Can't Speak Geek

Translating the Geek Speak in simpler terms

Michele Butcher-Jones

The Do and Do Not List for Social Media Engagement

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Social media offers an excellent opportunity for your businesses to reach a wide market. However, the etiquette for being online is quite different for your business social media accounts. Unlike your personal accounts where you can say and share most anything, you need to err on the side of caution about what you share on the company page. Here is a list of things that you should never do with your business account. 

1. Do Not Argue on Social Media

Losing your temper and engaging in public arguments is a big “NO” for your business. People will talk badly about your business in the comment section because they are angry or they heard a rumor. Even though the comments can be down-right rude, remain professional in your response. Remember that it is not personal. You are there to serve the customers and anything they say can help you improve your services. 

2. Do Not Make Sexual References

Making sex jokes on your business’s Twitter account is the quickest way to lose both your loyal and potential customers. The material you post can be interpreted as insensitive and offensive. Your customers will assume your business has no values, and they won’t want to be associated with your brand. 

3. Refrain From Being Too Political

Politics is a touchy subject. While it is okay for people to post their political views, as a business, it is wise to remain neutral. Your business serves clients with different political views. If you take a side, those who do not agree with you may stay away from your brand. 

4. Do Not Limit Your Brand to One Platform

Your business should never depend on one social account. For example, Facebook was started as a social networking site. It’s meant to help your business connect with other people in the industry. On the other hand, Twitter is sort of like a mini-blogging platform. You write your tweet and share it with others. This platform is great if you want to connect with other businesses. Then you can use Pinterest to share your websites blog posts. Please also remember to share pictures of your company doing fun things on Instagram. Using all available platforms will help your business widen its reach. 

5. Always Reread Your Posts Before Publishing Them

Do not forget to edit your posts. Typos and errors cannot always be avoided when typing; therefore, make a point of proofreading the post before publishing it. When you post information with typos, people judge you the wrong way. They assume that since you don’t proofread your posts, your products and services are also ‘half-baked.’ As a result, people may not buy your products. 

6. Never Take Advantage of a Tragedy

If something terrible is happening around the world, and you want to talk about it on your business page, be sensitive and tactful. Do not take the tragedy and use it as an opportunity to sell your product because you will be viewed as insensitive and fake. It is always in bad taste to try to make a buck off of another’s hardship.

7. Stop Being Too Serious

Although it’s okay to be formal in your office, it’s not encouraged in the online world to be formal 100% of the time. Engage with your customers in a friendly manner and take this opportunity to have some fun with it. The more you let your guard down in a planned way, the more you can humanize your brand. Use tasteful humor, jokes, or personal anecdotes to show your consumers the lively side of your brand. People tend to buy more from companies they can relate to.

8. Don’t Ignore Comments

Take time to check on your customer’s comments and always reply back. Feedback will allow you to know how your consumers feel about your product. More so, it will allow you to establish a relationship with your audience, which will last for many years. Your online engagement can also include responding to your customer reviews. We even wrote a whole post on why customer reviews are important. Engaging with your clients and potential clients online also humanizes the brand and pushes up the percentage of a sale.

9. You Must Have a Plan

You simply cannot just wake up one morning and decide to post on your business page without knowing what to say. Your brand represents a certain lifestyle. Therefore, you have to plan your posts to curate a particular response. Here are some questions that need to be answered when working on your social media plan.

  • How often are you going to tweet or post on your timeline?
  • Which platforms will you use?
  • Which topics are you going to talk about?
  • What message and theme do you want to get across?
  • What is the voice of your brand?
  • Who do you plan to engage with?
  • How are you going to measure the effectiveness of your posts? 

10. Use Hashtags The Proper Way

If used correctly hashtags can be powerful marketing tools for your business. However, do not overdo it because too many hashtags can be annoying and hard to understand. Choose 1 or 2 hashtags that are relevant to what you’re talking about. Also when using hashtags, please remember to capitalize the first letter in each word or every initial that you use. For Example, if you were wanting to use a hashtag that states “Live your truth in Illinois” you would want to make the hashtag like this #LiveYourTruthIL. The reason you do this is so when someone is using a voice reader, they will read the hashtag properly. If I was to do #liveyourtruthil it would try to read it as all one gargled word.

The rules of online engagement are most definitely different for your business compared to your personal platforms. What you write on your personal social media accounts is your business, but what you post on your company’s page is for everybody to see and judge the entire business as a whole. Therefore, be careful about what you post on your company’s accounts.

WP Weekly Spotlight – Mendel Kurland

Mendel is the Agency / Developer Advocate for WooCommerce at Nexcess (a Liquid Web company). I love helping builders solve problems for their clients.
In the past, I’ve worked with public and private companies to build community, customer / product advocacy, and reputation management programs.

Michele: What do you do in the WordPress ecosystem?

Mendel: Agency / Developer Advocate for WooCommerce

Michele: How did you get involved with WordPress?

Mendel: I originally started building websites using Server Side Includes for client work in the 2000s. As other CMSs grew in prominence, they became my goto solutions, and I began transitioning clients from custom code to popular CMSs. When a couple high visibility content websites I was working on got hacked, I decided it was time to find a solution that was easier to update and maintain. That journey brought me to WordPress, and it’s been my preferred CMS ever since.

Michele: Please tell me one story of someone who has inspired you within the WordPress Community?

Mendel: I’m constantly inspired by the selfless hard work of all of the contributors to the WordPress open source project. From core to marketing, and polyglots to plugin and theme developers, there are so many people that make this open source project incredible.

Michele: What does the Open Source Community mean to you?

Mendel: Open Source Community is a way of life. Radical inclusion and contribution are at the heart of Open Source. When one of us wins, we all win. When one of us is down, we help raise that person or company up.

Michele: Please name some of your favorite plugins. 

Mendel: CAOS, Kadence WooCommerce Email Customizer, Simply Schedule Appointments, Beaver Builder

Michele: Do you have a favorite theme or framework you like to use?

Mendel: Astra Pro

Michele: If you could change one thing in WordPress, what would it be?

Mendel: Update the architecture of WordPress to run more efficiently on a broader set of infrastructures and configurations without modification.

Michele: What is your most memorable WordPress moment?

Mendel: During an after party, two new friends in the WordPress community cornered me to tell me that the work I was doing mattered. Not sure there’s anything that motivates me (or anyone else) more than knowing that their work is appreciated.

Michele: What is one piece of advice you would give to someone just getting started with WordPress?

Mendel: Start with a project you’re passionate about. When you’re motivated to build, learning the tool becomes so much easier.

Michele: What do you think is in store for the future of WordPress?

Mendel: There will be incumbents in the CMS space. Paradigms of creating on the web will change. Enterprises will continue to become notable consumers of, and contributors to WordPress and WooCommerce. Ultimately, how we react (whether through collaboration or competition) will chart our course.

You can find Mendel Kurland at IfYouWillIt or Geek Adventures.

If you find these interesting and would like to be spotlighted yourself, please see our interview form.

What is PPC and Why Should I Consider It?

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Whether you own a mom and pop store or a large scale business, running online marketing campaigns is one of the best ways to gain more exposure. While some of these marketing methodologies require some time to build momentum, pay per click (PPC) is known for delivering quick and robust results. 

Due to its viable return on investment (ROI) and promise to reach otherwise inaccessible audiences, pay per click is a sought after marketing method for many organizations. From renowned brands to obscure startups, every business that wants to expand its horizons uses this advertising avenue in one way or another.

To help you understand exactly what is pay per click, why you should use it, and how to set it up, here is all you need to know about this marketing method. 

What is Pay Per Click Advertising?

As its name suggests, pay per click advertising uses a paid marketing methodology. To elaborate, it requires you to pay for each click made on your advertisement. This amount directly goes to the platform that is running these advertisements for you. 

These platforms include but are not limited to: 

– Google AdWords
– Facebook Ads
– LinkedIn Ads
– YouTube Ads

Whenever you run a pay per click advertisement, these platforms show your ad to your target audience through various methodologies. Once anyone shows an interest in your ad and clicks on it, you get charged for it. Some niche advertisements also charge you on the amount of impressions or views garnered by your ad.

Pay per click ads can come in many forms, including text ads, image ads, and even video ads. This is why platforms ranging from Google to YouTube offer pay per click advertisement. 

The most common types of pay per click advertising include the following.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
This refers to displaying your text ads on search engines. These ads display whenever someone makes a search query using your targeted keyword or phrase. These text ads appear on top of search engine results, which enhances your exposure and increases your chance of bringing in search engine traffic. Examples include Google AdWords and Bing Ads.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)
This includes the display of pay per click ads on social media platforms. These ads are shown to your targeted demographics in the form of text, image, or video posts. Those who are interested click on your ad and land on a designated website page that is set up and controlled by you. Examples include Facebook Ads and LinkedIn Ads.

Retargeting/Remarketing
There are times when someone on your website signs off without making an inquiry or a purchase. In order to remind these visitors about your website, you can set up retargeting ads. 

These ads work by ethically using browsing data through cookies on a visitors’ web browser. They are then shown to your target visitors in the form of image or banner ads on third-party websites. Examples of retargeting programs include Google Display Network and AdRoll.

Why Should You Use Pay Per Click Advertisement?

As mentioned above, PPC ads provide you with quick results and help you gain access to your target audience on an immediate basis. The minute you initiate a pay per click campaign, your ads start displaying over the web. In comparison to search engine optimization (SEO), which takes considerable time to show results, this feature makes pay per click stand out in a positive way.

Pay per click advertisement is also more efficacious than other advertisement methods such as email marketing. Most email marketing campaigns end up in the recipients’ junk or spam folder. Whereas, pay per click advertisements show up prominently on the websites visited by your target audience.

Using pay per click in search advertising brings yet another advantage to the table. Since your ads are being shown to people who are actively searching for information they need, it is easier to bring in traffic and score conversions through this audience.

All of these advantages come together to provide you with a higher ROI than many other advertising avenues, which makes pay per click advertising such a prominent marketing tool.

How Do You Set It Up?

Setting up PPC depends greatly on the platform that you are using for this advertising methodology. 

If you are using Google AdWords or Bing Ads, you will need to set targeted keywords or phrases that would trigger your ads to show up. You will also need to place a “bid” to snag the top ad spot from competitors. This bid is often justifiable by demand, but can be immensely high for some terms. 

On the other hand, using platforms such as Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads or YouTube Ads requires you to target certain demographics. This allows you to show your posts or media ads to an audience that’s more likely to respond to your offerings and improve your ROI. 

Retargeting ads take a different approach to the set up. You can enroll into these programs through providers such as Google Display Network or AdRoll. Since these ads typically display your ads through banner images, you need to submit a few image ads that could fulfill this purpose. 

How to Make the Most Out of Pay Per Click Advertisement?

Setting up pay per click advertisement can be incredibly complex, especially if you are opting for search advertising. But you can still learn the process by dedicating some time to it. If you are unsure of the procedure or want it to be handled professionally, you can easily reach out to a credible pay per click advertising expert to manage it for you.

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What Are Nofollow Links And Why Are They Important?

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When implementing a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, you have your work cut out for you. From enhancing your site’s structure to creating high quality content, you need to take care of various factors at once. When you throw in the many intricacies that are related to digital marketing, it gets all the more challenging to pull off this massive feat all by yourself. 

Learning about nofollow links is one of those complexities. While they are crucial to running a successful search engine optimization campaign, they can be difficult to understand. At the same time, ignoring the usage of these links can harm your website and affect its online presence negatively. 

To help you learn about these links, their importance and their function, here is the lowdown on nofollow backlinks and what they can do for your site. 

What Are Nofollow Backlinks?

When it comes to search engine optimization, you have two main types of backlinks to work with: dofollow and nofollow. Both of these links appear as regular hyperlinks on webpages. There is no difference in how they look or how they function for a website’s visitor. But their functionality in search engine optimization sets them apart with quite some distinction.

When integrated on a webpage, a dofollow backlink passes down link juice to the referred website. On the other hand, a nofollow backlink doesn’t pass down any link juice to the referred domain.

Due to this basic description, it is easy for many people to think that dofollow backlinks are better than nofollow backlinks. But this remains a misconception. In the world of white hat search engine optimization, both types of links hold equal importance. 

Why Are Nofollow Backlinks Important?

While nofollow links provide no link juice to referred websites, they have their own benefits to offer in terms of SEO.

They Keep You Safe From Penalization

Whenever you are sourcing backlinks from external websites, getting exclusively dofollow links can actually have adverse effects on your website. An abundance of dofollow links can signal to the search engines that you are getting your backlinks illicitly. As a result, your website can end up being penalized for not following proper search engine optimization protocols.

In contrast, using nofollow backlinks allows you to build a network of links without worrying about any penalties. When you utilize them along with a careful amount of dofollow backlinks, you can easily get your desired mentions and referrals from other websites without affecting your online presence.

They Provide You With Substantial Traffic

Since nofollow backlinks appear as regular hyperlinks on any webpage, they don’t discourage your target audience’s decision to click on the link. As a result, a nofollow backlink gives you just as much chances of driving traffic to your site as a dofollow backlink.

If you build your nofollow backlinks through a credible provider, this feature can become incredibly helpful. By getting your website’s link embedded within the content of high authority and high traffic websites, you can get a significant amount of traffic to your domain. If a reader finds your information or solutions to be helpful, they can link back to your website from their own platform. This increases your exposure and improves your chances of getting organic backlinks from other websites.

They Are Easier to Source

For any website, passing down link juice via excessive dofollow links can pose a risk of getting penalized by the search engines. This is why, credible platforms are quite selective in choosing the websites they refer to through their content.

In comparison, linking to informative or relevant websites through engaging content is helpful for all domains. This improves the quality of their content and has positive effects on their SEO. Due to this reason, nofollow links are easier to source, especially if you are working with a reliable provider with ties to high authority websites. 

How to Set Up These Links?

Most websites that refer to you through their content would set up the links by themselves. But there will be instances where you are publishing or preparing the content on third-party platforms yourself. 

Fortunately, setting up these links is easy. You just need to add the rel=“nofollow” tag to the hyperlink. That’s about it.

But whenever you are setting up nofollow backlinks, it is important to be careful in your practice. 

Make sure that you are not making all of your links into nofollow backlinks, since that could affect your search engine optimization. Strike a proper balance between nofollow and dofollow links.

Ensure that most of the links that you have on your website are nofollow. You can check this by right-clicking a hyperlink and selecting “Inspect.” This will tell you if the link has the rel=”nofollow” tag.

Make it a point not to make your internal links into nofollow backlinks. This affects your website structure and internal linking. 

Setting up nofollow backlinks can be challenging, but it’s not impossible. With a little time and effort, you can learn how to make the most out of these backlinks. In case you don’t have the time to take care of this aspect or need professional expertise, you can also consult a white hat search optimization provider to handle it for you.

WP Weekly Spotlight – Stephanie Brinley

With a life-long passion for art and a BFA in Visual Communications, Stephanie is a branding specialist and digital designer. Stephanie is the owner of Flightless, specializing in hand-crafted logos and extending brands beyond the business card. She has been involved with the Florida WordPress community since 2014 and has been honored to share her knowledge at WordCamps Ann Arbor, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, and US. Most weeks you will find her attempting to balance design and homeschooling, exploring the world of flavors she can invent in her kitchen, and sometimes on Twitter @sjbrinley.

Michele: What do you do in the WordPress ecosystem?

Stephanie: Help run WordCamps, small business sites, digital graphic support

Michele: How did you get involved with WordPress?

Stephanie: My husband finally convinced me to attend WordCamp Orlando 2014 once I had started poking into the back-end enough to feel like a developer talk would be beneficial to me.

Michele: Please tell me one story of someone who has inspired you within the WordPress Community?

Stephanie: Kathy Drewien is an amazing woman! I don’t even remember where I met her, but we invited her as one of TWO keynote speakers to our very first WordCamp Jacksonville 2016. At the time, our local WordPress community was very small. We knew Kathy was big on community so we wanted her to speak about how important that is. Everyone left that presentation inspired, even the developers that, “don’t do inspirational talks.”

Michele: What does the Open Source Community mean to you?

Stephanie: It means the freedom to collaborate and see each other as partners instead of adversaries.

Michele: Please name some of your favorite plugins. 

Stephanie: Disable Comments, BackWPUp, Under Construction Page, and WordPress SEO Plugin – Rank Math

Michele: Do you have a favorite theme or framework you like to use?

Stephanie: Beaver Builder

Michele: If you could change one thing in WordPress, what would it be?

Stephanie: The funding process for WordCamps.

Michele: What is your most memorable WordPress moment?

Stephanie: Being on stage in front of 600 people at the inaugural WordCamp US to give a lightning talk.

Michele: What is one piece of advice you would give to someone just getting started with WordPress?

Stephanie: Take your time, focus on understanding all the main components and how they fit together. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. When you start feeling like you don’t have enough power, then dive a little deeper.

Michele: What do you think is in store for the future of WordPress?

Stephanie: I don’t make predictions, but after 10+ years it still seems to be going strong.

Michele: Just for fun, share one memory that makes you proud to be a part of the WordPress Community.

Stephanie: We brought our son to the first WordCamp Jacksonville event. He was 7 years old. We didn’t have a KidsCamp, so he just went to sessions with us. He was so excited to go he invented the Plush Wapuu, sewed one himself, and handed out flyers to sell them at WordCamp. Everyone was so encouraging, several people ordered Plush Wapuus, he inspired the WC US Wapuu, and just had such a good time.

You can find Stephanie Brinley at Flightless

If you find these interesting and would like to be spotlighted yourself, please see our interview form.