Steven-Sanders dot com

A company I contract my services out to had some problems recently with not being able to access one of their websites, while everyone else outside of their company network could. It was a headache with trying to process orders and manage customers when there was no way to view the actual orders, much less the payment information. If you've ever experienced this same problem, you've probably pulled out your hair, fighting with the customer support personnel of your website hosting company, probably getting nowhere (because truth be told, most of them don't really know what they are doing beyond what they were tr... full article »

Yesterday Facebook announced and implemented its changes to the terminology used to become a "Fan" of a "Fan Page". In turn ruining all current marketing materials owners of fan pages use that reference anything related to becoming a fan, or being "FANatic", much like some t-shirts I had printed for a local fan page I manage. Fan Pages are now simply known as "Pages" and instead of becoming a "Fan", a person simply "Likes" a "Page". Here's Facebook's reason for the change: "Why did "Become a Fan" change to "Like"? To improve your experience and promote consistency across the site, we've changed the language f... full article »

I talk to a lot of people, both individuals and companies who still don't really understand Twitter and how it's supposed to be used.  And simply telling them that it's for conversation rather than blasting your stuff out to everybody who can read doesn't seem to ever work in getting my point across. So I've come up with a real world analogy to better understand how Twitter can only work if used correctly... through real conversation. 3 Major Uses Of Twitter There are 3 ways you can use twitter.  Each producing a much different outcome than the other.  But only one of these 3 uses of twitter will produce the o... full article »

Yesterday in our series "Building A More Successful Blog in 30 Days," we covered part 1 of branding your blog for success. We asked ourselves questions about our blog and our motives for blogging, as well as who our audience is and what unique things we can bring to the table. Click here to read part 1 of Branding your blog for success, and decide what answers you can provide for each question. In part 2, we forgoe all of the questions and focus on some things to consider when building your blog's brand. The Psychology Of Colors When building your brand, the colors you choose to represent you, your blog, yo... full article »

Most people don't blog just to hear themselves talk.  They do it for others.  To help someone looking for information within a particular niche. So what good is doing that, if no one enjoys reading your blog? You want your blog to be enjoyable and to create a stickiness that keeps your readers' attentions for longer periods of time. You also want those readers to want to come back.  And believe it or not, there are proven methods to increasing that stickiness on your blog. Post Frequently This is the number one method for creating a sense of community with your readers.  To make them want to come back. ... full article »