Digital and Development

EXPERIMENTING

The whole point of this site was supposed to be as a development site where I could test out new things without causing havoc with my “real” websites.

What has actually happened is that I created the site and once in a blue moon, I use it to test out a plug in before I use it somewhere else.

I am a massive fan of the phrase “Do as I say and not as I do” I strongly believe that if you want to get better at something that you need to practice until you get good at it. Unfortunately I tend to do the complete opposite and have got into the habit of learning things on the fly, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it does mean that I’m prone to only doing things I already know how to do or trying to learn how to do things when I really don’t have the time (or patience) to learn how to do things.

So today I’m making a conscious effort to try out Elementor here on my development site before I actually want to use it elsewhere.

Not sure how I’m feeling about it yet, I’ve had lots of bad experiences with page builders in the past, some of that is down to them and some of it is clearly down to me.

So here goes.

If nothing else this little 10 minute exercise has reminded me of how difficult it is to build websites when you don’t really have anything to say or any plan on how you’re going to say it.

Overall I’d say that this is a useful little tool but I should probably decide on something real to use it for.

USING MY AFRO TO ILLUSTRATE SUCCESS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

By Claire Worthington Leave a Comment

If you know me offline, you’ll be well aware that my hair changes on a regular basis. If you know me online then you’ll probably know that I post a random selection of content on different platforms from time to time and that most of that content gets a minimal response. Most of the things I post get no response whatsoever (unless you count spam), nor should they, most of it isn’t worth responding to. The majority of my posts aren’t for any form of commercial gain so it doesn’t matter, but from time to time my afro highlights the basics of how to be successful on social media.

First things first, the only way to guarantee how many people will see your posts on social media is to pay the social media companies to show them to a specific number of people. If you really want people to see your Facebook posts, tweets or Instagram posts then you have to pay Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Ignore what an assortment of random people will tell you, that folks is a cold hard fact.

At this point, I’m sure you’re wondering what any of this has to do with my hair and when we’re getting to get onto social media and the lessons my hair can teach you. Posting things on the internet does not mean that anybody will see it. Some people will see it, lots of people might see it, but if you need people to definitely see it, it will probably cost you money. OK now that we have that out of the way, lets get back to my hair!

I have occasional spikes in the popularity of my online posts. I recently changed my hair and posted a picture on Facebook. That post generated 108 likes, which is considerably more than most of the things I post. The last big spike was my graduation and the time before that, was the last time I changed my hair and posted a picture on Facebook.

First rule of social media – choose the right audience. My personal audience on Facebook is made up of my family and friends. There are very few people on this earth who care how my hair looks, but of the tiny percentage of this planet’s inhabitants that do care, almost all of them are in my Facebook friends list.

I have very few hard and fast rules in my life, one of them is that I won’t be Facebook friends with people that I don’t know in real life and wouldn’t be willing to spend a couple of hours in a pub / coffee shop with. It’s a pretty simple rule, but it works for me and means that everybody on my Facebook friends list is a genuine friend / relative that I actually like. There are a few people on there that I wouldn’t want to be trapped in a lift with, but there isn’t anybody that I don’t like and that as far as I know doesn’t like me. This means that when I post things on my Facebook wall I’m sharing things with people who have a genuine relationship with me. The perfect audience. It’s highly unlikely that your business will find an audience as devoted as my friends and family but the key point is to steer well clear of the scatter gun approach.

There is a popular expression in digital marketing “Content is King” which has since been updated to include a secondary phrase “but Engagement is Queen” Creating interesting content is the starting point. It should go without saying that what you post, needs to be of interest to your audience. Boring irrelevant content is always a bad idea. If it doesn’t pass the “so what” test then it probably needs a rethink. “Claire’s new hairdo” passes the test of being at least mildly interesting to my selected audience. My relationship with “my audience” means that they are willing to engage with me online. Which in real life, means that when some of my friends see the picture of my new hairdo, that they “do something”, they click the like button, they comment, they post emojis and gifs, all of which signals to Facebook that this post is of interest. Once Facebook decides that my post is of interest, they show it to more of my Facebook friends and those friends engage with the post by liking and commenting etc.

As a web developer, I primarily work with small businesses, most of whom are using social media as a part of their business and most of whom are not seeing results. A lot of this is due to confusion about how Facebook works, especially for small businesses. If 100 people like your Facebook page, that does not mean those 100 people will see everything you post. The fact that Facebook is “free” leads people to think that it’s cheap way to market their business and it can be, but if you need 100 people to see your posts then the only way to guarantee that is to pay Facebook to show your posts to 100 people and more importantly, to pay Facebook to show your posts to the right 100 people. There is a lot of misinformation about Facebook and how it works, but as most of that has nothing to do with my hair, I’ll leave that for another day.

VILLAGE WEB COMPANY

By Claire Worthington Leave a Comment

Village Web Company is the name of my business. I primarily build websites for small local businesses but I also offer help with social media, digital marketing, SEO or anything that involves a computer. My customers vary a lot and I’m lucky enough to have built websites for shops, charities and even a junior football team. Being a small business I understand the pressures they’re under and whenever I can, I try to steer them in the right direction and most of them take my advice – eventually!

When I originally set up my business I traded under the name WorthyOnTheWeb as that’s how I’m generally known online, but after a while I decided to rebrand as the Village Web Company. I wanted something that sounded more professional and that didn’t necessarily limit the business into simply being a solo pursuit. It was hard to imagine my felt tip pen sketches and personal nickname being used for any employees I might have one day.

After a lot extremely poor quality DIY branding, I eventually engaged somebody to redesign my logo. As part of the rebrand, I also purchased some digital artwork. The decision to buy the Village Web Company artwork was probably one of the best business decisions I’ve ever made. I’m not a graphic designer and although I’ve managed to master most of the tools, it still takes me longer than I’d like and I’m not always happy with the end result. For a very reasonable amount I bought the image, including a commercial licence. In less than an hour I was able to download the image, edit the skintone, upload the finished result to my website and order my business cards. It would have taken me at least a day to create that image from scratch, it wouldn’t have been an original idea and the end result wouldn’t have been as professional. Artists add little touches that the rest of us don’t and there are times when it’s worth paying for that expertise.

I create the artwork for the Suburban Afro website myself, primarily as a way to improve my skills and I developed the cartoon me, with some inspiration from a number of Illustrator tutorials I found online. I’m happy to pick and choose when I create my own artwork and when I support other artists by paying for their work, it all depends on the project. It took me a long time to get the hang of the pen tool so I’d hate to lose the skills I worked so hard for.

WORTHYONTHEWEB

By Claire Worthington Leave a Comment

Although this website is dedicated to complaining about my hair, along with the occasional epiphany about actually having nothing to complain about, online I’m generally better known as WorthyOnTheWeb. I build websites for a living and SuburbanAfro was a project I started because I wanted to experiment with some WordPress themes and wanted a blog to play with. I have several personal websites and blogs dotted around the internet, most of which need to be updated including the WorthyOnTheWeb website.

WorthyOnTheWeb was a “temporary” name I came up with for a Twitter account I set up in 2010. When I first started working in digital I was advised to get on Twitter, which turned out to be great advice. It’s a brilliant source of information, contacts and inspiration for anybody working in web development or digital marketing. I already had an existing Twitter account which I set up in 2008 when somebody I barely knew fell for the “invite all your contacts to join Twitter” ruse regularly employed by the platform but I decided to start a new account with the intention of separating my personal and professional social media. Aside from the extra work of maintaining an additional personal account, it just feels more authentic to maintain a single presence most of the time. I’m already responsible for managing a number of branded social media accounts, so multiple personal accounts is a step too far. As a sole trader it’s hard enough to separate yourself from your business, especially if you are the only employee. When I started my own web development business I decided to use WorthyOnTheWeb for my business name, used some had drawn cartoon artwork and created a blog designed for small business owners without a digital background.

I eventually decided to rebrand my business as Village Web Company and maintain the domain as a personal site. I have a few ideas but my to do list is quite long at the moment so it might take a while before I get around to updating it.

My original Twitter account is still there and occasionally retweets things, the Suburban Afro Twitter account exists mainly to publicise blog posts (and test out social media tools) so if you are genuinely interested in the random thoughts I tweet on the train or the things I care enough about to publicly comment on, then feel free to follow me on Twitter as WorthyOnTheWeb.

IN DISGUISE

By Claire Worthington Leave a Comment

For the next few days the site is going to look a little bit different.

I built this site on WordPress and there have been a couple of updates which mean that the theme which controls how this website looks has changed – and not in a good way. It’s the digital equivalent of dying your hair blonde and having it turn green!

So until I finish rebuilding it, I’m going to have to go with something safe and plainish. Technically this shouldn’t take very long but when you’re self employed you can’t leave your clients waiting whilst you update your own blog so it might take a while.

WEB DEVELOPMENT STUFF

By The Suburban Afro Leave a Comment

As I hope I’ve made fairly clear, this blog isn’t designed to offer you a host of life changing hair and beauty tips.

I build websites for a living. I offer other digital services too, but the majority of the day job is building websites for people. I retrained as a mature student a few years ago and quickly discovered that learning web development is a process that never ends. You don’t start with a list of things and when you’ve learnt them all you’re done. The things on the list change and there are always new things being invented and developed and therefore there are new items being added to the list. If you want to stay up to date you have to continually keep working. It’s a little like trying to tidy your house whilst throwing a massive house party.

I don’t believe in experimenting with the work that I do for clients and I just can’t bring myself to spend hours building imaginary websites, so the best solution appeared to be that I should create real sites that I could be creative with. Since joining the digital industry I have invested in an assortment of different tools, some I feel I’ve mastered, some were a waste of time, money and energy and have already been abandoned. There are others that I use on a regular basis without fully utilising all their capabilities. The Adobe Creative Suite falls into this bracket. Like most people I prefer to do things I’m already good at, but if you want to get good at something you have to work at it. I’m finally at a stage with the Pen Tool where I’m winning most of the time but I wanted to get better so I’ve personally created all the artwork for Suburban Afro. It’s tempting to stick to doing things you’re already quite good at but if you want to get better then you need to put the hours in, work a bit harder and show the world what you’ve been doing. Suburban Afro is a chance for me to do all that and it also gives me the chance to get all my hair complaints off my chest as a bonus.

I’m getting new ideas all the time and noticing little things on the site that I need to tweak. The look of the site will change a little over time as I adapt things but primarily it’s about experimentation. I used this blog to test things, such as uploading a site I’ve built locally, instead of always working on live installations hidden with plugins. None of these things are particularly big, but they might have been if they’d gone wrong with a client site during an installation. I’m a massive fan of WordPress but I’ve barely touched the surface so far so I’m looking forward to getting my hands dirty and doing more with it.

I have a notebook full of half written blog posts which will go live over the next few weeks and I’ll continue to work on the WordPress theme. This blog is primarily an opportunity for me to develop my digital skills but the relationship I have with my hair will always provide me with content.