Protect Your Blog or Website: The Five Basics

Now that you have your own blog or website, and you consistently post updates, the last thing you want is to be hacked. You could end up losing all of your hard work or worse; your followers could be reading incorrect information about you or your company!


Hackers attack sites every day.

The software Wordfence protected Wordpress blogs, websites and registers an average of 3218 attacks per minute against Wordpress just during the time I wrote this article.

Just last week, Wordpress sites were under big attacks thanks the Heartbleed Bug, and the volume of brute force attacks jumped from 3500 to peaking at 20,000 failed logins per minute. In this case it was revealed that the hackers were actually others infected websites. Read the article about this attack here.

This means two things. First it's better to be prepared and be protected against attacks. Second, your own blog or website can be used without your consent as a weapon against others websites, which can get you in lots of trouble  - including large bill from your hosting provider!

Here Are Some Basic Tips To Avoid These Troubles:

1. Your password! It seems obvious, but you need a difficult password to crack. Avoid using your birthday or pets name. Choose one with upper and lower-case letter, numbers, and a random punctuation mark. Change it frequently.

          **We also recommend using Dashlane to host all your passwords. It is a verified encryption service that lets you host and access all your passwords via your computer and/or app on your phone. You can also send them out to others via an email that will delete in 30 minutes - very James Bond style!

2. Allow only a few login attempts. Three is the magic number. You've probably seen this with your bank - if you can't log in after three attempts you are locked out.

3. Do not login to your website via an unsecured wifi. Public wifi (aka Starbucks) can be dangrerous as anyone on the network can see what you are doing. There are software VPN systems you can install such as Hamachi and Privoxy that will protect you when you are away from the home or office. 

4. It's worth it to buy and use anti-virus software. If you are still using PCs (ahem, Mac users here!), you really should have some sort of anti-virus on your computer. McAfee and Norton as always good programs.

5. Create a backup to save all your work. BACK UP! BACK UP! BACK UP! We can't say it enough! you can find how to do it right here.

Sources: Wordfence and Hayley Kaplan

Images: morguefile.com

Why Your Next Event Should Have A Tweet Wall

Social media is so intertwined into life and business, that I don't need to tell you it should be there for important events. In fact, blog posts are resorting to explaining how to DISCONNECT anymore. But, we'll save that for another time.

Today I am here to tell you why you're next event needs a tweet wall.

What is a Tweet Wall? 

Ever been to an event and seen a projector shining everyone's tweets in real time up on the wall while you listened to a boring finance speech? Weren't you more interested in watching the tweet wall? It's actually really easy, and really cheap to set up!

How To Set Up A Tweet Wall

1. Pick a #hashtag. You can't have a tweet wall without a hashtag, and hashtags help bring the conversation into one place. This past week I helped my sorority, Zeta Tau Alpha, set one up for their annual Zeta Day convention. We used the hashtag #nynjzetaday2014 if you want to follow it to see how it worked for us.

2. Pick a platform to host your tweet wall. There are lots of programs out there, and some of them are even free that will do a great job if you're hosting a simple, small event.

My recommendation? LiveTweetApp.com  They offer a free option, and it's only $40 to upgrade to their pro package for a 24 hour window. Having a weekend-long conference? They have options for longer days as well. They offer different layouts, and the option to "approve" all tweets before they go live on the wall. Trust us, you'll appreciate that when you ban porn from showing up in your ministries' weekend conference.

3. Post Photos. People LOVE to see themselves, so they're likely to use your tweet wall just because they want to see themselves up on the wall. Show them that their photos can some up on the wall too, and you're sure to get the ball rolling.

4. Incorporate a Contest. We set up 5 different categories to tweet about throughout the conference that got the attendees even more engaged - especially after they saw the first winner announced, plus come up to grab a prize! We made note cards that hosted the questions on the tables, and then posted on the wall when it was time to tweet about that specific question. We then had one moderator choose the "best tweet," snap a pic, and send it to the person running the podium, who would then announce it 10-15 later.

Technology is beautiful!

Why Use A Tweet Wall? Success Story: Zeta Day 2014

Want to go viral? Want to be trending? Get a room of people all together and tell them to tweet.

For Zeta Day, we had a room of over 700 collegiate and alumni from the New York and New Jersey area. We had over 800 tweets in only a few hours, and were trending in the US! Needless to say, Nationals were ecstatic that ZTA was getting some much attention - and from us!

We even had Zetas in Spain, Mexico, Seattle and Tennessee jump into the conversation.

Meet the behind-the-scenes crew! Jill, Anne, myself and Karlie. They always said, "it takes a village."

Looking to set up a successful tweet wall campaign? You can always ask us for our advice! Email stephanie@socialmindedmediagroup.com today!