostly know where our friends’ allegiances lie on the political spectrum. How about finding that place or those issues we can agree on, though? Even though that envenomed political cartoon might get a lot of comments, is it worth it? And are we really going to change our friends’ political views with a Facebook post? You might like this post: Ten Ways to Fail on the Biggest Social Media Platforms: Facebook.

Super-Salesy Posts

You’ve all seen those ads on Instagram that make you want to throw your smart phone down in horror. Buy this! Sign up here! An occasional call-to-action might work, but not every single post. Nobody likes to see that. For more things to avoid on Instagram, Jeff Bullas has an article: 8 Instagram Marketing Mistakes You Should Avoid.

Buying Followers

Another thing most of us don’t like to see is obviously fake followers. If you have 10 posts on Twitter, chances are you’re not going to have 10,000 followers. And those fake followers are not going to help you in the long run, either. Some people talk about social proof, but that’s not the way to get it.

What Annoys You?

There must be something! Leave me a comment and I promise to get back to you. Really.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: annoying things on social media, being divisive on social media

How to Keep Your Content Fresh: Innovative Ways, Part Two

April 5, 2018 By Carol Stephen 4 Comments

How to Keep Your Content Fresh: Innovative Ways, Part Two

Once I started writing about how to keep content fresh, it seems that I couldn’t stop. Before we dive into these ideas, you might like to read Part One. Here’s part two.

Use Quizzes and Polls

There are so many controversial topics right now that a quiz or poll could really help you figure out what your audience (or at least your friends) are thinking. You could ask them about Facebook and their privacy concerns, for instance. Have your friends shifted their social media strategies? Are they spending more time in other places online? That could be the basis for an interesting post or piece of content. Here’s a Wiki on how to create polls on Facebook.

Mind Mapping Is One Way to Find Fresh Content

Mindmap or Brainstorm Ideas

Mind mapping is a wonderful tool, and you can find software to help you. Or you could just get a big sheet of paper and some pencils, and get started! You’d be surprised at what starts to appear in your mindmap.

Think Like Your Audience

What do you honestly think your audience cares about? Probably not the same things that you care about! For instance, my audience cares about time and money. And ROI (return on investment). Those are the questions that everyone asks. One idea (that I found while online) is Random Affinities.

Photo by michaelseangallagher

Random Affinities

Moz has a wonderful article about growing your business with random affinities. You can use Google search, Amazon, or even Facebook ads to find out what a particular audience might be interested in. For instance, start a Google search for “are yurts” and then see what Google suggests. If you’re writing about a boring topic (not that yurts are boring!) this could help. A lot. I tried doing the search and Google guesses at the rest of the sentence.

Try a Different Format

If you’ve been blogging, try a video blog or podcasting. The process of learning the new format might be more work, but it could also be a lot of fun. In addition, you might attract a whole different audience!

Use Gamification

You can gamify just about anything. Give yourself points for starting, for progress, and for finishing a project. You might like this post about the Gamification of Social Media.

Let Someone Else Write

Too busy to write? Let someone else write for you! If you don’t know of anyone, I do (that would be me!). Send me an email if you’re looking for someone to help write your blog posts!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: brainstorming, content creation, gamification, how to create polls on Facebook, mind mapping, outsource blog posts

How to Keep Your Content Fresh: Innovative Ways

March 29, 2018 By Carol Stephen Leave a Comment

How to Keep Your Content Fresh: Innovative Ways

Perhaps you’ve been creating content for months or years now, and you feel as though you’re repeating the same tired ideas over and over. Is that you? Some days it’s me! Sitting down to write isn’t always fun. The imagination doesn’t always cooperate the way it should! Especially if you’ve been in meetings all day long, and the thought of writing sounds way less interesting than sleep.

Photo by NancyK!

Repurpose

Take a look at your own content. Is there something from a blog post that you wrote long ago that you could revisit? That’s one way of repurposing. Start with that old idea, and do a remodeling job. You can add video, images, tweets, or quotations to make it fresh. Think of it as a makeover. You might get some clues here: How to Recycle Content the 10 Best Ways.

Add a New Headline

Of course, you’ll want to create a new headline, too. In fact, many experts claim you should spend half your time on the headline itself. Here’s a thorough article about Headlines: How to Write Better Headlines, from Hubspot. The infographic is worth its weight in gold.

Combine Two or Three Ideas

One thing that I love love love doing is to combine two radically different ideas to create a new one. So, for instance, What Nikola Tesla Said About the New iPhone Will Blow Your Mind combines a dead scientist with the new iPhone. I’m fairly certain no one has written that particular article before! Call it a long, long, long tail keyword.

Interview an Influencer in Your Space

You could interview someone and ask them how they got started, what differentiates their business from other businesses, what makes them successful, etc. The interview doesn’t have to be done in person–a phone interview might be adequate, as outlined in How to interview someone like a journalist. Another good tip? Avoid the word interview, as it brings up visions of job interviews–which hardly anyone enjoys.

Let Others Do the Work ~ Crowdsource

Sometimes you can crowdsource during a Twitter chat and then include the tweets in a blog post. Or just take a tweet and use it on another social media platform to start a conversation. It doesn’t have to be anything controversial to start a conversation, either.

More Next Time!

There’s a lot to say about content creation and keeping it fresh. If there’s something you’d like to see, drop me a comment here! And thank you.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: content creation, headline creation, recycling content

Ten Absolutely Best Ways to Fail on Instagram

March 22, 2018 By Carol Stephen 4 Comments

Ten Absolutely Best Ways to Fail on Instagram

Whether you’re on Instagram for business or pleasure, there are some creative ways to fail. Here are just a few!

Following and Unfollowing

You’ve had this happen 10,000 times. Roughly. Someone likes one or more of your posts, or they say something positive about an image. They follow you and you follow back. Then, within a week or two, they unfollow you. They do this so that they appear more popular than they actually are, and they hope that you won’t notice.

Maybe you’d like to read my previous post on Instagram fails: Beware Instagram Follow Unfollow Backlash: A New Kind of Fail.

Having a Private Account

Have you seen people with accounts that are private? They follow you and expect you to follow, but you can’t see any of what they post. Unless you already know them in real life, why would you follow them back? You wouldn’t! If you really do want a private account, Here’s a wiki on how to make your Instagram Photos Private.

Photo by nicubunu.photo

Following Thousands

If you check the ratio of someone’s followers to whom they follow, and it’s way off, would that make you follow them? If they’re a brand and you like what they’re saying, maybe. But anyone else? Probably not. If they’re terribly popular, and are posting valuable things, you might follow them.

Photo by denisbin

Terrible Images

If you see images that are out of focus, too sales-y, or of no interest to you, you probably won’t want to follow that account. If you don’t want to put up a picture of yourself, fine. Get a picture of something. Please. And please make it be in focus.

No Name

Having no brand name or personal name makes it less likely that you’ll gain real followers. Sometimes with accounts with no name, the next time you take a look, they’re gone from Instagram.

Photo by Jorden rundt og hjem igen

Not Posting Enough

Did you post three times in 2014 and then abandon your account? Having an inactive account is a major fail on any platform. And if you don’t want to post something, you can go in and comment on your friends’ posts.

No Descriptions in Posts

Whether you use poetry or a short description, say something. Words are important. Words and hashtags are what help you to get found on Instagram.

Photo by soggy_3_16

No Hashtags

Instagram is the place where you can go crazy with hashtags. Really. If you’d like to know more about hashtags, here’s a post you might like: New Rules for Instagram Hashtags: How to Find the Right Hashtags for Your Business in 2018.

No Engagement

Talking to other people is what makes social media social. Are you commenting on other people’s posts? If not, you might like How to Engage on Social Media: Instagram.

Using Instagram for Dating

Please, on behalf of all women (and men!) everywhere, don’t follow us just to slam us with private messages. If you want to get to know us as friends, that’s a whole different story.

What Other Creative Ways Have You Seen to Fail?

Leave me a comment! And thank you!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: how to fail on Instagram, Instagram failure