Does 500 Gigabytes help you to remember? Don’t forget backups!

The continual price drop of memory for computers is simply amazing. The bloggers here at the Cyber Wigwam collectively tickle close to 3 Terabytes of memory every time we meet. WordPress blogs and applications do have a bit of a memory load. The ease at which we can generate content and store it helps us to amass a tremendous amount of “stuff” in our computers and hard drives. Here at lept Like A Blog we have turned to external hard drives and USB memory sticks as storage devices. The main thing is to remember to back it up. Hours of work can quickly dissipate when a memory device fails. In one case we have worn out an SD chip where the pins have become detached and one computer will not read the chip. Luckily, not all chip readers are created equal and some of the computers at Council Blogs will still read it. Which begs the question. How big is the cloud and how often is it backed up? Just like Click and Clack, our parting close is “and don’t backup like my brother!”

April showering of SEO in 2013: tags

With April showers misting outside it is time to revisit the SEO advantage of metatags in your blogging. Sort of a strange name and WordPress has shortened it to “Tags.” All the bloggers here at the cyber wigwam have moved their Tags sidebar box up under the Publish box to be a little more prominent. Tags are one of the most important elements of getting SEO* advantage from your blog posts. It is like hanging tags on your blog post that say “Find Me!” We’ve had cases at Council Blogs where one blog post with very unique tags can be found on the first page of Google. The really neat thing that our bloggers find is that they can attach their blog posts to their other social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Maybe someday, even YouTube. At lept Like A Blog we call this the Social Media Marketing Framework.

*SEO – What the heck is that? Search Engine Optimization.

St. Patrick’s Day — Time for getting those blog posts out in 2013

Like the 3 elements of the shamrock there are 3 good reasons to adding blogging to your web presence. Of course, that’s assuming you have a web presence. If you don’t then adding a blog is an efficient way to develop a web presence too. Here at the Cyber wigwam the bloggers realize that having good content is what readers are attracted to.

1. “Content is King”

The more you have something genuine to say the more people will be interested to read. It doesn’t necessarily have to be profound. Just like the old adage, “be yourself.”

2. Keeping Fresh

With unique content comes great responsibility to keep it up. Consistently providing your readers with news is almost as important as the news itself. People will be attracted to your ability to keep them informed when you set a pace and stick to it. We find at Council Blogs that once a week is a good pace. You don’t kill yourself but if published regularly, your readers are kept informed.

3. News is attractive to Search Engines

Search engines like finding new stuff. What’s newer than your post with unique content? We find at the cyber wigwam that the more natural, “organic” methods for SEO incorporate consistency and good tagging. There is no better way to keep your readers satisfied and at the same time increase your “findability” than publishing your blog posts. Well, YouTube videos can be as powerful but require a little more energy to produce. Actually, some bloggers at the cyber wigwam are repurposing their blog posts into YouTube videos. That works really well too! You can find training and courses in both at lept Like A Blog.

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.

Cyber Tuesday – not too late for stocking stuffers for your dog

You missed Cyber Monday but the beauty of the internet is you can still order things online and receive them in time to stuff them in a stocking. You can click over here and order your customized dog biscuit cutter any time during Cyber Week and get it in time for stuffing in someone’s stocking. Order early and you’ll have time to make a batch of biscuits too! They are even safe for Santa to eat. Check out the recipes here. The cutters are made special to order with your dog’s name with the 3D printing technology of the Makerbot. Many of the dogs of the bloggers at the Cyber Wigwam will be spoiled this Christmas with their personalized dog biscuit cutters. You can spoil your dog too!

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.

The Power of 3D printing at home in 2012

Does your dog like treats? If your dog is like our dogs they are food motivated to the end. Why not make homemade dog treats? Better yet, why not make homemade dog treats personalized with your dog’s name? When you have a 3D printer at home, this is very easy to do. Design up a dog bone shape, add some text for your dog’s name and Voila! You have a dog biscuit cutter. If you’re not ready for making your own cutter you can visit the website and order a customized cutter from TPM technologies. Here at the Cyber Wigwam we have a new endeavor, it’s not lept Like A Blog, but lept like a Dog! We have Happy Dogs with their homemade treats. We’re not sure what they like best. Eating a biscuit with their name on it or sneaking a biscuit with their brother’s name on it.

#1 Storytelling – The Art of Social Media Marketing Campaigns among other things.

What do story telling and business marketing have in common? Everything. Here at the Cyber Wigwam we have developed a discipline of weekly blog posts. Many people ask, “what will I blog about?” The answer is simple. Just tell the story of your business. According to Freshly Pressed, WordPress.com’s blog highlighting portal, the number one thing to be featured is “Unique content.” Only you can tell the story of your business so naturally it is inherently unique. The other thing we find here at Council Blogs is that people are interested in how you conduct your business. People like to do business with people they Know, Like, and Trust. People like to be able to read about how you do your business and interact with your customers. What more natural way than to tell the story of your business. Here at Council Blogs we like to use WordPress for our blogs.One great benefit of telling the story of our business is that we have a chance to use the tags that best describe our business. This helps immensely in our findability for new customers. It also helps keep a fresh web presence for our existing customers. So, the next time you have that blogger’s writing cramp, get back to basics and tell the story of your business. If you have any examples of great stories you’d like to share, feel free to comment below.

75% Solution – Rapid Prototyping (RP) and 3D printing comes to Council Blogs

Rapid Prototyping or RP describes a number of technologies that includes 3D printing. Turning an X-Y process into the 3rd dimension. The technologies involved keep getting better in resolution and larger size components that can be made. Fortunately, other advances are making the technology more affordable. Advances in the open source community for microcontrollers like Arduino are allowing designers to easily and affordably copy these big brother technologies in a desk top version. Here at the Cyber Wigwam we added the Makerbot 3D printer to exhibit the capability of 3D printing. Soon, tepees and arrowheads in 3D will be adorning the cyber Wigwam. At the root of the Makerbot is the Arduino micorcontroller technology. Massimo Banzi presents an excellent overview of open source ideals and how it impacts creativitiy below.