Free to Promote Your Shop, Social Sites, or Blog; on Networking Saturday 24

Good morning networking friends.
So after the celebrity hacking scandal everyone is  probably feeling a little bit more insecure about what the keep on the cloud.  I for one use the cloud in several ways and have actually used Dropbox
for 3 years now.  But what maybe don't think about is all the other services, app, etc that store our data on the cloud for us.

Every time I take a picture with my phone it is automatically uploaded to my G+ account, a service I love but alas does increase the risk of my photos being hacked.

Since I just purchased a new HP they offer a free cloud storage, Bullgaurd protects my computer and provides me cloud storage for my backup, you can store your photos for free on Flickr, Shoebox, Snapfish, Shutterfly.... I could go on forever with all of the apps and sites that offer storage on the cloud.

Often people I network with tell me that they avoid anything that will store their information, this is hard for me to believe since so many of us use some type of social media to promote ourselves.  If we don't we would have to be relying on word of mouth and good ole fashioned flyers or something.  Not many of us do that anymore.

Picture from http://www.sunpack.com/blog/tag/iphone/

Moral of the story no matter how we feel about the cloud it is here to stay and getting stronger.  I believe personally that we can use the cloud but keep in mind the risks and protect ourselves appropriately.

Picture from https://familysearch.org/blog/en/share-backup-dropbox/

Alternatives? Flash-drives, external hard-drives and discs.  Discs fill up very quickly even with zipping content.  They also run the risk of getting physically damaged the same goes with flash-drives and external hard-drives.  I have tried a number of these, some very expensive in the hundreds and right now most of them are in my closet waiting for the day I can afford to have someone remove the data from their dead carcasses.

Picture from http://lifehacker.com/5951822/how-can-i-recover-data-from-a-dead-or-erased-hard-drive

My conclusion is that the better choice for me is to store my work on the cloud, but with that being said I have to be careful.  Number one make sure it is a common reputable site to work with (often I use word of mouth and then researched it on the web.)  Two make sure to only load things that I wouldn't care if others see or associate me with. Three Backup my backup at least make sure that I have copies on my computer or in another cloud (things can go wrong I know first hand.)  And Four protect it with a good secure password.

I work for hospitals and usually their security rule is 8 characters, 1 number, 1 non-letter Character (like a !) and 1 capital letter.  Most often I through in a lot more than that but at minimum I suggest following the hospitals' rule.

I hope you find this helpful most of it is based off of my own experience and I would love to hear about your experiences in the comments.  This topic is important so I am sure all of us would appreciate the advise and your experience.

Now lets have some fun:

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Free to Promote Your Shop, Social Sites, or Blog; on Networking Saturday 24

Happy Labor Day Weekend.  I am so happy to have this fabulous 3 day weekend!  Its been a long grueling week so since we have this wonderful holiday weekend I am not going to post an article today. But we are still going to have the fun stuff  and I invite everyone to link up :)

Blessings; have a safe and fun holiday weekend.

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Free to Promote Your Shop, Social Sites, or Blog; on Networking Saturday 23

Good morning my networking friends,

I love to give tips on building your businesses that all have that WOW factor, but this mornings message may be a little mundane for some.  This subject has been on my mind this week since it was time to reorder my favorite internet protection software (Bullguard.)

At  times I have run into people who have used their computer as long as I have and have never download or uploaded protection.  As small businesses it is so important that we protect our assets just as well (if not better) than large businesses.  Unfortunately we are constantly under attack without even knowing it.

I have found Bullguard to be the best for my computers etc., but this doesn't mean that it is the best.  I personally simply find it to be the most effective in catching unwanted program changes, viruses etc. and it is very easy to use with many extras.  It offers the ability to monitor vulnerabilities, cleaning tools and much more.  But the take home message is whether you choose Bullguard, McAfee, AVG etc you absolutely must have protection.   It may be an expensive investment at the time but it will save you much more money and headaches later.

AVG offers a free version with minimal protection and almost all of the others offer free trials.  Are you protected?  What have you found to be the best?  I look forward to hearing your experiences.

Until next week
CC

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Free to Promote Your Shop, Social Sites, or Blog; on Networking Saturday 22

As a continuation from last weeks blogging tips we will talk about some very simple, maybe even obvious, but all too important steps we should all take.

Now that you know what kind of blogger you are, decide how much time you have each day to invest into your blog.  Keep in mind that you will not just need time to create blog posts, but you will need time for maintenance and research.  Everything takes time and must be added in the equation or you may find yourself neglecting important components of your blog.

One of the points during that webinar, from http://learntoblog.com/ , have a "call to action" right at the top of your posts.  I do not have that yet but I have seen blogs where the GFC is right at the top under their page header.  I am considering this along with an I catching "Follow Me" above it.  On that note there has been blog sites I have visited due to blog hops or just because their post look interesting and there was no where to follow them.  Make sure you have an easily recognizable link for a person to follow your blog.  Maybe some of these blogs that don't have this feature think that people will use bookmark but I usually forget about my bookmarks unless it something I need for research.  So when I book mark these blogs (especially if they are just for fun) I forget about them.  GFC, Bloglovin, Feeds, etc gives readers a easy to use way to follow your blog along with reminders often with post synopsis to catch their interest.

Another very important part of blogging is setting up a post calendar.  Right now mine is quite simple;

But after listening to the webinar I realized that I might really benefit from having a calendar planned for the entire year.  I thought about my favorite shops; Michael's, Macy's etc.  I know that their marketing teams know years in advance what their marketing schedule is.  Many businesses plan at least a year in advance what their marketing will be for the year.  While not all large business models work for the small businesses this one makes sense.  Planning is everything!

Just like everything that is well worth doing, you need a plan.  While successful businesses and people make it look effortless and as if they just had followers drop from the sky, they all had a plan in the background.  No one achieves greatness without some sort of idea of the steps they will need to take.

Having your plan in writing helps you stay on task, keeps deadlines in focus and helps you think in advance what tools you will need.  I strongly suggest giving yourself enough room on these plans to "flesh them out" As you think about what you are going to do, ideas of how and what you will need will come to you.  Write them down in steps, add to this frequently.  Don't rely on memory!  So many of my brightest ideas have come while I was busy and thought "I will write it down later" to my dismay I had already forgot by that time.

The main takeaway for this week:  Call your readers to action, Make sure they can easily Take Action (give easy methods to follow you,) and plan, plan, plan... Success is not just happenstance!

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Free to Promote Your Shop, Social Sites, or Blog; on Networking Saturday 21

Last week I attended an Webinar by Matt and Brad from LearnToBlog.com.  This Webinar was focused on successful blogging and making money off of your blog.  While I never started blogging to directly monetize my site I did create it to direct traffic to my shops etc.  I have to admit that over the years I simply enjoy blogging and having a forum to promote my online friends and talk about things that I find interesting.

 I found some useful information from the Webinar that I am going to share over the next week or two. Some of  which is very simple but many of us (including myself) are so focused on one aspect that we will overlook others.  Embarrassingly the old adage "couldn't see the forest for the trees" does describe me at times.  With all of that being said the following is what I gleaned from it:

Decide what type of blogger you are:

While which blogger category you fall under is not the important part, being consistent is; I am a combination of two, Professional and Promoter.  I love both which is fine but I do need to decide which will be my primary focus and which is secondary.  Also I need to be very careful not to stray outside of the two which I hate to say I have in the past.  I also think (personally not from the webinar) that it is OK to have a 3rd category but I think that it makes it harder to be consistent and may drive readers that are relying on certain content away.

Another piece of information I took away from this Webinar was that we need to be consistent with when we publish our posts.  We should have set times, schedules etc so readers will know when to look for your information.  I am OK but not great with this. In fact while I am typing this I find myself running a bit late.  So I will be working hard on my timing in the future.

Actually what I derived from this information is very simple.  Our content needs to be consistent, timely, well organized (thought out) and valuable.

Stay tuned next week as I discuss other important tips that was discussed on how to build your readership and a profitable blog.

For a little fun a quick question for you:

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Free to Promote Your Shop, Social Sites, or Blog; on Networking Saturday 20

Follow up on last week's post:  I have decided to just go for it and build a shop on blogger.  I have a kind of lame name for it now Butterfly In The Attic - The Shop simply because I want to distinguish it from my blog but still keep it connected.  I haven't completely decided on the name but should decide relatively shortly.  I am always up for some suggestions from my networking friends so any comments would be appreciated.  I want it to be catchy (of course,) tie it to my blog and other shops, but distinguish it from the blog; just a small order ;)


Enough with my personal updates.  Have you heard?  Etsy will be rolling out a new Wholesale website in August, this month!!  I may be the last to hear news but this is truly new news to me.  So of course this leads my mind to wander.  Is there anything that I make that could be transitioned to wholesale?  Will it be worth it?  Is this my ticket to become independent? So many questions...

Would you be willing to sell your art or craft as a wholesaler?  I would love to hear your opinion and if you are interested in more information, here is the link to the article:

Etsy, Home of the Handmade, Takes On a Wholesaler’s Role

Here is to our Success!
Have a blessed day
Colleen

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