Ouch!

It’s not the first time. In fact the site owner thought he was doing me a favour by copying it and adding a small link back to my original when what he should have done was ask me if he could use it (there are 11 ways to connect with me on my Contacts page!).

Oh wait, that takes time and effort.

Unfortunately, this happens a lot online. From people innocently copying an image from Google without realising the legalities, to the plain lazy who would rather nick stuff than spend time writing their own.

When that happens, asking the perpetrator to remove it is usually all it takes. But this can be tricky if there’s no obvious way to make contact through the offending website. (I used Twitter, naturally!).

The next step is threatening them with legal action. Yawn.

If this happens to you try and remember that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – don’t let it ruin your world. You need to continue doing what you do without wasting all your energy on it, despite how frustrating it can be.

Anyway, all this got me thinking about some nifty free tools that can help protect your online property and save you the hassle of trying to get it removed if someone steals it.

Here are four fast (and free) things you can do to protect your property from thieves online:

1. Include the copyright symbol on all pages of your website and your content like e-books and PDF downloads. This will deter those who innocently think it’s ok to copy your stuff without realising it’s an infringement.
2. Use Copyscape a duplicate content checker to search the internet for copies of your web or blog pages. You pop your page address in the search box and it will scan the web for copies. Note that it searches each page individually not a whole website.
3. If you have a WordPress site try a plug in called WP-Copyprotect. This ‘locks’ your blog so text and images can’t be highlighted, copy and pasted. This works on the assumption that anyone wanting to steal your blog post or text from your website will be too lazy to re-type it out for themselves.
   
   I think it’s a pretty good deterrent although I don’t use it myself as I’m always copying text from my website to use elsewhere and this plug in would stop me from doing that!

   It may be a good solution for you if you want a hassle free way of protecting your online property.

4. Protect your online products, photos and images using a Creative Commons license. You can get one set up in seconds for free to protect ebooks, images and other materials for that extra bit of security.

So what about you?

Do you use any of these tools? Do you have other ideas for protecting your stuff online? Let me know by leaving a comment below!

Not all small business owners are natural sales people and find the whole promoting thing really uncomfortable (and don’t do it).

Others go in too heavy – turning people off (which is why it’s important to apply the 80:20 rule!). Or, post updates that don’t move people to action leaving important messages ignored.

I’ve written a guest post over at Buffer that explains the best ways to sell and market yourself online without being sleazy, pushy or feeling icky.

It offers simple steps that make promoting your stuff on Twitter a breeze.

You can read the article in full here: ‘The Beginner’s Guide To Marketing on Twitter The Genuine Way‘.

If you like what you read please share on Twitter and Facebook! Thanks

I’m a bit of a cheerleader for Buffer. I’ve been a user of the app since it was first finding its feet so I feel a bit like a proud mama watching so many people realise how helpful it can be.

When Alicia wrote her awesome post How To Save Time On Your Twitter Marketing by using Buffer, I wanted to share with you some of the new tips and tools that are making my experience of tweeting with Buffer even simpler and faster. Here goes.

Sharing Is Caring

(image: Patrick Herrera)

I wouldn’t consider myself a curator or prolific tweeter; I’m a small business owner who can’t help but love reading about productivity, getting things done and any geeky tech/apps/processes that help with that.

When I find an awesome article I want to share, I’m aware it might either be the wrong time of day for anyone to notice, or I risk flooding my followers with a bunch of links in quick succession.

I therefore have two choices:

• be invisible and/or annoying, or
• try my best to reach my followers in the best way possible by using a scheduling tool of some kind

Some people consider scheduling to be spammy and robotic, however I think it’s kind of smart.

I don’t want to be that annoying person who floods you with retweets, and I also want to know I stand a chance of being heard. I’m close friends with my social alerts so conversation is never too far away should you respond to something I post!

If This, Then Buffer

If you’ve reached this far and agree a little scheduling could help you to manage your online presence a little better, let me share with you the newest app in my Buffer toolkit: ifttt.

ifttt [like ‘lift’ but without the ‘l’] takes the simplicity of Buffer one step further by allowing me to create actions for triggers – if I do this, then that happens. Something ifttt refers to as recipes.

Here’s just one example:

I’ve created a recipe so each time I mark a tweet as a favourite, ifttt responds to that trigger and gets busy with the action of loading the tweet into my Buffer as a ReTweet (RT). So now, when I want to RT something I’ve seen in my own timeline, I simply click on ‘favourite’ and job done.

Have a peek here for even more ifttt recipe ideas – the possibilities are nearly endless.

How Well Do You Know Your Audience?

As well as being a geek for productivity, I’m also a bit of a geek for analytics (can you sense a theme here?).

Another new bit of kit I’ve been tinkering with lately is SocialBro. Only this morning I tasked it with analysing when my followers are online and pushing those refined timings to my Buffer settings at the click of a button. Perfect integration.

There are certainly many apps and many Twitter clients out there but Buffer wins it for me right now. It’s super simple and it’s evolving with new features and collaborations all the time. Happy Buffering!

About the author

Alyssa Aldersley is a sidekick to superheroes and uses her superpowers to virtually assist other small business owners through her business, sidekickva. She’s passionate about productivity and getting things done and works hard to ensure her clients are able to swoosh their capes. Connect with her on Twitter @alyssaaldersley as well as on Facebook.

I’m going on the road!

I’m flying to Edinburgh to present a talk on social media at Farm & More – The Farm Diversification Event – an annual get together for the farm retail and diversified farming sector.

This includes producers of fantastic local and artisan foods, owners of farm shops and the ever popular farmer’s markets, parks and ‘pick your own‘ farms who offer great family days out.

This is all as a result of my talk at The Speciality Fine Food Trade Fair at Olympia in London last year.

Farm & More is organised by FARMA – the only UK-national organisation representing farm diversification.

Farm retail plays a huge part in the UK small business sector developing into wider areas including agri-tourism, entertainment and educational aspects. It’s worth over £2 billion a year adding valuable skills and jobs to rural communities.

It’s a real privilege to be speaking at the event. I’m a big supporter of local business and often choose independent shops and cafes over supermarkets and larger high street chains.

What’s more, I’m really excited to be sharing some creative and fun ideas on how social media can help promote the products and services of the local, small retailer. Plus, I’ve never been to Scotland!

What I’ll be speaking about on the day

• The one essential ingredient you need before you even start on social media
• Oops! The most common social media mistakes and how to avoid them
• Real life examples and success stories
• Turning the tables: audience social media clinic

Farm & More are on Twitter – you can follower them here: @FarmandMore

And you can find me on Twitter here: @AbsoluteAlicia

You know social media. You’ve set up your accounts and visit them often. You’ve got e-v-e-r-y-thing running like clockwork.

But have you?

If you’re not getting leads as a result of your efforts you might be making mistakes without even realising it. But that’s okay! We all make mistakes.

I’ve written an article over at E.Junkie outlining 5 common mistakes people make when using social media and how to solve them.

You can read the article in full here: ‘5 Social Media Mistakes You Don’t Know You’re Making‘.

If you like what you read please share it!

Do you wonder how so many people seem to be on Twitter ALL day and STILL get loads of work done?

Enter Buffer – a handy tool for sending and scheduling tweets in one click and a MASSIVE time saver.

Why scheduling tweets is a good idea

You can’t realistically be on Twitter all day. But if you don’t use a scheduling tool your only option is to bombard your Twitter followers with updates in real time when you happen to be online.

That’s really annoying for your followers.

At least, the ones that happen to be on Twitter at the same time as you.

The others will miss your updates. People log in to Twitter at different times so the chances of them missing your bunched up tweets are high.

This will significantly stunt your reach and makes Twitter an ineffective and poor use of your time.

Scheduling some messages to post automatically throughout the day will mean you’re visible to more people, seen consistently and become a familiar sight in your followers’ stream.

It keeps you seen while you’re off doing something else.

Why Buffer is the answer

With Buffer you can browse your favourite websites finding articles that will interest your followers, add them to Buffer and it will do the rest – send them out at a pre-determined time specified by you. Nice!

This is what Leo Widrich of Buffer has to say:

People that start to Buffer their Tweets increased clicks on links they posted by 200% within 2 weeks of using. The amount of retweets doubles on average. Finally Buffer users increase their follower count by 104 followers within 3 weeks on average.

Pretty impressive, right? And I believe him.

I’ve been using Buffer since July 2011 and seen great results myself. But before Buffer came along I used Hootsuite to schedule my tweets. I understood that scheduling was a brilliant way to make the best use of my time while reaching as many people as possible.

If I was starting from scratch I can see how Buffer would have an even bigger impact.

Why I switched from Hootsuite to Buffer for scheduling

• Because it’s soooo easy
• I can upload a number of messages with one click because I’ve already determined the send times
• I can Buffer from my desktop, laptop, email, Google Reader, Android, iPhone or iPad
• I can Buffer from within Twitter.com



• and in Twitter, it enables the old style RT (trust me, that’s a v good thing). This feature alone is worth signing up for!



• It has it’s own shortcut key so I can hit ‘Alt + b’ in any browser and add the page I’m on to my Buffer
• It does one thing very well: schedules tweets (oh, and Facebook updates). That’s it. I still use Hootsuite every day but I’ve switched to Buffer to share a regular stream of interesting stuff I find around the web

The types of Tweets to Buffer

Despite all its greatness Buffer does not help you with the social aspect of Twitter.

When scheduling your tweets you have to remember the importance of balancing them with interaction: the conversations, replies and mentions.

I’m on Twitter every day, but with the help of Buffer that real time use has been cut to as little as a few minutes on really busy days.

The types of tweets Buffer is perfect for are blog posts, articles, videos – yours and other people’s.

Avoid buffering anything time sensitive or that is part of the conversational side of Twitter. If you’ve already got your Buffer full of messages, it could be days before your time sensitive message is seen, and no longer relevant. Oops!

What else you should know

Buffer has 3 fee options – the entry level one if free. Give it a go and see if it works for you: Take me to Buffer

Sometimes, using social media can feel like an uphill struggle.

When people all around you are achieving success but you’re not, it can be deflating.

Trying to understand all the different tools at once can leave you overwhelmed.

After a holiday or when you’ve let things slip because you’ve been busy, it’s like starting from scratch.

Getting the momentum going again can feel like way too much effort.

This is often why people give up.

But wait – hold up a second!

Consistency is key to running a successful business.

If you fall away from view the relationships you’ve developed will falter.

If you stop talking to your customers they will no longer remember you when they need your product or service.

So when you feel like ditching your online marketing efforts, use these success strategies to keep you on track.

• Don’t worry about what other people are doing, concentrate on your own journey

• Focus on one thing at a time. Whether that’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging or a newsletter – don’t take it all on at once. (That’s enough to make anyone give up!)

• Keep a content bank to store blog headlines, newsletter ideas, tweetable tips, quotes and images for Facebook to call on. Google Docs or an Excel spreadsheet is ideal

• Make a commitment to deliver consistently. Whatever your chosen form of communication make it a non negotiable part of your business

• Set tangible targets to focus your motivation: triple your newsletter readers, blog once a week, double your web traffic from Twitter

• Keep your end goal in mind, remember why you are doing it

Just get back on that bike and keep going.

2011 was a busy year for me:

As I approached my third year in business I changed direction, practically starting from scratch and re-branded. So, with the holiday season nearly here, I’ve decided to take a break until January. Wohoo!

I’m really excited to be spending time relaxing with friends and family (especially the latest addition to the family – my 5 week old niece) and recharging the batteries ahead of 2012.

Before I head off, I wanted to reflect on the year with a walk down memory lane with you, and share the most popular posts of 2011.

I’ve checked my Google Analytics to see which brought the most traffic to my site and included the top 10 below in reverse order.

I’m rubbish at maths so I didn’t do any fancy calculations, nor did I take into consideration that some posts are older than others – it’s a straight run down.

I hope you find some interesting content among this lot, and it helps you with your social media marketing in the year ahead.

Top 10 Blog Posts

10. 7 Steps to setting up Your Twitter account (November 2011)
Posted in November but already one of the most popular posts of the year. Taking your through the very first steps to perfecting your Twitter profile.

9. Perfectionist? 5 Ways to Beat Your Control Freak Tendencies (October 2010)
This is a guest post written by my business associate and friend, Tamsin Fox-Davies and featured back in December 2010, proving that a solid blog post can bring visitors to your site time and again. Thanks Tam!

8. How to Deal With Twitter Overwhelm (November 2011)
Another Twitter post from November. This time on getting organised. Many of the questions I receive ask how to keep on top of the massive flow of tweets in the news feed. This post tells you how…

7. How I Set Up My Business: Woman & Home Magazine Feature (March 2011)
Earlier this year I was featured in Women & Home magazine – a really proud moment for me! Even better, I received loads of messages from other women inspired by the article. It continues to be one of my most popular posts.

6. Facebook Page, Group or Profile – What’s Better for Business? (October 2011)
So many businesses are turning to Facebook to promote their products and services, and create a fun community there. Makes perfect sense as there are 800 million active users on Facebook! But what presence is best? This post goes through the options.

5. Get More Facebook Likes with Tagging (May 2011)
Another Facebook how-to. A frustrating problem for Facebook page users is getting more visibility for their page. This post explains one of the best ways to achieve more likes and raise your page profile.

4. Change Your Twitter Name Without Losing Followers [VIDEO] (May 2011)
My first how-to video! I created this when I changed my own Twitter name. I didn’t want to lose touch with all the people I’d connected with on Twitter over the years so I needed a plan! This explains the steps to go through…

The Top 3 (…cue drum roll…)

3. Social Media Giants – Why They Use Blue As Their Primary Branding Colour (July 2011)
My third most popular blog is another guest post, this time from colour expert, Karen Haller. I asked her why Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all use blue in their branding. Seems that I’m not the only one interested in the answer!

2. Twitter Tip: What is a hashtag (#) on Twitter? (July 2011)
I get asked this a lot so it made perfect sense to turn it in to a blog post!

1. Simple Twitter Tips: What Does #FF Mean? (January 2011)
My most popular post! I was originally asked this question by a client in January 2011. The post goes through what #FF means and how best to use it.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for all your comments on the blog, kind messages on Twitter and Facebook, and for sharing my posts around the internet. It really means a lot knowing that my stuff is useful to you!

Wishing you a fabulous Christmas and best wishes for the new year – Let’s make it a great one

The A board belongs to a coffee shop called The Haberdashery but I didn’t know that when I first saw the photo.

Aaron Lee (@AskAaronLee), a social media consultant based in Singapore, tweeted it. He’s passionate about humanising business using social media. He’s also got 230,000 Twitter followers.

The tweet Aaron posted contained an image, just like this one, of this exact A board. Location unknown (at the time).

The picture really tickled me. I visualised a bunch of kids racing between the tables, buzzing on espresso, squeezing kittens. Parents oblivious to the mayhem. NOT the kind of place I’d want to go for a flat white! But that’s precisely the point.

Seeing this sign actually made me want to go there. I imagined the cafe would be chilled, fun, quirky, relaxed, friendly. Which usually means quality food and coffee too.

Anyway, on with the story. After I saw Aaron tweet this photo, I decided to share it on Facebook. It wasn’t long before a friend commented

I know this place. It’s in Crouch End – I walked past it last week.

Crouch End is about 6km from where I live in London – I’ve been going there regularly to meet friends and go shopping for years. It’s also got loads of great coffee shops so it’s difficult for them to stand out. I couldn’t believe that the cafe in the photo was a local one! The tweet had originated in Singapore so I assumed the location was somewhere far, far away…

Being a coffee addict that works from home means I’m always on the look out for new places to drink coffee, work or hold business meetings.

My friend and I arranged to meet there. Funnily enough that meeting led to business for both of us. Not only that, the cafe was as I expected it to be.

The staff at The Haberdashery are friendly, food home made and delicious, and they make a mean flat white (rare around these parts!). A really nice neighbourhood cafe and far removed from the coffee shop chains along most high streets. It turns out that they pride themselves on being a hub of the local community running events, activities and charity fundraisers. It also has a thriving Facebook group (this makes me v happy).

So now I’ve got a new place to visit when I’m in the area. I’m also telling all my friends plus blogging about it here!

This probably wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for social media, and it certainly wouldn’t have happened if the coffee shop owners hadn’t chosen to stand out and be different.

So what’s the point of this story? Twitter, Facebook, blogging – they’re not strategies, they are ways to communicate. If you stand out, dare to be different and do things that get people talking, social media can help people spread your message. Make it easy for them. What are you doing differently?

Last month I was a guest at Dream Corner, a weekly radio show inspiring women of all ages to follow their dream and passion. The show, hosted by Viv Oyolu, airs on London’s independent radio station OnFM 101.4.

Viv and I had a lot of fun talking about social media and how Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogging can help small and local businesses promote their goods and services to a wider audience, creating a stronger community network.

I was pretty nervous about being on the radio let alone being interview for an hour! Viv made me feel really comfortable. That combined with being asked about a subject I’m passionate about meant the time flew by – it felt like we were on air for only a few minutes!

You can visit Dream Corner and listen to my interview with Viv here: Alicia’s Dream Corner interview

Oh, and look out for the short video of me and Viv taken literally minutes before we went live!