Freedom of speech

In the wake of the events of the past few weeks, many people throughout the world are realizing just how precious the right to freedom of speech is. As Americans, we sometimes take this right for granted. Between the terror events in France and the Sony movie The Interview, we are now seeing how some other people view our freedom.

In my business, I have the opportunity to write about a wide range of topics. The most controversial I have gotten in my work has been organizing your clothes closet or picking a team that might win tomorrow’s game. But I know I have the right to write about whatever topic I chose. This is not true for some people.

As a college intern, I worked at a Baltimore television station during the American hostage crisis in 1979 that took place in Iran. It was an exciting yet scary time to be in the news business. The Associated Press and United Press International alarms were ringing in what we called “the wire room” all evening, every evening with news updates and bulletins. Every time the alarm went off, my heart jumped.

Back then, we didn’t have a 24-hour news cycle, social media or cell phones. Okay, maybe there were cell phones, but they were about the size of a shoe box and few people owned them. At the TV station where I worked, they didn’t even have computers. We typed on typewriters with large keys so the stories could be put directly into the teleprompter for the anchorman.

As a young adult, it was the first time I was exposed to terrorism. I also learned a lot about patriotism and freedom during my internship. It has been a long road from that job to creating Social Squids, but freedom of speech has been there all along.

With the technology of today, people use freedom of speech and social media to instantly send images and words to the world. With this freedom people have gotten themselves into all kinds of trouble from “sexting” to sending out things by accident. Of course, many also use it for sending funny, informational, inspirational or newsworthy messages.

As citizens of the world and especially as writers, we should remember how precious this freedom is. Some people have paid the ultimate price. We should take advantage of our freedom of speech and use it wisely.

Je suis Charlie.

Dealing with the computer illiterate

Yesterday I had a meeting with a prospective client about setting up a website. He is a very nice man, but really had no idea what a website does or why he should have one. He never thought about it before because he doesn’t really use a computer.

I see less and less of this type of person. Most people, even many of my relatives over the age of 80, at least use email and Facebook. Not this guy.

It was difficult explaining things to this man because I had to define the terms I was using as I went along. That often got me sidetracked. The man wants to sell something on his website that he makes by hand. He said he’d rather be working with his hands than using a computer. Obviously.

My explanations included how a search engine works and what it does, what Etsy.com is, Facebook, web hosting, domain name, etc. The poor man’s eyes glazed over when I talked about setting up a PayPal account so he can sell his products online. Of course, I had to explain what PayPal is and how it works. “How would I get the money?” he asked after a 10 minute explanation. I had to start from the beginning again.

Luckily, I am very patient. Years ago, I taught word processing in adult education. It was the same situation. The idea of switching from typing on paper to on the computer screen is confusing at first. I explained everything to this man as thoroughly as I could. I’m sure everything I said to him was a confused jumble in his mind when he left.

As a result of the conversation with this man, I have decided to write out some definitions/explanations to hand to people when I get together with them. It is my responsibility to explain what I do and all of the terms involved to a prospective client. I can either email (if they have email) or hand a prospective client the paper so when they go home and discuss it with people, they will have a better idea of what I do.

Is your web contest too complicated?

I received an email from a company the other day about their upcoming contest. I’m going to show the actual steps you need to take to enter the contest, but also change any identifying information.

1. From DATES OF CONTEST visit our COMPANY Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts to gather a daily clue

2. Use your clue to find the hidden ITEM on our website

3. Click the ITEM to receive the secret words

4. Collect the words of the day for all 5 days to create the winning phrase

5. Enter your submission on our website between DATES OF CONTEST for your chance to win 1 of 10 prizes!

I don’t know about you, but by the time I got to step three, my eyes glazed over and that was the end. I understand that this contest was developed to get people to engage in the company’s website and social media sites, however, most people are not going to spend that much time trying to win something. Maybe if the prize was a couple million bucks, people might do it. But this was for a basket of products that are worth a few hundred dollars at best.

Many companies use the “find the hidden item” idea on their website in order to get people to look at the entire site. That’s a great idea in itself, but adding all of the other rules of this particular contest makes it a little too complex for the average person. You would have to be totally devoted to the product in order to do this. And those people are already customers!

People may click on the first link and then lose interest. Once you complete all of the steps, you still only have a small chance of winning. Website visitors might find this scavenger hunt frustrating. That is not an emotion you want prospective customers to feel.

Sure – have a contest! That is a fantastic way to get people fascinated with your site and products. Intriguing people is the name of the game for online sales. But, when designing the contest, try to engage without annoying your page viewers.

Analyze who views your page

Do you have any idea who is looking at your website? Do you know where the traffic originates? If you are trying to grow, or care at all about your business, you should know how people are finding your website or blog. If you do not know where you are getting customers, this is important information.

The most popular way to get a handle on your page viewers is with Google Analytics. It takes a little know-how to use this. You have to be able to add code to your page, or get someone add it for you. Google Analytics will analyze how your viewers find you, the efficacy of your keywords and there is even a section just for social media sites. Lots of information is there, but it does you no good if you are not looking at it on a regular basis. New features just came out for Google Analytics including shortcuts to the stats you use the most often.

If you have ecommerce on your site, Google Analytics can even figure out the percentage of website visitors who become customers. You can analyze individual pages, and get in-depth analysis.

If you are sharing new pages or blogs on Twitter, but you are not getting any traffic from Twitter, that is saying something that you need to know. Either you are not reaching enough people or your message is not encouraging people to click the link to your page. Making your message a call to action may improve the clicks.

Some people are not technically savvy and have no clue about how to add code to their page. I totally understand. Most of my clients don’t get it at all. For them, there is another way to figure out who is viewing their site. It’s called Stats Crop. By entering your web address, you can get a lot of information about how your site is working. Stats Crop gives each page a number score and gives suggestions on how to raise it (adding backlinks, getting the page indexed on search engines and more). Learn about your keywords. Are they working? Do you need to add more? How are similar sites doing? This can help you figure out what marketing methods are working best.

Users of Blogger can get access to how the blog is doing. They have most of the same information as Google Analytics, but without doing a thing! All you need to do is go to the dashboard page and click on the little blue graph under the name of the blog. If you have multiple blogs, there will be one for each of them. By clicking on “traffic sources,” you can see how people find you.

Somehow I’m getting viewers from a porn site. I swear, I don’t know how that is happening! I can’t imagine why someone would go from porn to my blog, but I’ll take the page views however I can get them.

A year ago, I never heard of BizSugar, and now I know I’m getting most of my page views through them. Friend Feed, on the other hand, isn’t doing much for me at all. One of my clients gets her best page views from StumbleUpon. Maybe it is how each book-marking or other social site categorizes the keywords entered when I submit the pages.

The best way to know what is happening with your clients and page viewers is to use every way possible to analyze your website. Learning who comes to the page will help you figure out more about your target market. You will learn what marketing is working, or not. If you don’t understand how to use this analysis, view the help section. It is definitely worth the trouble.