Good post about the theoretical reasons for why Twitter works despite the fact that it probably should not. (Note: The author seems to like big, headsy words. Despite that, it is worth the read.)
David, over at Marketing Integrity, wrote a good post on the necessity of making your website helpful to potential church members (or clients/customers).
The only thing I would add to the aspect of being helpful on your business’/church’s website is being helpful for existing clients also.
This is where a blog, for example, comes in handy. Having fresh, helpful information on your website will provide an incentive to continue returning to your website. If customers or anyone else visits your website on a recurring basis then they have an increased chance of spreading the word about you and your site. That, in turn, increases your visibility.
Check out David’s post: Be Helpful
Here is a good article discussing the importance of your company’s blog.
Since there are so many social media options available, it is good to maintain some perspective. The post provides a good mental image (for Star Wars/Star Trek geeks like me) to help you maintain that perspective:
Your blog is your mothership. Don’t neglect it for lesser tools.”
http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/the-unconventional-guide-to-the-social-web/
The post also provides some useful thoughts on how to maintain your blog as well.
Here is the link: Your blog is your mothership.
In what I hope is my last post (for a while) concerning website security, this is a tale of two websites. I know I have been writing about your website’s security, but this has been a growing issue for the (self-hosted) WordPress community lately. My intention is to make sure our community and friends are properly educated about some simple solutions to better protect themselves.
Website 1: Updated WordPress Version
This website owner updated their version of WordPress. A minor error in the administrative settings allowed a hacker to register as a user. Because the software was up to date, the hacker got no farther than joining as a subscriber. No damage was done, no reinstalling of files was needed, and no major overhauls were warranted.
Website 2: WordPress Was Not Updated
The WordPress admin for the second website did not upgrade their WordPress platform. The same minor error mentioned above allowed the hacker to register as a user. However, since the software was out of date the hacker was then able to change themselves to an administrator. They then added other fake users, hid new admins they created, and changed various settings. They also changed the permalink structure to redirect users to potentially harmful websites. An afternoon’s worth of work was required to completely sanitize the website to make it safe once again.
The Importance
Weeks ago, the WordPress community found a hole in the security and the issue was promptly fixed. Once it was resolved, an update was distributed. In fact, the past two software updates included this security patch. People who had not updated their software recently were exposed to the worm and a lot of website owners have been affected. They felt the affect of not staying on top of their updates. The rest of the community was more protected from the attack.
If you want to read more about the importance of updating your WordPress software, Matt Mullenweg wrote a good article on the WordPress blog.
Please let me know if you have any questions concerning your current version of WordPress or if you are confused about updating your version of WordPress.
Stay safe out there!
A few days ago I wrote about our website having been potentially hacked by way of our WordPress blog. After performing a couple of preventative measures I decided to contact our web host, Media Temple to see if there was anything else we could do.
Jeff’s Advice To Me… And You
Jeff, who provided excellent customer service, and I spoke about our situation. To help you with your website, here is the rundown I received.
We Are Not Just About Security
I know a lot of the past few blog posts have been about personal, blog, and online security. Please know this is just a temporary subject given all of the things that have been happening around Triune Designs and the web in general. We should be resuming our “normal programming” quite soon.
A while ago I read a blog post by a well-known blogger who was irritated by people commenting that they were unsubscribing to his blog. The readers were unsubscribing because they felt he was getting off track from the blog’s main focus. His response to them? “See ya. I am better off without you.” While he was at it, he also pointed out that the blog was his and he could write whatever he wanted.
For me it raised an important question: whose blog is it?
His Blog
It should be noted that his blog is a semi-personal one and not a business blog like this. (However, since he makes part of his living through his blog I am counting it as part business/part personal.) With that said, though, the blogger is right. It is his blog. He can shut it down whenever he wants. He can decide to go in a completely different direction and start writing lemur-themed haiku posts. The same is true for this blog. If we decided to only write about the benefits of oscillating fans during the summer there is not much you could do about it. Or could you?
Your Blog
While the audience cannot completely control the website owner’s actions, the audience does have some power. They have a voice. As was mentioned above, their voices come in two primary forms: (1) commenting and (2) unsubscribing. Voicing displeasure on comments is a great way to provide feedback to the writer(s). In a blogging community (like a business blog should support), responding to feedback is vital to a blog’s health. If there is no response then that blog community moves on to step two: mass exodus. If large masses of people leave your blog then your revenue streams and/or marketing opportunities dry up. That is bad for business.
So, for me, the answer to my question of “whose blog is it?” is simple. The blog is both of theirs. That particular blogging community has part ownership with the final decision-making power lying in the hands of the writer himself.
And, if the blogger wants to go in a completely new direction. He will just have to understand that they might have to find a brand new audience.
Oh, the search engines. I think they are my best friend and my worst enemy at the same time. Writing posts that might ring true for people engaging in this blogging community and with people cruising along on the search engine highway comes with a slight risk. The wrong people will also find this blog.
I have two examples come to mind.
The Iconic Symbol
The first is with a blog post I did on Twitter a few months ago. I had a good conversation with some readers and got a few links coming to the website. Awesome… and then the junk came. Apparently, the icon was picked up on Google images… and a few bloggers liked the it enough to steal bandwidth hotlink the image. I assume a few of them did it by accident, but either way it was pretty annoying and required a bit of angling so they would not use my resources.
Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt Me
The second example brings us to today: our blog kind of got hacked yesterday. I believe it has to do with some of the recent blog post about web security. So far, I cannot tell that anything actually happened, but two “people” registered on the blog as subscribers. They/he/she did this despite my not having user registration access on the main part of the website. After a quick Google search I found that one of the email addresses is associated with a person who uses that newly acquired access to break into the website and do (presumably) bad things.
I guess I might have to try and increase the security on the blog. Between that and prayer, hopefully nothing bad will go down on the back-end of the website. Stay tuned!
