Why Your Blog Links Should Open in a New Window

Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you click a link on a website or within a blog that the original source (e.g the blog) sometimes disappears and you are then faced with a decision to either return to the source or to read the new link, perhaps click a link in that, become distracted and never return to the original blog as it disappears, lost, into cyber space?

Do you prefer when you click a link in a blog post and it opens in a new tab /window? I do. It means that the original post stays open in one window, the new link is also open and if I do become distracted, both of them will stay open for me to return to later. (Yes, I have to admit that I can have up to 20 tabs open on my browser by 5pm any day!)

If you find that you’re like me and end up with multiple articles to read during a spare hour, do try out Pocket which is a handy little bookmarker – you can read all about it on the Spiderworking blog.

How to add a hyperlink that opens in a new window:

Click on the text that you wish to incorporate into the link and highlight it. Just as I have done above with ‘spiderworking blog’, and then click the hyperlink button above (as shown in the image below)

A box opens and you paste in the url of the new link, add a descriptor:

And this is the important bit – tick the box which says ‘open in a new window/tab‘ and then click ‘add link’.

You’re done.

Ensure you do this and you’ll never lose a reader again.

Any questions? Do ask in the comment box below.

How to Get More Fans on Facebook

I’m often asked (and I’m sure every other social media consultant is asked this question too) how to get more fans on facebook.  I devoted some posts some time ago to how you can use the ‘marching’ methods amongst others and provided my reasons as to why I wouldn’t recommend the ‘marching’ method fully.  However, today I am going to give you a relatively easy and free method that I am wholeheartedly recommending –  how creating compelling content that is shared by your existing fans can really grow your fan base and encourage interaction.

My Garrendenny Lane (online shop) facebook page was fairly static at 1550 fans for some time and I had organising a facebook competition on my ‘to-do’ list but hadn’t got around to it.

I generally post an update once a day, sometimes it will be a link to a blog post or to one of our products and sometimes it is a photograph that I come across and think my fans would like to see.

I look at the ‘people talking about it’ numbers to indicate how well the page is performing, what percentage of fans are likely to see the updates and how a business is interacting with its fans/potential customers. Seeing a page that has 8,000 likers and 2 people talking about it is a disaster in my eyes and certainly doesn’t say anything positive about the business. The number of people talking about your page indicates the numbers who have liked, commented on and shared your page hence it shows the level of interaction too.  The higher the percentage of people talking about your page relative to your number of fans, the more fans will see your updates in your news feed.

The Garrendenny Lane page generally had anything between 35-85 people talking about it, occasionally going up to 150.  I could get up to 15 likes on an update, perhaps up to 5 or 6 comments and one or two shares.  I just couldn’t get more people to share my pictures.  I saw pictures that I had put up on my page being shared from other pages, pages that achieved up to 300 shares on one picture (yes, the very same picture that I had uploaded). Admittedly they had a huge fanbase but what I was doing wrong? In a word, nothing – sometimes people just don’t think about sharing a picture if you are continually giving them information, whereas the page that had huge success with pictures was putting up stunning photographs on a daily basis. Their fans were accustomed to oooh and aaaah and share.

Then, I shared a picture of a simple but very effective little playhouse in under the stairs and the comments and shares just took off. 87 people shared it, it received 42 comments and 359 people liked it with a total of 7,000 people seeing it as a result of the shares. Remember I only had 1550 fans. 1,087 views were by organic means and 6,674 views were viral (as a result of the shares).

As a result of the shares and increased interaction, my fan numbers increased by about 60 over the course of the week. I’m not saying that all of the new fans were as a result of this picture but as numbers had been static for some time, I’d argue the majority of them were.

The number of ‘people talking about it’ stayed at the 450 mark for over a week and then slowly reduced to 115.

I just checked the source of the ‘playhouse’ and their page has just over 4,000 likes with an incredible 54,000 people talking about it!!

I have just posted another picture (of a wooden creel becoming a bookcase)  that is proving popular with shares, likes and comments so do have a look and see if my ‘talking about it’ number is increasing as a result. At the time of writing, 764 people have seen it (which is almost 50% of my fan base which is good considering some experts calculate that your updates are seen by only 16% of your fans), 536 of those being organic and 236 being viral.

The more people that share, like and comment means that your page gets much more exposure which results in more fans. If you interact with those comments, it demonstrates that you provide good customer service.  If you are providing interesting content, it shows your personality and that of your business.

Having said all that, it is not as easy as it sounds. I recently put up a couple of images on the Write on Track facebook page with no success whatsoever, partly because they weren’t clever enough to be worthy of sharing and partly because people aren’t accustomed to sharing photos from our page, it mostly being used for sharing links to interesting articles.

My advice to you though, is to keep trying it occasionally.  Sharing an interesting or funny photograph with your fans (that is related to your subject area if possible and ensure it isn’t inappropriate for your business) will show your personality and will lead to more fans as well as engagement. Create something that is funny and original and share it with your likers.

Have you any ‘tried and tested’ methods of increasing your facebook fans? We’d love to hear them.

Pinteresting Ways To Use Pinterest For Your Business

If you’re aware of Pinterest and you’ve been reading about it, you have probably read that some businesses are doing very well from Pinterest – both for increasing their brand awareness and for driving significant traffic to their website and generating sales.

However, if you’ve been wondering how else to use it besides trying to create content that gets repinned and goes viral, here are some ideas.

I recently gave a talk on pinterest for the KLCK bloggers network and I was trying to provide examples for how the various people in the listening group could use it for their business. One example was photography and I suggested that photographers could use examples of photographs for future shoots. We then had a chat about copyright issues as there is a very fine line between finding inspiration and breaking copyright rules unfortunately.

Our photographer for our upcoming Grafton Media Blog awards shoot, Damien Carroll,  was there and he went home with ideas forming in his mind. As we are three women organising the blog awards, we had come up with a “Charlie’s Angels” idea for the photoshoot but we were still rather doubtful.  Damien created a board for the photoshoot with various photographs from the original Charlie’s Angels from the 70s and 80s and the more recent film.

A picture tells a thousand words and once we saw the shared board (see our post on how to create a shared board if you need that information), we could visualise what he meant and what poses we thought were possible and might get us some publicity.

We chose the “Charlie’s Angels” pose from the film with the 3 characters in black and then we added our “Charlie” to the mix.

We also tried the “Angels Walk” pose and what was so valuable once we had decided on the poses too, was that the pinterest app was available on the iphone and we could glance at it, glance at the photos on the camera and see if we needed to adjust.

As Damien found, it is a fantastic way of putting mood boards and shoot plans together.  He is using Pinterest for more shoots by sharing the boards with mdoels, make-up artists and stylists and each person can add pins to the boards which leads to an interactive collaboration of ideas.  We will be using pinterest to plan our theme for the blog awards night too.

Dress makers could use pinterest to create boards of dresses and clients could choose the sleeves of one dress with the skirt of another, hairdressers could pin pictures of their models to demonstrate their skills, beauticians can pin pictures of nail art, food bloggers can include pictures of their recipes and the list goes on.

Have you found pinterest to be a handy tool for your business? We’d love to hear more examples.

How to Create ‘Long, Tall & Skinny’ Photos for Pinterest

In our last post, we talked about how creating an extra wide photograph for your facebook page can really highlight that photograph and status. In this post, I’m going to show you how to create a long, tall and skinny photograph for pinterest and why this is a good idea.

Photos on pinterest are all the same width which is predetermined by Pinterest and your photographs will fit into that scale. However, photographs can be as long as they like so a long, tall, skinny photo will gain more attention on the pinterest page – this is why infographics are long and narrow.

You may notice too that tutorials such as how to create a complicated french plait, will show a series of photographs collaged into a single long image and while I’m not going to suggest to try to make every photo you pin a long, tall and skinny photo, it is a good idea to do so occasionally.

‘Before and after’ photographs are perfect for this, as are tutorials as I mentioned above if you can take a series of photographs to show progress.

Here’s how to do it by using pic monkey first to create the collage:

Choose the collage layout you would like to use on the left. Decide how many photos you would like to use. In this example, I am showing one ‘before’ and one ‘after’ so I choose the number with the least number of boxes – 3.

When you first upload the photos, they will go into a box on the left so it is simply a case of moving them across with the cursor. You may find that the photo is off centre as you can see in the top example below but you can still move around the photo to centre the object.

As you can see below, the chair has now been centred. Next – I want to get rid of the third box which is surplus, plus I want the photo to be long and narrow so I click on the little ‘x’ in the top right hand corner and it disappears.

You can see below that the removal of the box on the left hasn’t changed the dimensions of the overall collage which as stayed at 1024 x 1024 hence the photo itself has become skewed in scale plus I want to create a long tall skinny photo!

What you need to do next is move the cursor in on the sides of the boxed collage until you are happy with the scale and your photo is long, tall and skinny!

Then, save it to your blog post and you’ll see on this post how I created two collages but really, for pinterest, the long image is the best.  Pin it and see it on the pinterest page.

There you have it – all the tips you need to create long, tall and skinny photos for pinterest – particularly useful for showing ‘before and after’ shots or tutorials.  We offer tutorials in how to use pinterest effectively for your business so do get in contact if you would like to book one.

Facebook for Beginners: How to Use Pic Monkey & Create a Highlighted Update on Facebook

Many thanks to Sue of Quirki Stuff who asked us how she could display a ‘Before and After’ photograph of one of their painted items of furniture on facebook.

First of all, if you wish to incorporate 2 or 3 before and after photographs into a collage or display a wide photograph in order to give it more presence on Facebook, you need to be aware of the dimensions that Facebook allows for these photos.  Highlighted and ‘Milestone’ photographs have dimensions of 843 x 403. If the photo is not this size, it will be ‘stretched’ to fit so may not appear as you had hoped.

To create a collage, a handy free tool is Pic Monkey. Simply opt for the ‘create a collage’ option and decide which layout you would like.

You can choose to upload photos from your computer and all the photos you wish to use will stack in the box on the left side. You can then move them to the collage one at a time or all at once. It is easy to change them from one box to another too.  You will notice in the photographs below that the cabinet cannot be seen in its entirety, hence the boxes need to be enlarged.

Place the cursor on the outer edges of the collage and pull them outwards to enlarge the photograph. You can see the total size of the photograph at the bottom and as you can see, it is larger than the required 843 x 403 for Facebook requirements.

By manipulating the outer edges of the collage again, it is possible to reduce the total size of the image to 843 x 403, the desired dimensions. This can be a bit finicky so don’t worry if it isn’t exact, it just means that Facebook will either stretch or hide a tiny bit of the photo.

Then, simply name the photograph and save it to the desired location on your computer.

Next, you need to upload the photograph to facebook. Do check out our previous post on how to upload a photograph to facebook if you don’t know how to do this.

As you can see in the screenshot above, the collage had been cut to 403 x 403 so part of it is obscured. By clicking on the little star (highlight button) on the top right to the photograph, this changes it to 843 x 403 and gives it more prominence across the page – perfect for showing off a ‘before/after’ transformation.

Marie and I offer training session in groups and as one to ones so if you feel that you really need to get to grips with facebook or any of the other social meda and would like some help, do get in touch.

Next up – how to create a long, tall, skinny photograph for Pinterest.

Facebook for Beginners: How To Upload A Photo and What Size?

In our second ‘Facebook for Beginners’ series of posts, we are going to look at how to upload a photograph onto your facebook business page.

Instead of writing a status update, click on ‘Photo/Video’ and a drop box will open up. For now, in order to upload a photo from your computer, click the ‘upload photo/video’ button. (We’ll cover the photo album in another post).

Write in the text that you would like to put with the photograph, click ‘choose file’ and choose a photograph from your computer.

Once you see the name of the photograph, you can click ‘post’ and the photo will be published.

The measurements for ‘ordinary photos’ in terms of the space that Facebook allows is 403 x 403. If your photos are larger than this, they may not be positioned as you would like.  If you wish to reposition the photograph so that a particular product or person is visible and central in the photograph, simply click the ‘pencil’ button on the top right (it will show when you hover the cursor over it), click on ‘reposition photo’ and move the photo around until you are happy with its position and then click ‘save’.

More tips on facebook photos coming up in the next blog post. If you have any questions, do leave them in the comment box.

Facebook for Beginners: How To Write An Update on Facebook

Teaching facebook, twitter and pinterest to some new clients recently, I’ve decided to create some ‘beginner’ blog posts which they can refer to for a reminder. I’d love to know if you find these useful too.

This one will cover the basics in how to write a facebook update and how to encourage comments, likes and shares.

Simply type in the text into the status box and then paste (Ctrl and V) in the url that you copied from the address bar. As you can see below, the linked page will come up underneath.

Once the link page is visible, you can delete the url from the descriptor (as it can look a bit messy and untidy). You can also choose which image you would like displayed with the text by scrolling through the thumbnail choices.

We recommend posting to Facebook once or twice a day. You can schedule your updates if you know you are going to be away by clicking on the clock icon in the bottom left and then choosing the date and time. Then click ‘schedule’.

To encourage likes, do choose a nice photograph from the thumbnails on offer in the link.  As you can see above, I could have picked from one of 17 photographs and chose to use the dominant photograph in the blog post.

To encourage comments, do ask a question such as ‘Looking for ideas for decorating girls’ bedrooms?’ or ‘Do you like our attempt at creating a moodboard?’

To encourage others to share your post, you could ask others to ‘share if they like it’ and you may see other pages doing this. However, I would recommend that you use this very sparingly. If people really like it, they will share it and while asking them occasionally will product results, I think I would become annoyed by a page administrator who overdid the requests. (More on sharing in an upcoming post)

Next up will be a post showing you how to upload a photograph to your facebook page including editing it using free tools.  Have you any questions regarding your own facebook page that you would like us to answer? Do ask in the comments below.

How to get your Blog & Website on the First Page of Google

Do you want your website to be referenced on the first page of google? Do you want people to be able to find your online presence easily and quickly?

Why blog? Why spend time writing blog posts? How will a blog benefit my business?  To what extent will a blog help my business?

If you have a website, you want people to be able to find it easily and ideally, you’d like it to be on the first page of google.  However, unless you are prepared to pay  for google advertisements, your website will not necessarily feature on the first page throughout good website optimisation alone.  An effective blog is invaluable in improving your  SEO to the extent of achieving the top of page one.

When I started blogging in early 2008, there were two blogs that I became aware of very quickly.  Why? Because everyone (in related fields) was talking about their success, they were Irish success stories in blogging, they were featured in the traditional media of magazines and newspapers and because they were written by  people with lovely personalities that shone through their blogs.  They were also on the first page of google for related searches. One was Homebug, an interior design based blog who listed my blog in her ‘favourite blog’ section, sending me traffic (usually about 10-20 visits per day and valuable SEO juice. (Homebug ended about two years ago hence I can’t link to it).

The other is Murphy’s Icecream, the blog was started in 2006 and blog posts include their pride in Kerry, what’s going on in their shops in Kerry and Dublin, icecream recipes, videos and all things Irish-related.  Apart from strengthening their brand and reinforcing their quality product, their blog means that when I think of Dingle, I think of Murphy’s icecream and I know I’m not the only person who wants to taste their icecream because of their blog.

If you search for ‘icecream’ in google.ie, their blog at Icecream Ireland is at the top of the page and their website at Murphy’s Icecream is number 4.  Kieran Murphy is an enthusiastic blogger with a passion for his product and it shows.  As a result, his business ranks extremely highly for a popular keyword.

If your business focuses on different varieties of a single product, e.g. T-shirts, wallpaper, vacuum cleaners, mortgage advice – whatever it may be, the challenge is there to try to get to the first page of google but it is a challenge that can be achieved.

How will your blog achieve a position on the first page of google?

Google likes regularly updated content and it likes seeing 2 or 3 main keywords being used throughout a blog post, especially in the first and last paragraphs, in the tags and in the category headings. (Yes, Google has become personified!)

Read our post on how to use the google keyword research tool to ensure you know you are using the right keywords and how to use them appropriately.

Getting to the first page of google will, of course, depend on the competition for the keywords you want to use.  You can find out what the competition is by going to google search and typing in the keyword you want to use in quotation marks and then you will see how many other posts or websites are using that keyword.

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, “buy wallpaper online” is a keyphrase that I have used to optimise my Garrendenny Lane blog and website and as you can see above, it appears in 511,000 searches.  Hence, I’m pleased that it usually turns up around the middle of the first page for that search term. Your success will depend on the competition but it is still possible to reach that top spot on google organically (through search rather than having to pay for it) via your blog.

Hence, you really need to establish your main keywords, ensure your website is optimised for those keywords and use them properly in your blog posts.

The Value of Backlinks

Another advantage of blogging is that people will link to good blog posts from their website or blog and if they do so using the keyword within the backlink / hyperlink, all the better.

Coincidentally, that happened to this blog yesterday.  I am an advocate of using twitter at conferences for a number of reasons and have devoted some posts to the subject.   I wrote another post on the topic the other day and referenced my inspiration as @TeecycleTim , author of an article in a Toastmasters magazine that came through my door a few days ago. Having tweeted him to acknowledge my source (and including it in the blog post), he retweeted it, and one of his followers, Herbert Lowe, saw it and devoted a whole post to my various blog posts on tweeting at conferences, using valuable keywords in each backlink.  What the results will be remains to be seen but it all adds to valuable SEO juice.

Having a website that is not updated frequently is almost like a rowing boat without oars, it will float around without reaching any destination and may not be found by its target audience.  Having an effective blog will pay dividends and remember, you can monitor the results too (more on monitoring your social media usage coming up soon).

If you would like help to create and maintain an effective blog for your website, do get in touch with Marie or I.

Image: Free Digital Photos

The Value of Twitter at Conferences

Do you tweet at conferences?  Have you been a speaker at a conference and noticed people typing on their laptops or seemingly texting on their phones – how have you felt?  Is it rude to tweet/text/use facebook at a conference?

I’ve been to many social media conferences where at least half the audience is tapping away on a netbook, ipad or smartphone busily using the hashtag provided by the conference organizers.  I love multi-tasking, love being able to listen to the speaker, type a tweet, check what other tweeters are saying about the conference by checking the hashtag and engaging with them.

However, I’ve also been to conferences where I suddenly felt slightly uncomfortable (and the odd one out!) for tweeting.  At a women’s conference last week, as a member of the committee I was all ready to tweet and update the facebook page from the speaker’s content and the MC explained that I wasn’t on the laptop because I was disinterested but because I was tweeting.  At  a conference in April, the organiser asked people to desist from texting as understandably, it can be offputting to the speaker. I had been merrily tweeting away on my phone! I did stop, partly because the conference was so good I sat back and listened fully, partly because no-one else was tweeting or using a hashtag and it became a bit boring texting in a vacuum (not able to engage with other delegates) and partly because I felt a bit uncomfortable (and naughty!)

As an ex-secondary school teacher, I’d have loved to have handed an obstreperous 14 year old a gadget to use while sitting at the back of the classroom if it kept them quiet and stopped them distracting the other kids but instead I had to resort to other means!

Why You Should Tweet At Conferences

I was therefore intrigued when I saw the subheading of an article in Toastmasters magazine which read ‘Don’t be put off by those who text or tweet when you speak’, written by Tim Cigelske @TeecycleTim.  Be different – don’t tell people to turn off their mobile phones. Follow the example of Chris Brogan, as cited in this article and tell people to send tweets, post to facebook, do what they have to do.  Here’s the reasons why and I agree with everyone of them:

• This relaxes the audience, rather than feeling they are in a schoolroom situation
• Increases the size of your audience – their followers/fans/friends will also be hearing all about your presentation
• Those tweeting will concentrate more as they summarise your content into soundbites for tweets/updates.
• You’ll get instant feedback after your presentation by checking the hashtag.
• You can build on the relationship with members of your audience by following them, thanking them for their tweets and by responding to tweets.
• Some people listen best when doing something else while listening such as doodling with a pen or using a phone so assume their best intentions if you see them using their phone – do not presume they are bored!
• If the audience are involved by tweeting (or another means), they are more likely to be engaged.

 As Tim argues, with more people using gadgets and becoming aware of the value of hashtags, speakers are going to have to become accustomed to it and need to understand how to use tweets to benefit their message.  If you are organising a conference, decide on a hashtag before the event by testing it and tell the delegates about it.  Provide the usernames of the speakers so that they can benefit from increased followers. Embrace technology, learn from it and benefit from it.

However, do know your audience.  Speaking about blogging at a recent seminar where there were at least 40 people present, there were only 2 people using twitter.  No harm mentioning the hashtag for those two people but don’t labour it.

Read our previous posts on The Power of the Hashtag; How to Tweet at Conferences and Why Tweet at  Conferences.

If you would like to book a training session on how to maximise the effectiveness of your business blog or your other social media platforms, do get in touch with Marie or I.

Thursday’s Blogging Tip #4

Today’s blogging tip is to remember that your potential customers are not telepathic, they need to be asked/told what you want them to do.  At the end of each business blog post, you must make a simple request – be it to follow you on twitter, become a fan on facebook, leave a comment or direct them to where they might purchase the product you have written about.