SELENE BROWN

CEID100

[selenebrown]

[selenebrown]

[selenebrown]

[selenebrown]

[selenebrown]

[selenebrown]

https://www.kaushik.net/avinash/tips-for-measuring-success-of-your-blog/

[selenebrown]

Learning to code, the fun way!

Growing up, I would spend hours on the internet during any downtime I had. I was able to teach myself Photoshop and became impressively good at it. Then I got into Tumblr and from there I was introduced to HTML coding. At the time, learning how to build an entire site from scratch was a pretty intimidating task from the looks of it. But, through trial and error I was able to make small changes to my blog site and when I got it right, I felt like a little coding genius. Ten years later, with lots of extra time due to the pandemic I decided to give it another try using codeacademy.com free coding lessons. The lessons are suer easy to follow and they make learning fun with little, easy-to-understand exercises within each lesson. Here are the badges I’ve earned so far in just a few hours!

Try it out! It’s fun and easy!

[selenebrown]

We all spend hours a day on the internet (probably more than we should), so it’s important that we build an online community that is welcoming and comfortable for everyone. Check out our quick PSA about Cyberbullying and learn about some helpful resources!

[selenebrown]

Elevator Pitchin’

On the road of entrepreneurship, sometimes we come across opportunities unexpectedly and we have limited time to make an impactful impression. In these moments, it can be hard to think of something on the fly, and our brains will go into overdrive trying to think of the right things to say. Those hindsight thoughts haunt you with all the things you should have or shouldn’t have said, but it all happened so quickly that you had no time to think. That’s where the elevator pitch comes into play.  Generally used for businesses, we feel that everyone should have an elevator pitch whether it is for your business or for yourself, because an elevator pitch is ultimately a sales pitch for you or your business. So we’re here to tell you a few things to help you along in writing your own elevator pitch.

Why is it called an elevator pitch?

The reason for the name is that your elevator pitch should be brief. Short enough that you could present it during a quick elevator ride, but still packed with all the crucial information in the most clear, enticing and memorable way.

What do you need to make an impressionable elevator pitch?

In order to make your elevator pitch stand out it should be 4 things: irrefutable, concise, understandable and greed inducing. We’ll go a little bit into detail about each of them.

Irrefutable: Don’t start your pitch with a question. Your pitch should begin with a statement of who you are and what it is that you do. This should explain your value proposition and why it’s important with the appropriate information or data to support your claims.

Concise: Your pitch should be short and simple. No shorter than 30 seconds but definitely under 2 minutes. Your pitch should only be about 3 sentences long describing who you are, what you do, and how the person listening can benefit.

Understandable: Your pitch should be easy to understand and easy to say. Both your grandparents and grandchildren should be able to understand what you are trying to explain. No need to fluff your pitch with big words, the goal is to get your statement across clearly.

Greed Inducing: With this, you want to express why you or your business is worth the risk of the investment. How the person will benefit, and why they should want to make the investment.

Here’s an example using Google to demonstrate what your statement should sound like:

Connect with us on Twitter and send us your elevator pitch. if it fits in a tweet, you’re already on the right track!

[selenebrown]

Who’s tracking you?

For many of us, being confined to our homes has blown our weekly “screen time” stats out of the water. With that, here at the blog, our curiosity has grown about our digital footprint and who has access to our data whenever we surf the web. So after recommendation from a trusted source, we came across Disconnect, a browser plugin that tracks, reveals and protects you from all the unintended sites you connect to while you’re browsing. After installation, we browsed quite a few different websites and were shocked at the results. From the websites we visited, Tumblr had the highest number of trackers, with 50 and counting. What we noticed from the results was that some of the connected sites were the main sources of the content that was posted on our feed, like YouTube, SoundCloud, Instagram, Wordpress, etc. 

This photo shows all 50 tracking sites that connected through our tumblr feed.

We also tested Google, because we thought that with all the information they have access to there would be tons of trackers connected. However, to our surprise Google showed 0 connections after searching a few different queries. So, give it try for yourself, find out what you’re connected to. Let us know what you find!

‘Til next time, keep up to date with our posts on Twitter!

[selenebrown]

Final Project Proposal

This week, we wanted to share with you our final project proposal. My partner, Randey and I thought that Netiquette was the perfect topic during a time when we are all relying so heavily on the internet to do so many things, from work, to school, to play and communicate. Click here to check out our presentation below and let us know what your thoughts are about Netiquette on Twitter, we’d love to hear from you!

[selenebrown]

Google’s Great, But it Gets Better

We’ve got the Google hacks you should know to improve your google search results

Thanks to Google’s constantly improving algorithm,  it’s probably been a while since you went to page 2 for a google search. But what a lot of people don’t know is there are things you can do to help you find exactly what you’re looking for even faster. Well, we’re here to tell you a few of them through some scenarios most of us have probably encountered.

Searching a definition

So, you’re on the internet and see someone in a pair of blue pants. You love them and hop on google to see if you can find them for yourself. But first, you need to narrow down what type of pants they are. You scroll through the comments and someone calls them “jeans”. What are jeans? And this is where your Google search begins.

Q: How do you find a definition on google? 

A: The best way to find a definition is to enter define: [insert query word]

Searching for an exact word or phrase

So let’s say you’re on a hunt for a pair of jeans, but not just any pair. You’re specifically looking for a light wash, high waisted, skinny jean. If you were to type that phrase into google, chances are you’ll get a lot of results but most will be missing one attribute or another. So how do you optimize your results to find exactly what you’re looking for? Well, that’s simple, add quotation marks. Typing in “light wash, skinny jeans” will prompt google to show you results that include all your search words, rather than just some. 

Searching for something on a specific site

If you also want to find those jeans on a specific site like Nordstrom for example, type in your word or phrase and add “site:[domain name]”. Which would look something like this: light wash, skinny jean site:nordstrom.ca

Searching for a specific product within a specific price range

Perhaps you’d like to find jeans within a specific price range. To do that, all you need to do is type “[product name][min. price]..[max price]” 

Your search should look like this:

Include or exclude words from your search

During your search you may want to include words in your search that Google wouldn’t necessarily look for. For example, maybe you’d like Google to show you results for the jeans you’re looking for on promotion. By adding a plus sign to the word promo, Google will show you results that also include promotions. Here’s what the search would look like

In the same sense, if there is something you don’t want to see during your search, for example distressed jeans, you can add a minus sign directly in front of the word and Google will omit results showing mens jeans. Your search would look something like this:

Be sure to put a space before the +/- symbol, but directly in front of the search word.

Searching for a specific filetype

Now, perhaps you’d like to know more history about jeans, and you’d like to find a pdf document you could download to your computer. To do this, you would enter “filetype:[insert filetype of interest]” followed by your search. In this case your search would look like this:

Finding pages or sites similar to existing ones

Typing in “related: [query]” will bring up results strictly related to what it is your searching. For example if you really like the jeans you found on the Fashion Nova site, you could enter “related: fashion nova jeans” and Google will gather all the pages related to fashion nova jeans, like similar fashion nova site pages or other relative pages on the world wide web.

Searching for pages containing two connected words

On your search for jeans you may decide that you’d like to also buy some tops to go with them. But you’d prefer if you could purchase both at the same time instead of from different retailers. So in order to get Google to show you results that include both, all you need to do is type both words into the search bar connected by the “+” symbol. This search requires no spaces and should look like this:

Confirming the exact form of a quote when you’re missing some words

This is a big one and one of our favourites because it is such a handy tool. We’ve all experienced a time when we hear a new song that we absolutely love but have no idea what it’s called. We then hop onto Google and try to type in every word that we remember. Well here’s how to do that to optimize your results. Type in as many words as you can remember and put an asterisk in place of any words you don’t. Here’s what it would look like:

This works just as well for quotes or any popular idioms or phrases.

Searching for social media content containing a specific tag

Commonly used across numerous social media platforms, the hashtag is a useful tool for your Google searches too. So after seeing some cute jeans on the fashion nova website, maybe you want to see what they look like on everyday people. All you need to do is type in #fashionnovajeans and you will generate a ton of results across different social media platforms related to this hashtag.

Now that you know all the best ways to Google, give it a try! Search for our #CEID100 hashtag on Google and from there join us for some Twitter fun and let us know if the google search worked. 

Until next time, cheers!  

[selenebrown]

Social Media Best Practices

Tips to building a strong online presence

("Should Likes Exist ?" 2019)

In a world that relies on the internet more and more each day, our brand presence, whether personal or professional, as well as proper online etiquette continues to grow in importance. Social media has ultimately become an extension of ourselves and our brands, and with that being said it is important that our identities online represent us in the best way possible. In this blog post we’re going to tell you our top 3 tips for social media best practices.

Tip #1: Be Aware

A key part of building your brand is identifying who your brand is, and who your brand is catered to. Knowing and understanding this information will guide other key decisions, such as what social platforms your brand should be present on in order to reach your audience, what types of content your brand should be generating, as well as how your audience communicates and receives information. In addition, knowing your brand also helps in creating a genuine and authentic brand personality and overall image online.

Tip #2: Be Consistent

It is important to connect with your audience on a consistent basis. Much like a real relationship, consistency helps build stronger bonds, and you want to build a relationship with your audience. You never want to give your audience the opportunity to forget about you, however you also don't want to annoy them either. Therefore, finding a balance between the two is key. Moreover, consistency is not just about how often you post but also about maintaining the same quality content  when you post, and wherever you post. This helps ensure that no matter where your audience finds you, they are able to recognize and connect with you in the same way.

Tip #3: Be engaged

Interacting with your community and relevant trends is the best way to grow your network and audience. Engagement also helps keep your brand top of mind. When it comes to social media, a simple like, share or comment is often reciprocated and can sometimes lead to virality. In the right light, this could be a major win for your brand from the smallest effort and zero costs. As well, keeping your audience engaged through interactive posts such as polls or a simple question in a caption can help drive impressions and reach for your brand.

So, try these tips out for yourself and let us know if you find them helpful by dropping a comment below or connect with us on Twitter. We’d love to know what you think! 

Cheers!

 References

Arruda, W. (2009, May). Personal Branding Guru, William Arruda. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6paItEm2AF4

Hoskins, G. (2020, May). Lecture 1 CEID100. Lecture 1 CEID100. Toronto.

“Should Likes Exist ?” Hacker Noon, 8 Sept. 2019, hackernoon.com/should-likes-exist-6fj9324d.