Now to the good stuff. My team and I have put together a social media training program and we are kicking off the soft launch with a FREE social media webinar. This won’t be fluff or hype, but real world training from a team of professionals who have been successfully managing social media for over a decade.

Here are just a few of the social media tips that will be shared on this webinar:

* Use insider secrets to gain faster social media results
* Avoid the most damaging social networking “No-No’s”
* Maximize the amount of time you invest in online networking
* Create a manageable approach
* Leverage free tools to grow your business
* Partner with business professionals to grow even faster

Join us and learn how to MAXIMIZE your results online in a short amount of time. Many people don’t take action because they don’t know the right things to do or what order to do them in. Through this webinar you will walk away with dozens of social media tips you can instantly implement.

Don’t wait, head on over to http://www.SocialSuccessAcademy.com to register.

Hope to see you on the webinar! Feel free to post any questions below.

Checking In
The check in process was amazing, which for conferences can be tough. They (wisely) used QR codes to simplify check in and from the user perspective it made life simple.

Great Workshops
Day One held 5 Tracks:

Beginner User
Advanced User
Designer
Beginner Developer
Advanced Developer

(My) Session One
I spent the afternoon in the Advanced User sessions. The first session I attended was Building Websites that Visitors Actually Want to Use: Google Analytics & The Sticky Factor, with Ken Granger of BrandCo. Ken challenged the group with some great questions we all need to ask when it comes to our websites

Why do you have a website?
Who visits your website?
What do you want them, to do?

As a group, we did a review of two pizza websites (Barro’s Pizza and Pizza Hut). I won’t tell you all that we found, but we answered the three questions as it related to both sites.

Ken also emphasized the importance (and power) of reading your analytics often. I am an analytics geek, so I appreciated that. Ken also demoed the “live view” of Google Analytics and pointed out that Google Webmaster Tools will give you the keyword data that Google Analytics is no longer showing.

My Second Session
The second session was Security Best Practices with Brennen Byrne & Sam Hotchkiss and it was full of solid “need to know” info. One attendee even called it “the best session of the day” via Twitter:

Best session of the day at #wcphx – WordPress Security Best Practices. THANKS @brennenbyrne and @HotchkissWeb

— Dee Allomong (@dallomong) January 17, 2014

They discussed the 5 Rules, 4 Tools, and 3 Important Habits to keep your WordPress website safe. If you missed it, you are in luck, they made the slides AND their WordPress Security Checklist available. Here are the links:

http://www.slideshare.net/jessepollak/securing-your-wordpress-site (slides)

http://blog.getclef.com/2014/01/wordpress-security-checklist/ (security checklist)

They also highlighted two amazing security plugins. BruteProtect & Clef. I was really impressed with the live demo of Clef and I will be setting it up shortly. One attendee actually set it up during the session (per his Tweet below), so I’d say it’s pretty user friendly.

Setup Clef for a site during @brennenbyrne's talk… holy hotness! #wcphx

— Daniel Bishop (@bishless) January 17, 2014

Great People
As expected, I ran into people I know, met people I only “knew” virtually, and got to connect with the great folks at WP Engine. If you don’t know about WP Engine, they are a managed WordPress hosting solution that my company started to use last year. It’s was great to meet some of the people behind the scenes at the company.

Great Resources
The two great resources I learned of were:
Torque – A WordPress news site run by the great folks at WP Engine.
ChrisLema.com – The daily WordPress blogger.

That’s all for now. It was a busy day because I left WordCamp for a quick meal with my wife and then a client meeting, so I ended my day a bit after 9PM, making it another 13+ hour day.

Are you someone who updates your website copyright date every year or do you not include the date on the copyright info? If you include the date, do you show the range (i.e. 1999-2014) or just the most recent year? (Please let me know if the comments below). My preference is to show a history in the date because I believe that showing longevity online can increase the trust factor with your prospects.

Why Does it Matter?
Just because Google returns a website in it’s search results, does not guarantee a sale. There are many factors that people use to determine whether or not to trust a website and for some odd reason, I an one of those people who looks at the copyright dates on a website. Right or wrong, I use it as an indicator of how up to date the website is and I know I am not alone.

Let’s say I end up on a website where I want to make a purchase and see a copyright date that is 5 years old (this just happened last week). I start to wonder if the ecommerce security is up to date as well – or if the company is still in business – and it may impact my buying decision. In this case, someone lost a sale to someone who had a horrible sales process and even charged more money. The main reason was that they lost my trust by not caring about their website.

If you were looking for a “best practice” to add to your website “to do” list, now you have it.

Have a great day!

If you can get “type in” traffic (from domains like computers.com or cars.com) that’s definitely a win; finding those domains is pretty tough however (or very costly). Having a nice, short, branded URL can also be great for branding. Names such as Yelp, Google, Bing have become household names because companies have taken short, easy to remember names, and put huge marketing budgets behind them, creating some well known brands. Lastly, if you can find descriptive domain names such as phoenixazlawfirm.com or mesaarizonahousesforsale.com, you can also attract some very specific visitors, both through type in traffic and by the credit you get for having your target phrases in your domain name. And of course, we want all of those domains to end in DOT COM or else you will help build someone else’s brand and web traffic.

Finding good domains is tough if you don’t know how to negotiate, so here are some tips:

1. What you never want to do is find a domain owner and tell them all the reasons you really want to buy their domain. It may seem obvious, but if you are desperate to buy, they will hold out for more money.

2. Look on websites such as flippa.com where you can find sellers looking to sell lots of domains and many of them are reasonably priced. Ebay has a domain category, but I would be cautious as there are still lots of shady folks on eBbay (sorry eBay). I also keep a list of domains for sale on this site.

3. GoDaddy has a domain auctions section where you can bid on domain names for sale, so that is also a great place to look.

4. Don’t assume that you have to pay the asking price. The key is to not be desperate for any domain. I have negotiated thousands of dollars off of a domain name because many times a seller is unrealistic in their pricing. If you think a domain is overpriced, you can always ask what valuation method they used to determine the price.

5. Always insist on using an escrow services such as Escrow.com. I have used them for domain sales as low as $50. It just makes the transaction more secure.

6. Hire a professional. You may not know this, but there are professional domain brokers – both companies and individuals – and it’s a strong niche industry. The fees vary and often include an up front fee and / or a commission. I have personally been buying, selling, and negotiating domains for over a decade and would be happy to help you if you have a need. You can use the contact info to reach me. I will tell you up front that my fee will vary based on the transaction, so I cannot give you a simple answer without knowing more information.

7. Do a Google Search for “domains for sale” and you will find lots of listings. Always be cautious because there is always a risk in buying a domain name, especially if you do not use an Escrow service. The biggest risk (which should be obvious) is sending someone money and getting nothing in return.

8. Use an agreement. Just like selling anything else, I always recommend a domain sale agreement.

9. Play nice. Remember on the other end of the transaction is someone you don’t know who has something you want. They are in control, so stay on their good side. In one transaction, I built a relationship (via email) over a few years with a domain seller. In the course of that time, the price dropped from $4,000 to $600 and even then, I bought it on a payment plan paying $25 per month because I was not ready to build it out (and i still haven’t)

I hope this helps you find the domain of your dreams!

Social media is about engagement, so if I know you, but see that you have a profile with no picture, no bio, and you’ve never Tweeted, I am going to assume you aren’t really there to engage, so I won’t follow you back. And a big part of this is because there are limitations on the number of people you can follow, so each connection should be with someone who is engaged in Twitter.

If I don’t know you, but I like what you’re about (based on your bio and/or tweets) I will very likely follow you. If I see that you like to rant and use profanity, there is a good likelihood that I will soon unfollow you. As I engage in social media, I like to connect with those who share my core values which doesn’t include publicly using profanity… unless it’s warranted.

What about you? Do you have rules for following or unfollowing people on Twitter? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S. – Feel free to follow me at @AnthonyKirlew or @oldschoolseo. I look forward to connecting.

If you happen to get selected and want to come back a guest post about it, I welcome that. For now, I will leave you with Sergey Brin’s New York Times article explaining Google Glass.

When posting on social media channels – whether personal or professional – we need to use wisdom and discretion. None of us are perfect, and we’ve all seen “those dialogues” on Facebook. They can be awkward, uncomfortable and make us cringe. One of my personal rules is that I don’t judge people or say things like “man, I can’t believe they did that” because those kinds of things can come back to bite you. And yes, it happened to me recently. I made a foolish decision to share a post which was off color. It wasn’t pornographic, it did not have swearing in it, but it was intended to poke at political and media leaders (who are very often the subject of poor humor.) We all make mistakes, but sadly for me, I offended a family member and that’s just something I never want to do.

Here are three great questions to ask yourself before posting to any social media profile:

1. Why am I posting this? We often post things that are humorous, but we need to ask why we care enough to share what we are sharing.

2. Who will see the post? If you are connected with your coworkers, colleagues, or clients, be careful not to reveal any information that might come back to haunt you. And if you are thinking about this too often, you might want to decide if they need to be Facebook friends (see my prior post on good reasons to unfriend people.)

3. Who (if anyone) will be offended? If the answer is “anyone at all” the response should be to not share it – end of story.

I hope this helps someone not experience the frustration – and damage control – of making a mistake as I did. And if you have an issue, don’t blame Facebook Take ownership of your actions, clear the air, and move on with life. Life is too short and too precious.

As I looked at those I was connected to, I decided to drop a few people from the list and here is my list of reasons why people might not have made the cut.

1. I don’t actually know you. There was a time when I was connecting with people that I really did not know, either for business reasons or because they knew someone I knew. I no longer do this and I like to keep my friends circle confined to people I know “in real life.”
2. You are so into you that I don’t need to be. Facebook will let you know who needs attention. I love you, but I get tired of seeing those “look at me” posts and I pray that mine are never perceived as such. My wife might think I cross the line here, who knows.
3. You are inappropriate. We can be friends and I won’t judge you, but I won’t allow you to post obscenities on my wall. And if your avatar (or photos) make you look like a porn star… well… not appropriate, and my wife appreciates my stand on this one.
4. We’ve drifted apart… and that’s ok. Just like in the real world, there are people I used to hang out with, call, email, etc. If we aren’t hanging out in this season of life, it’s ok; we probably don’t need to be Facebook friends, however.
5. You are in the witness protection program. Or so it seems, since you have abandoned your Facebook page and the only posts I now see are viruses – for which you don’t even come back to post the oh so common “sorry, if you if saw something inappropriate from me, I was hacked” apology.
6. We’ve dated. I am married, and that would just be awkward.
7. You are shady, or connected to shady people. I don’t hang out with shady people… or people who do. Hopefully, you know your Facebook friends well enough to know if any of them are shady. Remember, you become who you hang around… and trouble finds shady folks, so I’d rather they not find me through you.
8. You are in jail. I read a story about how prisoners are now using Facebook and learned that they pay big money to get people to smuggle smart phones into jails so they can do all kinds of stuff including using Facebook. I probably don’t need to go any further with this one. And don’t read into it, I don’t have any Facebook friends in jail either.
9. I realize that I hesitate to share things because you will see them. Do you ever find yourself pausing before you post because someone might see what you write? If you do, it might be a good thing, as it may save you some embarrassment, but if you get concerned about how one or two people might judge you, remember, you don’t need to be Facebook friends with them.
10. You are a client of mine. I don’t post anything inappropriate, and of course, my friends have also become clients, but I like to maintain a line between personal and professional when it comes to Facebook. Why? I’ve heard I am opinionated and I’ve been foolish enough to talk about religion and politics on Facebook.
11. We work together. This is a curious one, because I am actually now connected to most of the people I work with. I own my own business, but in the past when I was an employee, I had a policy of not connecting with my coworkers. You never know when you will say the wrong thing about your job and have someone connected to your boss read it. Trust me, it happens.
12. You clutter my news feed with game updates & invites. If you want to play games all day, that’s totally fine, but I really hate getting the invites to play AND of course, we never actually communicate because you are always playing games.
13. You’ve left Facebook. This one should be obvious, but currently, anyone who has left Facebook still shows up in your friends list. Check it out and you might want to unfriend those stray profiles. I believe they keep them active so people can reactivate them but most people (not knowing they can reactivate) just start over.

I hope you enjoyed this as it was done in humor and most of all, I hope you don’t think I am arrogant or really into myself, but if you do… oh well (just kidding)

Happy New Year!

We’ve all seen lame status updates, and of course, would never want to be guilty of writing one. Here are a few tips for not writing a lame Facebook status:

The next time you go to post a Facebook status, write it out and then ask yourself what you would think if you read that from a friend. You might even LOL at yourself

The next time you go to post that picture. Ask yourself why? Some people really need affirmation and they think it’s a secret… then they post a “hey guys, look at me and like my picture to make me feel good” photo. You know… you’ve seen them. If you still think you should post it, invite a few friends out for coffee, then pull the picture out and pass it around. Ask people to write their comments on the back of it, along with a plus or minus, you know a like or neutral. Sounds silly, doesn’t it?

Well this was done in fun, but hopefully it saves someone from private humiliation. What is private humiliation? It’s the comments your friends are making outside of Facebook, with each other. They sound like this:

Who does she think she is posting a picture like that?

Yeah, right… that outfit works for you…

Wait, is that the same guy from her last timeline photo?

The statuses I am most guilty of are the non status statuses. They look like this

I was going to post something, but I decided not to.

You would be amazed at how many people actually respond to that. And I don’t do it for a response, I do it because I have been known to be controversial on Facebook and that equals lots of time responding to comments, which I don’t always have.

That all for me, but do look for my next blog post “Why We Aren’t Friends on Facebook.” You can subscribe to my blog via email or RSS to get notified of updates.

So can Justin & Company do it? I’d say they have a shot. For one, he is much closer to the social media demographic than Murdoch, and let’s face it, old school media companies, still don’t get a lot of what is going on in the online world, as evidences by the fact that they think people will pay for the news online. Perhaps, we will get there someday, but I don’t believe it will be anytime soon.

What do you think? Will you re-engage on MySpace anytime soon?

P.S. – I didn’t think I would be doing a positive MySpace related post anytime soon