These shoes are made for blogging – lacing up your posts in 2013 – Mardi Gras

Is your draft posts list approaching 50% of the total?

Most of the bloggers here at the Cyber Wigwam leave little clutter in their draft list. They have the discipline to publish their WordPress posts on a regular basis.  As with all social media marketing, consistency is second only to Content. If Content is King, then Consistency is the Prince. If you have a robust list of choices in your draft list it might be time to utilize them in a princely fashion. Our best advice at lept Like A Blog is to simply tell the story of your business. We live and breathe our business everyday and it is easy to forget that other people aren’t as versed in it as we are. Telling people about the boring repetitious parts of our business doesn’t seem interesting but that is the easiest way for people to get to Know, Like and Trust us. Publishing your post on a weekly basis is a good discipline and is a reasonable frequency to consistenly update your followers. So just like Mardi Gras where the idea is to clean out all the fat before Lent, it is time to spruce up and clean out the drafts in your WordPress post list.

Do you need a Social Media Mentor in 2013?

January is National Mentoring month (you can read all about that here) and here at the Cyber Wigwam we are considering the impact of having a mentor. You can attend classes at lept Like A Blog in Social Media. But if you want a little more help you can consider a mentor. Just like any topic, having someone pass along their experiences in Social Media can shorten your learning curve significantly. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WordPress or YouTube you can spend a lot of time to master them.  If you need help in social media you can email the bloggers at councilblogs@tpmtech.biz and begin a dialogue.

Winterizing your blog for 2012

With cold weather hitting us in Illinois, we feel winter right around the corner. It is time to take a look at that long list of draft posts and see if one can be freshened up and published. The good news is that WordPress allows you to save lots of drafts. (No winter pun intended) The bad news is that WordPress allows you to save a lot of drafts. It can cruise along with you in your inspirational wisps of wit capturing those dutifully. But when your creative juices drop off you hit the save draft button and the list grows. So now it’s time to check the list and see if there is something that can be finished. Here at the Cyber Wigwam we counted 40 draft posts between all the bloggers just waiting to find the public domain. When you get ready to click the Publish button, double-check that you have your tags selected. Here at Council Blogs all the bloggers have moved their Tags box up underneath the Publish box in the sidebar of the editing window. What tips do you have to share with the bloggers? Feel free to share and comment below.

Curiosity landed, new ventures in social media. Mars landscape, no Martians in sight?

Congratulations to the JPL team for the Curiosity landing. Pictures are spectacular. The animation of the landing process are phenomenal. The PR staff is realizing the power of  social media, setting up a special sub domain for social media. You can check it out by clicking below. Social media is allowing us all to participate in the revelry.

When is the best time to publish your post?

Bloggers at the cyber wigwam ask, “When is the best time to publish your post?” The short answer is “now!” One of the curses of bloggers is to procrastinate on their thoughts as they put them to paper, or should I say, screen. The adage of Progress versus Perfection comes to mind. At Council Blogs we like to envision our blog as simply telling the story of our business. No one can start to understand it if we never start telling them. Develop the habit of keeping your thoughts short. Especially in today’s fast paced society, everyone wants a short read anyway. Also, when we broadcast to our other social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn they only have space for a short message anyway. So the moral is keep it short and get it published!

Valentine’s Day, 2012 – What’s new in the blogosphere?

The state of the blogosphere this Valentine’s Day shows that bloggers are active in Social Media as well as posting to their blog. Google+, Facebook and Twitter are the popular choices for bloggers. Here at Council Blogs, along with WordPress, our bloggers also like LinkedIn. We had a special advanced class delving in-depth into Linkedin. In the blogosphere the stats show that most bloggers are big into Social Media:

2012: Year of Findability – SEO like the Pros

Here at Council Blogs we named 2012 the Year of Findability. Our bloggers have found new and creative ways to develop their Search Engine Optimization or SEO. We find the term ‘Findability’ is more descriptive and palatable for novices. But, novice aside you can enjoy SEO like a pro. Here at the cyber wigwam we have explored techniques for increasing findability in our all our social media tools like LinkedIn and YouTube as well as Google. And of course, the battle cry for all bloggers in 2012: “Don’t forget your tags!”

Discovering Sidebar Widget Codes – 3 fields for a Text box

Here at Council Blogs at the Cyber Wigwam we like to have pictures as hyperlinks in our sidebar. The folks at lept Like A Blog have made it easy to develop these by supplying a starter code for a text widget. Click on the screen dump to be directed to the site. Here you can copy the code in the gray boxes and paste it in a text widget in a sidebar of your WordPress blog.  Once there you can modify the 3 fields to suit your needs. How easy can it be? There is even a code for having someone click to send you an email. Please comment with other widget ideas you have come across or would like to see added.

390 years of Pilgrim’s Progress – being social

There is a lot of interesting history on the making of Thanksgiving as a legal holiday. The first Thanksgiving is assumed to be 1641. The story goes that the Pilgrim colony invited the native Indians to help celebrate and give thanks to the new life the pilgrims had found for themselves. In this case their social medium was food. Can we learn anything from the pilgrims? Well, one thing that is true today in social media is that you have to offer something. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn all provideYou have to interact or extend an invitation to interact. Our blog engine makes it easy to invite comment. It is easy and natural to invite interaction on various discussion topics. Feel free to comment below with your thoughts about being social.

Open letter to the 750,000,000 Facebook users

Dear Facebook Users,

Are you happy with the new changes to the Facebook interface?
The first thing I noticed was the absence of Home and Profile. In the Social Media Marketing Framework classes, I used to be able to say that LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook all have the same definition. Now I cannot.Of course there are many other changes. Another one I noticed is that when you click on Home it no longer says NEWSFEED. I found this to be the most beneficial description of what you saw when you went to the Home page for new students. Now, no longer.
It is human nature to resist change. I can see that some of the streamlining eliminates some confusion that inherently come in an incremental design. I have to say I am amazed at how seamlessly the transition to the new interface went. I haven’t heard any complaints about things not working. The programmers should be applauded as pulling off a major feat!
On the other hand, as users, are we happy with the new features?Personally, I haven’t spent enough time to know if I like it or not. I do have to say that I click with a bit of apprehension knowing that things might not be where they belong or things will pop up when I least expect it. At the moment, most of it is a nuisance. I would like to know what you think.
Time will tell whether this major turn of events in Facebook is for the better or not. Has anybody heard how the changes were arrived at? Was there a user focus group? Was there a list of suggested improvements? When a group of Facebook users the size of the third largest country in the world are affected, the weight of these changes have a significant impact on the internet user base.
I would like to hear from you. Comment below with your impressions of the new changes.

Sincerely,

Chief Blogger

P.S. What do you think will happen with the other popular Social Media tools like LinkedIn and Twitter? Will they feel compelled to change their user interface as well?

I would enjoy reading your impressions of the new changes. Comment below.