Barb Drozdowich's Blog, page 16
July 22, 2020
8 Ways to Take Your Social CX to the Next Level
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Wondering what Social CX is? You have come to the right place! Today’s infographic is about just that subject!
I hope this short and to the point infographic helps you consolidate your thoughts about how you use social media. As always – I look forward to sharing your thoughts!
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July 19, 2020
What’s coming in WordPress 5.5
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I’m always looking ahead – especially when it comes to WordPress and their updates. Ever since they moved to a block arrangement – which I resisted at first – my enjoyment of blogging has increased. I now love the new editing functions of WordPress.
One blog I follow closely because of their tutorials is WPBeginner. They always have straightforward breakdowns of complicated activities. Great for the beginner, as their name suggests.
This week they have posted a summary post about what is coming up in the next WordPress release. You can find it here and I highly suggest you pop over and read their detailed explanations.
The two improvements that I’m looking forward to are simple ones. There will be a change in the organization for editing functions.
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The screenshots above show the two edit menus that exist for a paragraph block. Beginners find it confusing to have to look in two locations to find the function they want to use. In the new WordPress, this will be streamlined and improved for the user.
The second improvement I’m looking forward to is similar to the above but with respect to images. The choices will be streamlined and will allow for inline edits of pictures rather than the multistep process that now exists.
Hope you are looking forward to these improvements and more in the next release of WordPress!
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July 15, 2020
20 Amazing Facts About Facebook [Infographic]
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Today’s infographic shares interesting facts about Facebook. Some of the facts are newsworthy and some are about the history of Facebook – creating a nice mixture!
As always, drop by my favorite blog, Social Media Today – to read the original post.
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July 8, 2020
How Email Responsiveness Builds Trust
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Today’s infographic comes from my favorite blog and talks about one of my favorite topics – newsletters and email.
Containing snippets of information from a variety of sources and topics, I think today’s infographic adds value to your life. Enjoy!
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July 1, 2020
How to perform a WordPress Security Audit
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Security is something that is little understood and often overlooked. Regardless of what hosting companies may tell you, WordPress – straight out of the so called “box” – is very secure. That doesn’t mean that we should be lax in our vigilance. The opposite – in today’s world of aggressive hacking attempts, we should be very vigilant.
What is a Security Audit?
A Security Audit is the process of checking your website for signs of a security breach. You are looking for signs of suspicious activity, malicious code or simply a drop in performance. The simple steps can be performed manually or you can use a tool or an online website to automatically do the various checks for you.
How often should a website be audited?
A security audit should be carried out quarterly or where there is suspicion that something is wrong.
Step 1: Software update or WordPress version update
WordPress updates are really important to help with your site’s security.
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As you can see in the above screenshot, whenever there is an update available, it will be visible as a number in a circle in the “Updates” section. These available updates may be WordPress updates or plugin updates. Regardless, they should be addressed as soon as possible in most cases.
Step 2: Keep plugins up to date
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Plugins are collections of code that perform a specific function on your website. Their developers regularly add functionality or respond to known security threats. When an update arrives for a plugin, a number in a circle appears beside the Plugin entry on the dashboard. Make sure updates are done in a timely manner.
Step 3: Check user accounts and passwords
Check that all users need to be present with the current privileges. To do that, click on users and then check the folks in the various categories. Click on each category and make sure all the users of that category need that level of access to your website.
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Once you have done that there is one more aspect of Users that needs to be paid attention to. Go to Settings and scroll down a bit looking for the area depicted below:
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The vast majority of sites will want to prevent just anyone from registering. This encourages spam signups that are completely unnecessary. Check your site and make sure this box is unchecked.
Step 4: Check automatic WordPress backups
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Although automatic backup plugins are fairly reliable, make sure that you periodically check to make sure they are still doing their job and you can see indication of a recent back up being completed.
Step 5: Scan your website for signs of problems
There are quite a few plugins that can be used to scan your website for problems. I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m fond of WordFence. There are other options available but whatever you choose, choose something!
It is also advisable to scan for other indications of problems. For that job I like to use IsItWP Security Scanner. This is a website that will do a brief scan of your site.
I hope this short list is something that you consider to be doable! Keeping on top of the security of your website will help avoid big problems in the future.
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June 24, 2020
Top 10 Facebook Stats for 2020
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One of the subjects I talk a lot about in my books and on this blog is identifying your audience. It’s important to understand who is on the various social media platforms and how to communicate with this audience.
Today’s infographic comes to you compliments of Social Media Today and I hop you find it helpful!
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June 17, 2020
Social Media Image Size Guide 2020 [Infographic]
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I always like to post an up-to-date cheat sheet for social media image sizes. These sizes tend to change over time as the various platforms change the look and feel. Although programs such as Canva and others provide templates that appropriately sized, I know many of my readers create social media posts/graphics from scratch.
Add this post to your bookmarks for this year’s figures and be sure to visit the original post on my favorite blog, Social Media Today.
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June 6, 2020
Who are your readers? Do you piss them off?
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Who is your audience? How do you communicate with them?
An often-asked question of authors but in my experience, one that is seldom answered completely…
Sales of our books in 2020 occur in almost every country in the world. Whether they are sold on Amazon, Kobo, iBooks or in a tiny bookstore in Spain, once our books are uploaded to the retail platforms that are available to authors, a copy could be sold almost anywhere.
Gone are the days of focusing on author signings – book tours in the literal sense. We no longer put on a nice outfit and load a box of books into the car and head off to meet fans. Certainly, in the time of the Corona virus, we aren’t thinking about in person events, but even before the virus, successful authors were focusing on the big picture in terms of book sales – not their local market.
How do you interact with readers that live in a different city than you? In a different country than you? The easy answer is you use your online presence to communicate. You “talk” to readers regardless of where they live without leaving home. Just move to your “office” – wherever that office is – and access the internet.
The next question is what do you say to readers?
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I spend a lot of my days teaching (mostly) beginner authors how to blog and how to “chat” with readers in a variety of other ways. The word “branding” is often thrown around liberally without really being defined. Beginners are often confused about what is meant by branding so along with teaching authors how to blog, we spend a lot of time figuring out what to blog about.
When I am not teaching, I am responsible for maintaining about 75 different websites. Mostly websites for authors – that seems to be my niche! I’m aware of the content being added to a wide variety of websites because I often find myself reading the latest blog post while waiting for plugins to update! Occupational hazard, I guess you’d say! In addition to the websites, I spend a great deal of time on social media. Whether I’m supervising my “students” or simply lost down a rabbit hole, I am aware of content being posted on social media.
Let’s go back to my original question. Who is your audience?
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If you write contemporary romance (my favorite genre) do you write books for all who favor contemporary romance – or only a fraction of those folks?
This may seem like a stupid question, but because of disturbing trends I’m seeing during my day to day interactions with authors, I’m going to talk about what NOT to say in this blog post.
Several months ago, I was cruising social media and stumbled on a Facebook post shared by one of my most favorite authors about a topic that I disagree with. I was taken aback. I was disappointed that she apparently agreed with the content she shared on Facebook. It certainly wasn’t the first time I found content on social media that I disagreed with – but the first time it had been associated with one of my favorite authors.
Several weeks later while cruising my daily BookBub newsletter for my next read, I had two potential books that interested me. Because I’m constantly budgeting my book buying habits, I only had the money to purchase one. The book I didn’t choose that day was by the author who posted that (divisive) social media content a few weeks previously.
About the same time, one of the group author blogs that I support had an author post a divisive blog post that almost immediately had calls to be taken down. The author of the divisive blog post claimed “First Amendment” rights. The ensuing discussion brought me back to my feelings about the surprising post from one of my favorite authors.
Let me be clear. Whatever language you use – “first amendment rights” or simply the rights to free speech, I strongly believe that all free people should have the ability – in fact the right – to freely express themselves.
That being said, we live in divisive times. I am Canadian. Canadians may be nice, but we have our divisions. Strong opinions are not the sole purview of our neighbours to the south or our neighbours across oceans. Whether it is political opinions or our taste in coffee shops (the subject of strong opinions!), Canadians will express these opinions.
Let’s go back to that question again. Who is your audience?
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As a professional author trying to sell books, are you interested in selling books to everyone who is interested your genre or only a portion of these readers? If you are interested in selling your books to (potentially) everyone who is interested in the genre you write in, do you risk pissing off a portion of your audience by sharing divisive content on your blog or social media?
Do you think getting into a heated discussion on Facebook or Twitter with someone who holds opposing views to you sells more books or less? The next time a promotion newsletter lands in someone’s inbox do you want to be remembered as that author who holds opposing views to the person poised to buy a book?
Let me be clear…I agree with the right to free speech. But is exercising this right depriving you of book sales? Being an author is tough enough, but do you really want to piss off potentially half your audience?
I would say that in these divisive times in which we live, the combination of exercising free speech and selling books as a professional author are not compatible.
So what do we do about that? There are a number of ways to move forward.
Stop including potentially divisive content on your social media streams. If you don’t want to do that, choose one of the 2 following options.Lock down your Facebook profile to friends only and don’t “friend” readers. Direct readers to your Author page or Facebook business page but don’t “friend” them. This way they won’t see the content on your profile page.Set up a pseudonym on social media – an alternative identity that can indulge in conversation on topics – potentially divisive subjects – that you feel strongly about.
If you are interested in trying #2 from above but don’t know how to do that, here are some instructions:
On the desktop version of Facebook, look to the upper right for the little down arrow. Click on it and then click on Settings (near the bottom of the list). From that point click on Privacy from the list on the left of your screen. Make sure that your Privacy settings are set to Friends only and ensure that Facebook doesn’t include your profile in search engine searches.
If you are interested in trying #3 from above but don’t know how to do that, here are some instructions:
Facebook tends to be a bit problematic about pseudonyms. If challenged, you need to be able to identify yourself with existing credentials – a driver’s licence, etc. If you want to set up a secondary identity on Facebook, use a version of your real name. Use your first, middle and last name. Use your first name, middle initial and last name. Both of these are easy to defend if necessary. However, Facebook identities are created using an email address as the identifier. It is easy enough to create a new Gmail address to go with a new Facebook identity. Twitter doesn’t seem to be as twitchy about using a pseudonym but you will need to use a different email address than your “main” one.
I hope these instructions are helpful.
I look forward to “chatting” with all of you – except those of you heathens who can’t accept that Timmy’s coffee is the best coffee in the world…. J
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May 27, 2020
7 Tips on How to be Productive While Working From Home
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To continue on with the theme of being organized while working at home, I hope you find this infographic helpful!
Be sure to read the full blog posts at my favorite blog Social Media Today!
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May 20, 2020
Where Your Audience Is Watching, Discovering, and Buying in 2020
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A question that frequently comes up in conversations with my clients is around how to find an audience. Because of this, I love today’s infographic. Hope you find this infographic helpful.
Make sure you take a sec to read the full blog post on Social Media Today.
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The post Where Your Audience Is Watching, Discovering, and Buying in 2020 appeared first on Bakerview Consulting.
