Week 12: Additional Online Tools

Tools and Sites to Strengthen Your Presence.

This week I investigated some sites and tools that I think will help me to strengthen my online presence. These tools will also enable me to find and manage better content for my readers and followers. With the integration of these tools into my existing online architecture I will be able to create a rich network of content with a multifaceted presentation stream for my audiences.

The first site that I am going to utilize more is LinkedIn, Fritz Templin on LinkedIn. This will make my professional background easily available, so that my audience can get to know who I am and my professional experience level. I will also add this as an outlet for posts or articles that would resonate with my professional network. In all I think that it will tie in nicely with the other channels that I am using and broaden my content reach.

The second tool that I think would be useful to implement more is google +. I like the structure of grouping my connections in circles on google+. I believe that this will be helpful not only in better
content distribution, but also in gathering new topics and knowledge for creating content. I have had a google+ account for a long time but have never really used it. I will have to see how many contacts I have that are using it and work to build more of a network on google+.

The third tool that I found and think will help me greatly is feedly. This is a program application that allows you to collect a number of blog feed updates in one place. I think this is great

to keep up on the blogs that I follow in my industry. It saves me time and increases the amount of new content that I can find to write about. This is a must have app for people who read multiple blogs or want to create a news feed for themselves.

Week 11: Social Media Low or No Cost for Business.

Using Social Media for Business.

Social media can be a great low cost or no cost advertising solution for businesses. Creating interaction with your followers and giving them exclusive access to promotional events. Social media used in the right way can grow your business and let you measure what is working with just your time as the investment.

Creating posts that encourage followers interaction can be a great way to engage and measure your followers with your content. It is always a little bit of a journey to find the final mix that most engages people, but if you stay with it and measure your results along the way it is worth it. I believe that one of the most important parts of an engagement approach is to make sure that you stay engaged as well. When followers do respond make sure to acknowledge it and keep the conversation going and let them know you appreciate their participation..



Another low cost and effective way to build business is through
promotional events on social media. If you offer you followers and customers, discounts or special promotions on a regular basis they will begin to follow you more closely. This type event does have a cost usually in the give away items, but it will almost always generate more interest as followers share the great deals with friends.






Creating participation events such as work shops and webinars is also a great way to promote your business and grow it. This can be labor intensive and take some work to figure out what your
followers are willing to invest their time in, but again well worth it once you find that level of interest.



In the end I believe that for anything to work well you need to be consistent with your approach and commitment, but for businesses using social media to connect and engage their customer base it can be lowest cost and highest effectiveness.

Blogs that I commented on. Week 11

This week I commented on the following peoples blogs, Connor, Leslie, Maranda, and Marilyn.

http://oceansidemarilyn.blogspot.com/2015/04/week-eleven-online-advertising.html


http://connorpenguinsblogs.blogspot.com/2015/04/week-11-ads.html

http://marandasclassblog.blogspot.com/2015/04/week-11-online-advertising.html

http://lesliegjon.blogspot.com/2015/03/facebook-scheduled-content.html
( I thought this was a new post, when I made the link I realized it was an older post. Oh well comment made.)

Week 11: Social Media Advertising! CSIT 155

Social Media Advertising!

Social media is a very important advertising and customer interaction tool. The ability to measure and precisely target your efforts is supremely valuable. I think that the chapters 14 and 15 of "Likeable social media by Dave Kerpen" explain the beneficial and important advertising strategies that should be used and implemented by most companies today. The one thing that I thought was of most importance was the statement made in the book " So before yo spend lots of time and money on likeable social media, you've got to make sure you have likeable customer service, likeable salespeople, likeable products, and likeable processes." . I truly believe that too many companies concentrate more on the marketing aspect looking for new customers than they do the operation and customer service to insure the customers that they already have are satisfied. The worst thing that could happen would be to have a spectacularly successful marketing campaign to bring in new customers then provide horrendous service and sour all those new customers. It is almost always easier and less costly to keep existing customers than it is to find new ones. Also customers who have a bad experience are much more likely to share their dislike over a bad experience and this is not the type of word of mouth advertising you want.

Facebook offers a great way to advertise and a number of good ways to do it. The ability to focus your add by location, job title, interests, and friends of connections are some that I think are the best. On top of that you have the option to structure the cost based on pay per view and pay per click allowing you do judge the amount and type of exposure you think gives you the best return. Personally I think that in most cases I would use pay per click as it would give you a better idea of the effectiveness of your advertisement. I really like and would consider using the friends of connections first. this ad with its built in recommendation attribute I think would be the most effective. Maybe using this with an interest filter would be even more precisely targeted and effective.

What You Need to Know About Mobile Security.

Our Mobile Life

Mobile devices have become an integrated and important part of many of our lives today and that will likely increase rather than decrease. What we do with our devices, where we do it, and how we do it can put our privacy or security at risk. A few simple rules can greatly diminish the chance of you becoming a victim to the all too common cyber attack today.

First, make sure that your device is locked with a pass code, or even better, a biologic input like a finger print scanner. This will not completely secure the device but will slow someone down if they find it or steal it. Also make sure that you have a remote wipe program installed. This will allow you to remove your data or at least make it more difficult to recover if you lose the device.

Second, when we talk about installing apps on the device consider these things. The more apps you have on the device the more areas you are creating for vulnerabilities open to attack. Only install apps that you really need, and if you have apps that you have stopped using remove them. In security this is called reducing your vulnerability foot print. Another rule for apps is to only download apps from trusted vendors. Generally stick to the app stores for your product. This is not a sure fire way of protecting yourself but these vendors do conduct some control measures to evaluate if an app has a vulnerability or malware. Also if you are using an android device be aware of what the app is asking to have access to. For example a flashlight app should not need your location or contacts.

Third, be careful of using your device's Wi-Fi and Bluetooth functions. Operating your device on an unsecure Wi-Fi can give access to potential criminals that are in the area. Leaving your device's Bluetooth on can also create an open door for hackers to access your device. Only use your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on trusted networks, and when you are not using these functions, shut them off. This can be an inconvenience sometimes but consider it the same as locking your car when you leave it.
  

The last rule is don't keep highly sensitive data on your device. This would mean not keeping a list of passwords, bank account information, employee identification, or social security numbers. If it is necessary to have sensitive information on the device, it should be encrypted.

These devices allow us to improve our lives in great ways, but we just need to use them with some awareness and responsibility.    

Week 10: Email Marketing

I do believe that in most cases Email newsletters are a great tool to stay in touch with your customers. I also think that it is extremely important to not over do it, and that your content must be considered valuable by the recipients. If you send too often and don't have much new content they can have a negative effect and drive customers away quickly.

For Tech by Templin I would consider using a news letter possibly on a weekly or monthly basis. I would include a list of the topics and teasers for the posts I made in that period. It is always good to try and refresh the connection with customers especially in today's busy and highly competitive atmosphere. Holidays are great to send personal greeting and well wishes and try to build a sincere caring connection with my followers.

I do think that people that have already subscribed to your media channels get a sort of news update with each post. I wonder if adding that with another contact might become too much?

Week:9 Using categories to organize content for your audience.

Using categories on my blog would be helpful to organize the content into areas that would fit different types of readers. The categories that I would likely use would be personal computing, enterprise systems, and leading edge technologies. Using these categories would allow me to offer a wider range of content and increase the size of the potential audience. Writing content in these categories would also offer some variety that readers could transition through or easily find similar topic content. The more organized and easy the content is to find the more likely I will be to have readers who return and enjoy the blog. I visit lots of sites that are a mess of mixed content that I have to search though endlessly to find what I want. These are site that I generally do not visit unless I have too. Categories or labels if used correctly can also help potential readers to find your article if it has been indexed for those key words or phrases. If I categorize articles it will also let me see easily what types of content are most popular and concentrate my energy in those areas.

How personal should your Blog be!, Week 9

I think this question would be different for every person and business that is blogging. For me and the type of blog I have created, adding some of my personal feelings or experiences into the blog is a good idea. I think that it allows people to gain a sense of my character and better evaluate if their character aligns with mine. It helps to open the way for building trust, and when giving advice or teaching there must be trust.

I think that it also can keep the content delivery interesting and unique to your style. This will help to set you apart from others who are similar and competing with you for audience. I think that care must be taken so that my style of personal touch does not diminish the professionalism that some topics I will be posting about require. I also think that it would be wise to balance the personal interjection so as to not project a bias or distract from the focus of my content. Whenever I write or speak, I let it carry some of my personality and style because I always want to be like me not like a machine devoid of personality or personal feeling.  But, hey, that is just me, and I always say "too each their own."

Week8, Twitter to educate yourself and expand your reach.

This week I used Twitter to find people and companies that I wanted to follow. I followed companies like Cisco, Microsoft, Bromium, and Palo Alto Networks because they always have news about leading security and technology issues. I will use this to help me stay up to date on the these issues and be able to pass the information along to my blog readers. I also placed the accounts that I followed into lists so that I can quickly look for the subject feeds that I want. I made lists for educational users, product manufacturers, and technology writers. It will allow me to share me tweets with certain groups as well to better match my audience with the content.

Finding the right people to follow was an educational exercise. There are a so many users out there and reading their tweets gave me a better idea of who I was really looking for. I think that this will be a continually evolving list at least for awhile. I already notice that it is important for me to limit the users I follow to avoid being overwhelmed by tweets.

Finding the best time for posting tweets will be hard for me to determine until I have more followers. As I continue to grow the sphere that I am touching I will look for those most effective tweet times.

I was able to link my Facebook page to Twitter and this will be very helpful in reducing the amount of work needed to post to both media channels.

How do you remember all your passwords and keep them secure?

Having a strong and unique password for each account you have is an important security measure you should take. I know many people who are frustrated by trying to remember all of the different passwords they need to have. Some people give up and use one or two passwords for all their accounts. Or they make a list of their passwords and keep them on their phone, computer or written down in their wallet. Each one of these is a serious security weakness and can allow one breach of security to compromise all, or a number of your accounts.

If you are in this group I have a suggestion that will help. First, creating a strong password is important. It should never be a dictionary word, or sequential numbers or letters, and you should not use anything based from your personal data, like your birth-date. You should also have a unique address for each account. So with these simple criteria in mind here is a way that you can create strong passwords that are unique and that you can remember.

First we know that most passwords today require a mixture of letters and numbers and are generally between 6 to 10 characters long. With this in mind we can start to create a system for our passwords. Let's assume you need a pass word for Gmail. A simple way to create a unique password for this account would be to use four letters from Gmail and for numbers that you choose.





For example: gLmi3971  This system is the first letter, last letter(capitalized), second letter, fourth letter, then a set of numbers that you can use for each account. If I had a Yahoo account the password would be "yOao3971". This is a simple system that will give you a unique password for each account and all you have to do is remember your system for creating them. This is definitely better than using a single password or a dictionary word.

To increase the level of security you can increase the complexity of your system or vary it for different types of accounts. For example you might have one system for non-sensitive accounts and a different one for more sensitive accounts like bank accounts.