Twitter For Business And Personal Use – My Two Cents

Image by Matt Hamm @ Flickr

My two cents on my first six months of using Twitter from a business and personal perspective. If you are a business owner or manager and are curious about this new technology then you may just learn a thing or two from my own experience.

I was really unsure what to make of Twitter before I first started using it.  Call me a skeptic but I just could not see the value.  From a website analyst point of view I felt that the Twitter home page really needed to work on getting the point across.  Six months later and there has been many lessons learned, although the point of it is still a mystery.  I have discovered that there are social media experts, social networking etiquette, bots and spammers.  Sounds like an awful lot to think about in 140 characters or less.

How I Use Twitter

• I only follow people with a photo or image and a bio or website link.
• I always check new followers by viewing their profile and visiting their website if they have one.
• I block obvious bots or spammers.
• I follow people that I find quirky, interesting, helpful or funny that have similar interests to me.
• I like to follow other solo business owners as long as they show they’re human.
• I only follow automated tweets from people/businesses/websites that are of interest to me.
• I only send out a promotional business tweet a couple of times a week, if that.
• I send out a tweet about a new blog post that includes the words ‘New Blog Post’.
• I don’t follow people that are only trying to sell me something.
• I don’t do #followfriday or #musicmonday or any other day related tweeting.
• I don’t thank people for re-tweeting.
• I don’t expect to be thanked for re-tweeting.
• I don’t thank people when they follow me.
• I don’t expect to be thanked for following someone.
• I don’t have an automated welcome direct message when someone follows me.
• I don’t follow people just because they follow me.

Does any of this make me a bad person?
Am I breaking any social networking rules or etiquette?

Feedback welcome!

Weekly Website Analysis – www.pohlingyeow.com

Poh Ling Yeow

This week I analyse the website of Adelaide artist Poh Ling Yeow.  Although not strictly a business website, I thought it would be fun for my weekly website analysis to be topical.  For those outside Australia, Poh currently features on the hit Australian reality TV show MasterChef.

To start this weekly website analysis, head over to Poh’s website at http://www.pohlingyeow.com

First Impressions

Very clean and very simple.  Some users may be wondering what the website is all about because it’s not explicitly stated on the home page.  But the table of artwork images and the navigation items of Artist and Exhibitions makes it not too difficult to conclude that this is an artist’s website.

Navigation is simple but there are a few items that don’t make sense.  The Recent page actually takes you to the home page while the Scrapbook page should probably be labelled Media as it takes you to a page with links to articles featuring Poh but you do come to the realisation that when you click on one of these links that a scanned image of the article is displayed.  The Unsold page just tells you to go to the Contact page for information about unsold works, I was expecting at the very least to be able to download a PDF featuring unsold works.

Besides some issues with the labelling of navigation items, my first impression of the website is positive because it’s simple, it loads quickly and it’s aesthetically pleasing.  The website has my attention, I want to know more about Poh and see examples of her work.

Real World Website Evaluation. How Does Your Website Rank ?

Image by gorgeoux @ Flickr

You have been handed the keys to your brand spankin’ website which you hope will be the answer to your online business woes.  But how does your website really stack up when it is analysed and scrutinised with a fine tooth comb?  Let me help you understand the finer points of what really makes a website stand out from the crowd.

When it comes to analysing and evaluating websites, it makes perfect sense to follow a set of standard criteria.  With my own website evaluation business, I came up with a set of criteria that I use to measure website capabilities:

• Aesthetics
• Navigation
• Communication
• User Experience
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Page Metrics

Why Is My Super Strong Password Being Rejected ?

Image by Max (Tj) @ Flickr

When a website rejects your strong password based on poorly thought out policy, the prospect of that website building trust with the website user has already been diminished. So why are bad password policies still allowed to occur on the modern day internet?

You have found or been referred to a great new website. It’s really well designed, unique and interesting with plenty of information, a lively online community and other interactive features. You decide to register as a member, start filling out the registration form (using your super strong password, of course), click the submit button and wait a few seconds for the form to be processed.

The page has refreshed but it’s not the Registration Success page.  Instead, there are errors in the registration form informing you that your Password can only contain letters or numbers.

What’s this?

Your password is super strong, it contains both uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, special characters etc. Despite its complexity, you have memorised it and like to use it on all websites that you’re registered with.

You retreat and are forced to use your weaker fallback password that your friends could easily guess just to satisfy the stupid registration form.

Only minutes ago you were excited about this website but now your expectations have been lowered.