
We put a telescope on the intersection of marketing and small business. Follow us via the social media platforms in the footer so you never miss out on a mission-critical update.
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We put a telescope on the intersection of marketing and small business. Follow us via the social media platforms in the footer so you never miss out on a mission-critical update.
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You probably know that websites have frontends (what the public sees) and backends (the technology that creates and serves them).
In this post, we will recommend articles from our sister site, Mobile Atom Code, that look at the coding languages, databases, and servers of WordPress. Peruse them at your leisure to see how they make the backend of WordPress work.
Explore Mobile Atom Code’s article library for useful information on a variety of WordPress coding and backend topics.
The coding languages that make WordPress work are:
Put simply, HTML provides your site’s meaning and structure. CSS provides its aesthetics. Interactivity and functionality are provided by PHP and Javascript. These are the frontend languages used in WordPress. SQL is the language that allows your visitors to interact with your site’s database(s). These languages control what is seen in the browser.
The five articles linked below provide overviews and resources for additional information.
The servers that make WordPress work are:
According to TechTerms, “A server is a computer that provides data to other computers. It may serve data to systems on a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN) over the Internet. Many types of servers exist, including web servers, mail servers, and file servers. Each type runs software specific to the purpose of the server.”
The vast majority of WordPress sites use Apache and, to a lesser degree, NGINX servers. The two articles linked below provide overviews and resources for additional information.
The databases that make WordPress Work are:
According to Oracle, “A database is an organized collection of structured information, or data, typically stored electronically in a computer system. A database is usually controlled by a database management system (DBMS). Together, the data and the DBMS, along with the applications that are associated with them, are referred to as a database system, often shortened to just database.
Data within the most common types of databases in operation today is typically modeled in rows and columns in a series of tables to make processing and data querying efficient. The data can then be easily accessed, managed, modified, updated, controlled, and organized. Most databases use structured query language (SQL) for writing and querying data.”
MYSQL is the database used by the majority of WordPress sites. The two articles linked below provide overviews and resources for additional information.
Explore the articles above at your leisure to see how the coding languages, servers, and databases of WordPress work together to make your site function and provide the best experience for its users.
Reuben is Ringmaster of Mobile Atom Media and its division Mobile Atom Code. In addition to his content specialties, he is also a full-stack developer.
An ABJ graduate of the University of Georgia and MA graduate of Georgia State University he lives in Orlando, FL with his wife and English labrador. He received his full-stack certification from the University of Central Florida.
For great curated and original content on entrepreneurship, content, design, and code follow him on the social media platform of your choice via the icons in this site’s footer. Or join the 42,318+ followers of his Flipboard Magazines.
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Like social media platforms Pinterest and Instagram, Slideshare’s success is due to the power of visuals.
Ah, slide presentations. You want to view one of these as much as you want a hole in the head or a severe case of COVID-19. Right? Maybe not.
Incredible as it may sound, they are an effective way to reach prospects via LinkedIn’s sister company and platform, Slideshare. It has more than 70 million, business-oriented users. Surprisingly, SlideShare has five times more traffic from business owners than Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
Like many tools, slide presentations or decks are poorly developed and presented by 95% of their users who give the technology an undeserved reputation. And to use them successfully on Slideshare decks have to be especially well-designed. After all, they are not going to have a speaker talking about them. But, maybe that’s a good thing since few presenters are worth listening to in any case.
If your decks are convincing people will like and share them. They can also follow you as a presenter and receive notifications whenever you upload new presentations.
You can add videos and pdfs to Slideshare, but decks work best. A hybrid approach could involve adding audio to your presentations and showing them as a video. This strategy would also allow you to share the content to YouTube.
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LinkedIn can be a valuable social media platform for your business. If you are in the B2B sector, having an effective LinkedIn marketing strategy a must.
Is LinkedIn more than “Connecting the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful”? That’s their slogan and there is a lot to it. It’s a social media platform that has benefited greatly from its acquisition by Microsoft.
When you use your individual account, it’s the new resume, useful for creating a personal, professional brand, and a way to make valuable connections in the B2B space.
Using a LinkedIn company page, it’s another avenue for discovery via search and a way to show credibility, authenticity, and trustworthiness.
But how can you profit from LinkedIn as a small business? Like any platform, it will depend on your firm and your industry. If used appropriately and strategically, there are two general ways a LinkedIn marketing strategy can benefit your company.
They are social selling and thought leadership.
We covered this in detail in an earlier post, but, here’s a quick reminder of the definition of social selling from Hubspot:
Social selling is when salespeople use social media to interact directly with their prospects. Salespeople will provide value by answering prospect questions and offering thoughtful content until the prospect is ready to buy.
You and your sales team use your content or targeted content curation to move prospects through your buying cycle towards a deal.
Participating in group conversations is a good strategy. Ask questions and answer those from other group members. This technique builds your employees and company’s credibility. It also leads us to thought leadership.
Thought leadership is where you publish original content and share curated content to demonstrate your company’s competence, expertise, and trustworthiness.
You have to prove your value to a prospect before you ask for an in-person conversation much less a sale. They want to find someone who is an expert and can solve their problem. They want to stop searching and start buying. Your content makes them select you.
Besides publishing great content on your blog, you can publish it on LinkedIn Publisher (“publish a post”) and “share an update” on LinkedIn.
Publisher is an effective way to repurpose content from your blog. Updates could be original or curated. Always include an engaging image and don’t forget to include your link. 😉
When you are publishing on LinkedIn, you are are blogging. So use the same techniques and strategies covered in this earlier post. The home of these long-form articles (Publisher) or updates is your company page.
And by the way, don’t publish crap!
[Read more…] about The Essentials of a LinkedIn Marketing Strategy
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Twitter is a fantastic tool for learning and sharing knowledge that benefits both you and your customers.
Like several social media platforms, the content on Twitter contains a fair amount of nonsense. A large part of its traffic involves commenting on television during live broadcasts and streaming. Politicians and “celebrities” can vaingloriously spout off about themselves. And it’s not immune from mean-spirited trolls.
Yet, it is still a valuable tool for small businesses like yours. You will benefit most from using it to get and spread knowledge. In reality, Twitter is more of a news platform than a social platform. Most people are readers, not tweeters.
How can you make the most of these potential benefits? Start implementing your Twitter marketing strategy by doing the following three things.
Social media is perfect for listening to your prospects and current customers/clients. People are not shy about venting on Twitter. They feel free to be more forthright because they can have an anonymous username.
It will be easy to see the frustrations and problems your customers struggle with daily. Paying attention to their tweets will give you the knowledge you need to develop and promote products that solve their problems.
Pay attention to what people are tweeting. Pay special attention to what they are favoriting and retweeting as well as who they are following. Follow your prospects’ influencers yourself.
Whether you use Twitter to market your business or not, it is a good way to educate yourself about your industry and customers. Take advantage of it.
Twitter is a mobile-oriented platform versus a desktop-oriented one. This makes it a great tool for communication.
Some businesses, especially those in consulting or tech, use Twitter to communicate with prospects and clients. It is very useful for customer service communications. Be sure to set up notifications for when you are mentioned in a tweet so you can reply within an hour. Set them up for new followers, retweets, and favoriting as well.
Like your blog, building significant traffic to your site from social media is a marathon. There’s no instant fix. Like email, you should never buy followers.
While it is a bit of a vanity metric, you will need to acquire followers on Twitter. To gain followers, you will need to share quality content. The best way to do this is via curation. There is more on this below.
Similar to your blog content, your Tweets should demonstrate your expertise. Answer questions. Solve problems, inform and even entertain your followers.
Be sure to share the evergreen content on your blog consistently. If your followers value the content you tweet, they will trust your judgment and visit your site’s content as well.
@Buffer has shared ten effective ways to gain followers.
The more you tweet, the more followers you will gain. All the advice in this graphic is valuable. But posting great, shareable content and using #hashtags are critical.
[Read more…] about The Essentials of a Twitter Marketing Strategy
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Social media platforms are the third pillar of your content marketing strategy. And they are a fluid pillar, evolving daily.
The social platforms your business should use will depend on your industry, your business, and most importantly your customers.
You will need to go where your customers and prospects are engaging with social media. Our other posts look at individual platforms. But, a common thing you will do with all of them is engage in social selling. It is the tactic that can make your sales team into Rainmakers.
Hubspot has a good definition of social selling:
Social selling is when salespeople use social media to interact directly with their prospects. Salespeople will provide value by answering prospect questions and offering thoughtful content until the prospect is ready to buy.
Social media is also where your sales team will find and research prospects. They can initiate a relationship and nurture it through the sales cycle.
As you know, relationships are at the heart of any sales success. Social selling just lets you develop them at scale.
How is social media different from the other pillars of content marketing? Contently has a good explanation:
…social is inherently spontaneous, while content tends to be carefully crafted before it’s set loose upon the world. Social tends to be reactive; content, on the other hand, sparks conversation. And, finally, content is generally made by an experienced creative professional: a writer, designer, video producer, etc. Social? Not so much.
Social media is where your team members (that are not your content producers) can help your marketing efforts. However, they will be posting and sharing on their individual social media accounts, not your company accounts. And they should have separate accounts for business as opposed to personal accounts.
However, they will be posting and sharing on their individual social media accounts, not your company pages. And they should have separate accounts for business in addition to their personal ones. For example, if they have a personal Twitter account they should open a second one for social selling.
The profession of sales is quickly changing, but the role of social media in sales is changing even faster. These new communication methods are vital tools that will play a big role in your future sales success. The concept of social selling involves using them in a strategic manner in order to strengthen relationships with your clients and prospects.
But before we get into what to do with your social selling strategy lets take a quick look at how the sales process is changing.
By the time a potential client contacts you they are 60-70% through the buying process. They have been researching potential products and solutions in a “self-service” manner on a variety of online platforms. These include your website and blog. Social selling helps your team get involved in the buying process at an earlier point. The best way is by sharing content from your site/blog via social media.
Duct Tape Marketing believes you need to change your sales strategy in order to be relevant to potential customers. And most importantly to be useful to them. I agree. They note:
Today’s marketing minded salesperson thinks like a publisher and builds their own expertise by sharing and crafting a platform.
That platform is social media, and you need a social selling strategy to succeed in today’s market. You want to be providing the information your potential clients have been reviewing in a self-service manner prior to contacting a vendor. You want to be interacting with them online before they get 60% of the way through the buying process.
The goal is to become a resourceful and useful asset in your customers lives. You want to be seen as a trusted authority in your field. Your usefulness will make existing customers more loyal. And it will make potential ones more likely to initiate a relationship with you. Being useful and developing authority is part of effective content marketing.
After finishing part three of this book, you will have a better idea of the social platforms you need to use in order to create great relationships with your clients.
Concentrate on using two or three well rather than all of them poorly. Again, you want to go where your target audience is interacting with social media.
Now, let’s look at what you need to do to develop a social selling strategy. [Read more…] about Why Social Selling is the best selling