Tag: Rookies
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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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8 (Cold, Hard) Truths about Social Media
Organizational leaders and other senior professionals need to be savvy enough to judge the true value of what they read and hear about social media’s promise, develop realistic expectations about both processes and outcomes, make smart decisions about where and how to engage, and create workable plans of actions for moving forward. Knowing these truths…
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We’re All Becoming Tech Workers… And We Need to Be Ready
As the Digital Era continues to progress and social and digital technologies become more fully integrated into not just the work we do, but how we do it, there’s an increasing need for all workers to be digitally literate and competent. Here are some of the things organizations, organizational leaders, and individuals can and should…
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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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Digital Property is Real Property: 5 Ways to Treat it That Way
Recognizing and respecting that digital property is in fact “real” property requires organizations to (1) make sure they own their own domain name(s) and lay claim to related social media properties, (2) require all official email be sent via domain-linked accounts, (3) take cybersecurity seriously, (4) maintain a presentable web presence, and (5) create policies…
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Optimizing Blog Posts: 11 Essential Considerations
Optimizing blog posts requires both art and science. This piece supplements the guidance offered in Blogging: A Comprehensive Beginner’s Guide, covering factors like developing post standards and creating templates, the importance of excerpts and featured images, SEO optimization, promoting reader friendliness and engagement, and more.
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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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Becoming a Digital Organization: A Three-Phase Journey
There are three main phases to becoming a digital organization: digitization, digital engagement, and digital transformation. This post offers a lay oriented description and assessment of these phases. The objective is to help leaders who are digital rookies develop a conceptual foundation for understanding where their organizations have been, where they are, and – most…
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Website Upgrades: 5 Essential Considerations
Organizations are increasingly realizing they need to update the look, feel, and functionality of their websites. The process for website upgrades has changed significantly in the past few years. The days of hiring a web developer to “hard code” a site. A better alternative is to go with a platform like WordPress.org, which enables the…
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Digital DIY: Penny Wise and Pound Foolish?
For a host of reasons, many organizations have been taking a Digital DIY (Do It Yourself) approach to pursuing technology initiatives, both externally and internally. Though the motivations for these approaches are understandable and seem logical on the surface, more often than not they are suboptimal strategies that aren’t in an organization’s best interests. A…
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Social and Digital Engagement: You Can’t Outsource Leadership
Effective social and digital engagement requires informed and active involvement from the top of the organization. Although it may be appropriate to outsource and delegate some responsibility and many activities, it’s not in an organization’s best interests to outsource leadership. To achieve the best results, leaders must educate themselves, develop a strategic, integrated approach to…
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Social Media Reality Check: Four Mental Shifts Leaders Need to Make
This Social Media Reality Check addresses four key mental shifts organizational leaders must make to accept new Digital Era realities and move forward. These shifts include recognizing changes in the balance of power, accepting loss of control, developing new perspectives on productivity, and viewing social technology integration as mandatory rather than optional.
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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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Social and Digital Technology Trends: 9 Take-Aways for YOU
The evolution of social and digital technologies proceeds unabated. We continue to witness dramatic changes, and it’s safe to say that the anticipated changes promise to be equally profound. Even if you don’t consider yourself an early adopter or are a digital Luddite, it’s virtually impossible to avoid the impact of these changes both personally…
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Social Media in 10 Minutes a Day? 7 Reasons not to be Fooled
Although it’s generally well intentioned, most of the advice for engaging via social media in 10 minutes a day (or similar short timeframes) is misguided, misleading, and misrepresentative – especially for social media rookies. This post offers seven reasons why, and suggests more realistic and practical approaches for individuals and organizations to find ways to…
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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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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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Five Social Media Engagement Principles (or Mantras)
This post offers five social media engagement principles to guide the efforts of both individuals and organizations. It is primarily targeted to rookies who are just getting started with social media, as well as those who want to regroup and redirect their efforts. The guiding principles include proceeding with “mindful flexibility,” listening first then talking,…
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Assessing Social Media Sophistication: The Social Media Quiz (SMQ), V4
The Denovati Social Media Sophistication Quiz (SMQ) has been one of the most popular SMART Resources we have created. Now in its fifth year of use, the fourth version generally represents the universe of social media sites and tools and can be used to quickly capture people’s knowledge and experience. This article provides an overview…