Anyone get hammered with the East Coast “beast” this week? I’m just hoping it was a last burst of winter before spring here in New Jersey. The good news is that I had plenty of good reading to keep me warm. Here are some of the neat things I found that I thought you might enjoy, too. There’s a bit of fun and a bit of work, so pull up a chair, get comfy and let me know which articles call to you!
Is Cloud Computing A Fact Or Fiction?
Found on hosting.ber-art.nl
This one is for fun and edification. If you’re in the majority of people who are a bit befuddled about all the “cloud” jargon – or if you have a client who is – this infographic will help clear up a few misconceptions. For one thing, “the cloud” is not related to rain or the weather in any way. Would it surprise you to learn than 51% of the people surveyed for this study thought it was? There are some interesting facts and statistics, a few that may surprise you and some that you might expect. I bet some of these would make excellent tweetables.
What You Need To Know About Klout, Alexa, And Other Social Scoring
Written by Daniel Hebert
Do you obsess about your Klout score just a little bit? You’ve probably heard (or insisted) that it’s meaningless, it’s gamed, it’s unrealistic. But if yours went up today I bet you’d still be pleased. How about your website’s Alexa ranking? Are you just a teensy bit obsessive about lowering it? You don’t have to be a numbers person to appreciate winning. And better numbers mean we’re winning, right? Depends on your perspective. In this post, Daniel explores how some common influence scores are calculated, what they really mean and how you should approach them based on their imperfections.
8 Reasons Your Business Doesn’t Need Facebook
Written by Jessica Dewell
You need a Facebook business page! You want a Facebook business page! Moreover you must have a Facebook business page! In fact, if you’re like a recent prospect I spoke with, you may want a Facebook page instead of a website (blog post coming with some thoughts on THAT). But have you ever considered the other side of the coin, which is not “Why do you need a page?” but “Why don’t you need a page?” Jessica makes some good points here about the realities and challenges of having a business page. If you’re struggling with that nagging feeling that you really need to start working on your page… or if you want to give a reality check to someone in your life who feels the same way… this post will give you food for thought. The truth is, maybe you don’t need a page. Give it some thought before jumping on the bandwagon!
Get Booked And Stay Booked On LinkedIn
Written by Viveka VonRosen
If you’re looking to do a little business networking, LinkedIn is the hot place to be. And yet it’s so… hard. There are a ton of things to update, a billion nooks and crannies where you can put info, get info and find info, and then there’s the fact that it’s not exactly social networking so there are nuances to engagement. If you want a real education and you want to dig deep, you can check out Viveka’s book (we reviewed it last month) but if you want the Saturday morning digest, something to get you started in a jiffy without feeling overwhelmed, check out this post. She gives you ten actionable tips for establishing a professional presence and helps you find some of those info-nooks so you can build a better profile right now.
Bounce Rates: How To Mend This Conversion Killer
Written by Kimberly Crossland
“Bounce rate” is one of those metrics we obsess about along with our Klout and Kred. But it’s arguably more relevant because it can actually contribute to sales, leads and conversions – or lack of them. Although it’s impossible to know exactly why someone found your site and then left it without taking action or reading more, we can make some educated assessments and work to improve our numbers. In this post, Kimberly asks some great questions that all website owners should be asking themselves – often! Marketing and optimization are not things we do once and forget about. We have to continuously assess, test and measure. But first you have to know where to start. And this post will help you do just that. Start by asking yourself these questions (how about those gigantic ads, hm?) and digging a little bit deeper into how to improve your website so more people stick around more of the time.
(this site is currently unavailable)
Which ones caught your attention? Got any others to add to a great weekend reading list? Let me know!
Once again, a very big thank you Carol Lynn!
I can now rest my mind about Klout and Alexa scores. I’m not sure if it is a true measure of traffic, but Alexa does give an approximate estimation for me. As for Klout, I jumped out of that platform a year ago. It was too time consuming and I really wasn’t “feeling it.”
As much as I read about Cloud, I still don’t get it. That one I’ll just put to rest and keep on thinking it is in the sky lol!
Thanks for passing on the information.
Donna
I know some people swear by their Alexa ranking. Like Klout or anything else, it’s important to keep it in perspective and recognize that it’s a specific metric about a specific thing. Sometimes we get so caught up in numbers that we forget their purpose!
I feel your pain about the cloud, Donna. To be honest, it’s not a whole lot more than a marketing term that means “hosted on the internet”. Your website has been “in the cloud” since the day you launched it but nobody ever called it anything other than “hosting”. Now everything is in the cloud and it sounds so much more important and companies can use it as a selling point!
Somewhere I heard that blogs are replacing websites for many companies including the biggies.They can do all the things your website can and much much more. Selecting the best value and most powerful blog management tool can allow to manage all your key social media accounts and activities.
Late response on my end, but thanks for including my article in your round-up Carol Lynn! 🙂
You’re more than welcome!