Jami at Imaj Works delivered a clean, modern-looking website that reflects my upbeat brand as a novelist, and is optimized for search engines, so more readers can find my books. Jami is great to work with, crazy smart…and she’s cool! I couldn’t be happier with my experience or my website.

Stephanie Bond, StephanieBond.com

Services: Traditional WordPress Website Design, Springboard Sessions (WordPress Training & Consulting)

I’m proud of my sister. I’m proud of the power of blogging. I’m proud that I get to do what I do and help people put their stories out there for the rest of the world to consume.

Let me step back and fill you in on some of the backstory.

I come from a long line of women who have suffered and women who have survived breast cancer.

As a child, I remember visiting my grandmother and seeing her gigantic bra slung over a chair in her bedroom and seeing her satin-covered prosthetic breasts, heavy like sandbags and smelling like baby powder. When I was a teenager, my grandparents moved in with my family and I remember walking into my grandmother’s in-law suite, seeing her in the kitchen over a bubbling pot of chicken pastry, topless with her grandma pants pulled up high over her belly. She had deep divots on her chest and lots of scarring. She spent the better part of her life without breasts because when she battled breast cancer, they didn’t do reconstructive surgery.

I remember watching my aunt battle breast cancer in a much different way, digging her nails in against chemo and radiation… Wearing wigs after her hair had fallen out and then later, struggling with her body’s slow deterioration from symptoms similar to ALS as a result from the extreme chemo. When she died, it resonated with me that the beginning of her end started with her breast cancer.

I remember growing up with breast cancer self-test hangers in our showers and a mother who vowed that if she ever had an instance where breast cancer showed up in her, she would not think twice about removing her breasts and whatever else needed to go with them in order to keep her life hers.

I remember sitting around a small table at Emory University with a genetic counselor, my mother and my older sister and being introduced to BRCA1 and learning about the genetic predisposition we were being tested for, that there was a 66% chance that the genetic mutation that my mother had was present in either my sister or myself, both young mothers at the time. My test came up negative. My sister’s test came up positive.

I remember sitting with my mother in a waiting room while she cried, awaiting the inevitable from the doctors about the lump in her breast. My mother had a prophylactic mastectomy, even after the doctors told her it wasn’t likely that she had breast cancer. I watched my mother struggle through her reconstructive surgeries, battling infections and finally evacuating the risk of breast cancer from her body.

I remember watching my sister struggle with the decision about what to do with the information given to her. I remember looking at her three children and thinking about the 66% statistic. I watched her stare her fears down and make a radical decision to have a prophylactic mastectomy at 34 years old so that she could live a long life and watch those three babies grow up.

And here… At this point in the story, is when my sister Julie started blogging. This is when I was able to help her get her story out into the world. There weren’t a lot of first-person accounts of her story online. I don’t even really believe that her intention, at the onset, was to give a voice to her story so much as to document her own struggle… A digital journal.

But she’s been at it, blogging about her experiences at a blog called Say It Anyway.

Why “Say It Anyway” you ask?  I have found that hereditary breast cancer is something people are very afraid to talk about.   Women are afraid of insurance issues.  Women are afraid of what others will think when you choose to have prophylactic surgery.  Women are afraid of finding out if they have a genetic mutation.  I decided I was not going to be afraid to talk about it and discuss my journey and say what was going on in my life…I would “Say It Anyway”.

Julie gets emails and phone calls all the time from women who are facing this same struggle. She answers her questions as best she can and she points them in the direction of resources to help them make decisions about what they’re going to do with that information.

And today, she shared a little bit from an email she received:

I’m in tears after getting an email from another BRCA + woman who called me recently to discuss my surgeries and get my advice. Here is part of what she said after meeting with my surgeons. “I want to thank you so much for blogging about your experience with these doctors. When they asked how I had heard about their practice and I told them it was through your blog and a follow up phone call, they both said what a special person you were. They are right. I just had to write you to say thanks.”

Never underestimate how your own story will help others. She has a mastectomy and reconstruction planned with them in the near future. What an encouraging day.

Now, I realize that not every person I work with has such a story. Some people are literally just wanting a website for their business. But even if your intention in creating a blog has more to do with marketing your business than sharing your personal story, I want you to realize that what you’re doing by putting your story – or your business’ story – out there is opening yourself up to other people. We live in a world where friendships can be made over computer screens, where connections can be created through digital interactions… But behind each screen is a person. And maybe, if we can figure out how to tap into our stories a little bit, we can find connections with each other. By letting ourselves be more vulnerable, we’re able to humanize ourselves and our stories… With vulnerability comes transparency.

My sister is able to reach out to people in a way that would not have been possible fifteen years ago. And I’m just super proud that I am able to be a part of helping her learn the tools to get that job done. Never underestimate how your own story will help others.

I started using ManageWP about two months ago and have been itching to post a review about them since day two. I wanted to give it a good, solid work-through to make sure it was exactly what it says on the tin.

Let me tell you, if I could kiss these folks on the mouth, I would.

These are the main reasons I love ManageWP:

Automatic backups of EVERY WordPress installation that I add to my account. And by automatic, I mean, actual full automatic backups of the full database, effortlessly (and automatically) uploaded to my AmazonS3 account. It only took me a few minutes to configure the ManageWP->AmazonS3 connection and adding new sites to my account is also super easy. If you’ve ever had your site go BOOM, you know how important a recent backup is. And if a backup doesn’t work, for whatever reason, you get a notification that it didn’t work with details on what went wrong and how to fix it.

When the bottom falls out, restoring your site is as simple as clicking the “Restore” link. Seriously. No more wringing your hands, no more shuffling files, no more logging in and out of your control panel, phpMyAdmin, FTP… NADA. Just open up your backups, click on Restore. Your site is automatically restored. How’s that for putting the power back in your hands?

The Clone Wizard took ten years off my life. So, let’s say you’re working on a site redesign on a subdomain of your main website (ie: dev.yourdomain.com) and everything is PERFECT and you love it and you want to make it live on your current domain. Before ManageWP, I had to manually move all the files, manually change the domain name, manually update the urls to strip out the subdomain… And if anything went wrong, I had to either painstakingly trace my steps or scrap it all and start over. With the Clone Wizard, you simply click on the domain with the new, pretty guts, then click on the domain that you want to push all those pretty things onto and BOOM (the good kind of BOOM), your new site is live. I used the Clone Wizard on my sister’s website redesign and I was floored at how easy it was, kicking myself for ever doing it another way.

Managing updates across all of sites can be time consuming. I have SEVEN websites that are mine-all-mine. When one of the plugins or themes that I use has an update, before ManageWP, I had to login to each individual website and run the updates one by one. Sure, that only takes a few minutes to do, but when you’re doing it seven times in a row, you realize that any wasted time spent on maintenance is money down the tubes. From my ManageWP dashboard, I can update plugins and themes, moderate comments, dump spam comments, trim my database of unnecessary post revisions and wipe out table overhead all with one little click. If you want to do it on a site-by-site basis, you can view each site’s dashboard from within ManageWP’s dashboard without having to open new tabs, login to each site, etc.

Currently, I’m on the Professional account with 25 websites and I pay $60/month for this service. $2/day is well worth it to me!

Are there other solutions to each of the problems? Sure… Is there another solution that makes it so easy to do so much from one location? Newp. Not that I’ve found.

Oh – AND – as if that wasn’t enough, ManageWP has a fantastic mobile app for your smartphone that gives you the ability to keep your paws on your content even when you’re not in front of your computer. (I’m updating those 9 plugins from my phone as I type this!)

There are a heap of other reasons that you ought to check out ManageWP, too, including automatic uptime monitoring, customizing your email updates, traffic alerts & data…

If you own more than a few websites or you are interested in streamlining your WordPress management for your client’s sites, you really need to check out WordPress.

This post has affiliate links for ManageWP and, as an affiliate, Imaj Works may receive a payout if you click on any of these links. I only endorse products that I’ve tested and use myself, so you can be sure that you’re getting only good stuff from me.

Melani Robinson, 1YearofOnlineDatingat50.com & MelaniRobinson.com

Services: Graphic Design (Print & Web), Traditional WordPress Website Design, MailChimp Campaign Setup, Social Media Training

So what’s the fix? How do you get rid of the zillions of versions clogging up your database?

I found this post yesterday by Barry Kooij that gives you a quick and simple way to drop the bulk and streamline your database.

You’ll paste this code in your wp-config.php file:

define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 0);

The “0″ at the end of your code outlines how many revisions you want to keep — you can change this number to a more conservative one, for example, if you’d like to keep the last four revisions, you’d replace the “0″ with a “4″.

Doing this will keep your database free from bloat and running quick and efficiently.

To edit your wp-config.php file you’ll need to get access to the source file directly either through your Host’s File Manager tool within your browser or will an FTP Client, like FileZilla. If you need help with this, gimme a shout!

I’m not a hall-monitor. I’m not a do-gooder. I really am not intending to sound like a total killjoy. I don’t want to rain on your parade.

But if you’re running promotions on your Facebook Page and blatantly (or subtly) violating the Promotions Guidelines, I’m'a call you on it!

There was a time, once upon a time, when I accepted friend requests from businesses using profiles instead of pages. I lost it in a controlled, but very fed-up Mommy Dearest-eque kind of way. It went a little something like this:

Due to the abuse of a handful of you businesses using profiles instead of pages (requesting permission to join groups, adding people to a group for your business, spamming my inbox, etc etc etc), I’m deleting all the businesses using profiles instead of pages. It just doesn’t make ANY sense to use a profile instead of a page and ignorance is no longer a valid excuse.

It’s EASY to do – http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=18918

Your profiles aren’t indexed with search engines, they don’t provide your customers immediate access to you (who wants to wait for a friend request to be accepted?!) and the people that are in charge of your social media are abusing the direct access that a profile provides people to one another.

Convert yourselves, already! It isn’t hard.

And heads up, I’m tagging each and every one of you in this post before I delete you from my friends.

And I proceeded to tag all of the businesses using profiles in the comments on that status update on my personal profile. There was more than 20 violators and most of the folks using profiles instead of pages were in the dark, totally not realizing they were breaking any rules. A few however, seemed to absolutely realize their mistake but just didn’t care. *shrug* It’s not my job to tell them what to do, it’s my job to educate you on what you OUGHT to do — best practices — and if you choose not to, that’s cool. No skin off my nose!

So, now my attention has pivoted onto all of the pages running contests and giveaways that are clearly in violation of the Facebook Promotions Guidelines.

Two actual quotes that I’ve seen in the last week:

Let’s get today started with a bang! Who needs a $15.00 gift card to get that dream outfit? – Local clothing boutique

Refer your friends to our Facebook page and ask them to comment on this picture with your full name somewhere in the comment for the chance to win a $25 gift card! – Local Real Estate Office

The first thing I think when I see this is, “Seriously, whatever, Jami. It’s a whopping $40 in value. Who cares?” But then it hits me…

I CARE. It matters to ME.

This is an industry that I am passionate about and make my living from. I care enough that I opened up a conversation about this very topic on my Facebook Page this week.

So, really… Business owners, would you like to lose ALL of your fans over a $15 gift card? Is it worth totally and abruptly severing your social connection with your potential clients to give away a gift card? In exchange for what? Likes? The very likes that you are putting at risk in the first place?

Facebook Promotions don’t have to be hard, guys. And those of you who are repeatedly violating Facebook’s Promotions Guidelines, even though you KNOW that you’re in violation, will be really bummed and mad and crying a river when Facebook comes down, peeeeeeeeeeeewBOOM!, on your Page and deletes all your work, photos, connections… Everything.

Here’s a little video I stumbled across today while visiting Hugh’s Facebook Page for Social Identities. It’s published by Facebook and really easy to follow. Take four minutes and watch it. (Seriously… Four minutes, c’mon now.)

So, the basics:

Crystal clear, right??

I have a few problems with you, Pinterest.

[note color="#CCEDED"]First things first: Can we get a freakin’ Android App already?[/note]

I have a MacBook. I love my MacBook. It has made my life as a designer exponentially easier. I get my work done faster, more intuitively… Zippity do dah. But I will never buy an iPhone. Why? Simple: I don’t want to pay for apps. Is that totally silly, or what? I’m perfectly happy to shell out $1500 for a laptop from Mac but I won’t shell out $1-5 for applications. Whatevs. I am what I am.

And I’m not alone.

According to Nielsen Ratings, “Android has only moved slightly and still sits atop the heap, claiming 48.5 percent of users, but Apple hasn’t had to worry given that 32 percent of smartphone owners use an iPhone.”

What’s the hold up on an Android App, Pinterest? Trying to pin things using the browser version on my phone is awful. Terrible. Yuck. I’d much rather you get off your duff and make it easier for me to USE YOUR WEBSITE. Comprende? Do you realize how much more addicted I would be to pinning if I had tips-of-my-fingers-mobile access to you?? No, apparently you don’t.

[note color="#CCEDED"]Secondly, and I know this isn’t your fault, Pinterest, but can we come up with a system of punishment for people who type it as ‘Pintrest’?[/note]

I’m not talking about how people say Pinterest wrong.

Sidebar: it’s pin-trest, not p-interest not pin-ter-est or, heaven help us, pin-er-est, geez. Do you say, In-ter-est, like, “I am in-ter-est-ted in that,” or In-trest, like, “What are your in-trests”? Listen here. 

No, I’m talking about people who REPEATEDLY spell it wrong… On their websites, on their social channels… It’s not a simple typo if you do it every single time.

Dear Careless Internet Users,

Please take the time to spell it correctly. It is NOT Pintrest. Despite what you might think, you can’t just spell things phonetically. You actually need to learn how to spell it. 

Love, 

Jami

[note color="#CCEDED"]If I see one more social media/SEO/blogging infographic, my body may turn itself inside out from my eyeballs. Just floooooop. [/note]

I get it. Infographics are really helpful, useful tools man. And, yes… Of course… It makes sense that they’d work GREAT on Pinterest because generally they’re long and narrow, fitting into one of those columns beautifully.

However, it really gets on my nerves when people throw up an infographic that takes up three-down-scrolls to view it… Can we get a thumbnail please? It’s not like we can even READ everything in the mini-on-the-board size anyway, guys! I went and unfollowed a lot of people’s boards when this whole infographic thing started to get out of hand.

Those of you making infographics, add a featured image or something to your blog post that when people pin, maybe, possibly, they’ll be more interested in pinning your cute featured image thumbnail rather than your 3000 pixel tall infographic. It really puts a cramp on my, “Ohh, look at that cute DIY planter made out of an old grill,” special time. Okay?

[note color="#CCEDED"]I will say this, though, Pinterest… Thanks for inspiring this. It’s super cute. And I can’t say that I haven’t thought about doing the same thing (read: snatching scarves and earrings off strangers). [/note]

If you’d like, you can stalk me on Pinterest by visiting my collection of boards here.

Image Source.

I was re-inspired to write it when I saw this:

Now, for those of you that live under rocks or aren’t up-to-speed on your Internet Memes, this pizza place, a franchise of the local to Athens restaurant, Fox’s Pizza, used Pedobear in a social media post.

[note color="#B7E0E8"]Pedobear is an Internet meme that became popular through the imageboard 4chan. As the name suggests (“pedo” being short for “pedophile”), it is portrayed as a pedophilic bear. It is a concept used to mock pedophiles or people who have an interest in minors or jailbait. The bear image has been likened to bait used to lure children or as a mascot for pedophiles. (Source)[/note]

Oh, geez! Are you serious, guys? I think everyone is in face-palmed agreement that this was a pretty stupid mistake. It’s unclear who made this mistake over at Fox’s Pizza Den of Smyrna, but the picture has been removed from their Facebook page without mention.

I guess something that all of you out-of-work-social-media-managers should add to your resumes would be, “Well-versed in Internet Memes.”

It also reminded me of another flub, local to Athens restaurant Chops & Hops featured a Black and Bleu Burger and made light of Chris Brown’s physical abuse to Rihanna.

The jury is split on this one because, while it’s clear that it was not an intentional mistake, it was in poor taste. The owners of this restaurant probably lost some business, but many loyal fans cried, “Who cares? People are too sensitive.”

It doesn’t really matter where you sit on this issue, the fact of the matter is that the mistake (and all of the bad press) could have prevented with some education and a social media policy. The status in question with Chops & Hops, turns out, was posted by their chef! He probably knows more than anyone what goes on in the kitchen, but that doesn’t make him a qualified social media specialist!

It’s interesting to me that, in this case, the restaurant has chosen to keep the offending picture and comment up on their Facebook Page — I actually really love that they did that. It’s really commendable to take responsibility and keep your mistakes visible rather than sweep them under the rug like they never existed. It’s especially important in this screen-shot-era that you don’t pretend that the mistakes you’ve made never happened.

One final example, Atlanta-based Boners BBQ lost their cool when they were stiffed by a patron.

The only sound I can even hear in my head when I read this is whomp-whomp. What a mess! Of course, there’s always two sides to a story, but really when something like this goes down, I just want to go knock people’s heads together. Of all people to make this mistake, the OWNER?!

So what can we learn from these mistakes?

1. Hire Wisely. Just because someone knows how to create a status update on Facebook doesn’t mean they understand how to market your business there.
2. Think before posting. Set forward with a plan for your social media strategy, don’t just post whatever strikes your fancy.
3. Create a Social Media Policy. Here’s a simple tool to get you started, but take your policy to your lawyer and review it… Then update it as technology changes.
4. When the shit hits the fan, be the bigger person. It’s inevitable that, at some point, you are going to displease a customer. When this happens, pull up your big girl panties and take the high road even if you have to do it through gritted teeth. Bite straight through your lip and be the bigger person.
5. Take the time to learn a little, then delegate. You don’t have to know all the ins and outs of how to create content through social channels — that’s a job for your social media manager. But you do need to understand some social media basics in order to be a better boss and leader for your team.

What’s the worst social media mistake you’ve seen a business make?

Angelique of AFMarCom had a short but poingnant blog post in April about how Facebook Pages are RUN not made and it really got me thinking…

A lot of people come to me because they need design help — a cover photo or landing page for their Facebook Page — but they never come and take one of my workshops and they never really make an effort with these beautiful pages I’ve created for them…

It’s frustrating. But it happens a lot more than I would hope.

It got me thinking… Given that this is my chosen industry and I am deeply immersed in this culture, I have developed a sort of x-ray vision for social media fakers.

You know the type…

• They have a Pinterest account, but they haven’t pinned anything.
• They have a Twitter account, but they’re still sporting the “egg” profile picture.
• They have a Facebook Page but haven’t updated in ages.

Simply creating an online presence, though an important step, isn’t enough!

You have to develop a strategy and you can’t develop a strategy for something until you understand it and experience it.

Sounds simple, right? But I see it go wrong so, so often…

I often use tangible examples to illustrate the intangible concepts that are hard for some folks to understand — but here’s a thought: If you spent money one some beautiful business cards, had them professionally designed and printed on high quality stock… You really spent a lot of these cards and it shows. They’re beautiful.

But what if you never gave any of them out? What if you left them in the box and put them in a drawer and forgot about them?

Money wasted.

If you’re interested in learning more about your Facebook Page, WordPress site or just blogging in general, I would love to encourage you to check out my workshops (or heck, check out ANY workshops! There are free webinars all the time – Amy Porterfield is a GREAT source for webinars), do your research and figure out if using social media for your business even makes sense!

Social Media is a GREAT tool when you use it. But it isn’t a perfect fit for every business out there.

Take a look at your social profiles and figure out what you like about each, what you hate about each and figure out how you can use them to help you generate leads, close sales, make connections, provide better customer service and expand your reach!

Here’s a great post from Mashable.with a list of ten Lorem Ipsum generators. I’m shocked they didn’t include my favorite, Samuel L Ipsum, the Samuel Jackson Generator!

Others that didn’t make the list:

Hairy Lipsum

“Is your Latin lacking a certain rugged handsomeness?” Seriously, this is amazing. Who doesn’t love beards, amirite, Ke$ha?

Cupcake Ipsum

Using this ipsum generator will NOT make you fat. But it might make you hungry.

Beer Ipsum

The only safe way to consume massive quantities of beer at work.

Hipster Ipsum

“Do you need some dummy text? *sigh* Of course you do.” OMG, look at this hipster.

Fillerama

A filler text generator with quotes from Futurama, Star Wars, Dexter, Monty Python, Doctor Who, Arrested Development, The Simpsons. Need I say more?

Have a little fun with your web design… But it goes without saying, don’t forget to replace your dummy text once your site hits the streets. There’s not a lot that grates my nerves more than seeing sample copy on a live website!