Tag: How To Guidance
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Understanding and Using # Tags (hashtags) and @ Tags (at tags)
Many (most?) people are confounded by the differences between # and @ tags; and as a result, they tend to use them interchangeably. Doing so, however, can undermine the goals one is trying to achieve by incorporating tags into their social media communications. This article clarifies the differences and offers guidance on how they work…
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Website Optimization: Testing Tools and Tips
Google’s recent algorithm change prioritizes “mobile-friendly” websites. This significant change has been dubbed #mobilegeddon, but it actually may create the incentive some organizations need to enhance their websites. A key part of any enhancement initiative should include website optimization testing, which primarily focuses on evaluating the speed with which specific pages load. This article provides…
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Blogging is so Misunderstood: 8 Things Everyone Should Know
Blogging has evolved into a critically important website feature that virtually every organization can benefit from; however, many people still harbor negative perceptions that prevent them from taking advantage of the benefits blogs can offer. This article is intended to update people’s perceptions by sharing eight key facts about blogs and blogging.
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Creating a Digital Transformation Plan of Action: A Guide for Leaders
Built on a foundation of guiding principles, a digital transformation plan of action includes nine main initiatives that organizational leaders should take. Beginning with educating themselves to increase their own digital competencies, these initiatives include soliciting input from key stakeholders, revising the organization’s mission, business model, and offerings, leveraging technology to enhance internal processes, and…
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Selecting Website Themes: A Guiding Framework
This guidance for evaluating website themes divides various factors into three categories: mandatory, important, and optional. Mandatory factors include things like responsive design and developer reputation. Important factors include browser compatibility and certain blog elements. Optional factors include page templates, demo data, and compatibility with common WordPress plugins like WooCommerce.
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The Digital Transformation of Business Schools: The Dean’s To Do List
Building on an assessment of where business schools are in their digital transformation journeys, this essay proposes a plan of action that will enable business school leaders to adapt to Digital Era realities and demonstrate Digital Era leadership. Guided by principles like the recognition that digital transformation is a marathon not a sprint, action items…
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5 Digital Resolutions Everyone Should Make (and Keep!)
Digital resolutions should be a key part of our annual effort to be better, more successful people. Given how integral digital technology is to managing both our personal and professional lives, one could argue that these resolutions are more important than some of the other improvement goals we set – and that they’re the ones…
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Website Builder Platforms: Best Options for Small Businesses
The days of having to build a website “brick by brick” (i.e., code it line by line) are long behind us. For small businesses and “single shingle” professionals in particular, who don’t have in-house resources and can’t afford the time or money for complex development projects, there is a wide range of website builder and…
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Job Search in the Digital Age
In the Digital Age, professionals must provide the same level of care and attention to their professional identities in cyberspace as they do to their presence and reputation in the physical world, especially when they are looking for their next career opportunity. Job search in the Digital Age requires establishing and managing a digital professional…
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Social Media Policies and More: Managing Digital Era Risks
A presentation at SHRM’s Annual Conference and Exposition offered guidance for managing Digital Era risks beyond developing and implementing social media policies. In addition to providing greater perspective on the risks to be managed, the presentation included specific guidance for HR professionals and other organizational leaders to develop and update relevant policies, provide training and…
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A Comprehensive Beginner’s Blogging Guide
This beginner’s blogging guide is intended for people who want to incorporate blogs into their organization’s digital engagement efforts but aren’t sure where or how to begin. Individuals interested in blogging for personal and career management reasons may also find the guide useful. Its primary focus is on external blogs used for marketing, branding, and…
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Digital Rebranding: Logistical and Human Factors
This piece describes and offers tips on some of the logistics associated with digital rebranding – changing websites and emails, moving blogs, rebranding social media identities, and promoting the new identity. It also addresses some of the human factors that can complicate (and potentially derail) a digital rebranding effort. The intent is to offer a…
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Dressing for Success in Cyberspace: Give Yourself a Digital Make-Over
You pride yourself on your professional appearance and demeanor. You strive to create and maintain a strong identity and reputation within your organization, with your clients and peers, and in your industry. But are you as diligent a custodian of your professional brand in cyberspace as you are in the physical world? If not, you…
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Enhancing Your LinkedIn Profile II: 7 More Tasks and 23+ Tips
Building on an earlier post – 7 Simple To Dos for Rookies to Enhance Their LinkedIn Profile – this piece offers additional guidance to help professionals upgrade their LinkedIn profiles. It describes seven tasks that can be tackled in one sitting or over several sessions. These tasks include adding digital links, creating a summary and…
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7 Simple To Dos for Rookies to Enhance Their LinkedIn Profile
This post provides seven basic recommendations that can help digital rookies transform their LinkedIn profile from anemic to respectable. These tasks can be tackled in as little as an hour (and no more than a half-day session) and will produce a solid basic presence that also lays a foundation for future development.
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Social Media Ownership: Recommendations for Employers
As individuals become more engaged with social media in their professional lives, employers are increasingly recognizing the need to address new challenges with respect to protecting their brand and commercial interests. Though it’s tempting to develop one-sided, draconian approaches, they are not usually in an organization’s long-term best interests. This post offers recommendations for developing…
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Coping with Social Media Realities: Time and Information Management
In our overcommitted, busy lives, lack of time is a common lament. The time challenge is exacerbated by information overload and the speed with which digital technology continues to change. For social media rookies in particular, these challenges can be overwhelming. This post highlights certain immutable realities of the world in which we live and…
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Social Media Engagement: 7 Rules for Working Smart, not Just Hard
Written for both individuals and organizations, this post provides high-level guidance for rookies who are just getting started with social media, as well as those who are looking to add more structure, focus and discipline to existing initiatives. Maximizing social media engagement requires setting goals, assessing the operating environment, conducting a communications audit, developing a…
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The SAPLING Approach to Leveraging Social Media
The SAPLING Approach provides a general guide for individuals, groups, and organizations to establish and manage a strong digital presence. SAPLING is an imperfect acronym, but a useful mnemonic for remembering the necessary steps to developing and executing a social media strategy.
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Twitter Best Practices: 11+ Tips for Tweeting Well
Targeted primarily to rookies, this guide offers a set of Twitter best practices that helps people maximize their ability to maintain a strong signal/noise ratio and avoid making mistakes that can hurt their individual professional and/or organizational brands. More experienced Tweeters – including mavens – may want to consider the advice and reconsider some of…