Blogging for Election – Top Tips
When we set up blogminster.com, I spent quite a lot of my time trawling through MP websites and blogs. Of the hundreds of websites, some were good, some were bad and one stood out for (unwittingly) containing links to prescription drugs.
I thought it might be useful to share some insights as to how to campaign using blogs. These observations combine industry best practice with specific observations following our review of hundreds of politician websites.
Top tips
1. Think carefully about your audience before you even start
When professionals design a website, they start with the "personas" of their target audience: Who is it that they want to target and why. This may sound like stating the obvious, but too many politicians think that a blog is a place for their ramblings or worse: their press releases.
Examples of groups you would be writing for:
- CONSTITUENTS AND VOTERS
- THE MEDIA
- Your title should contain a hook, to lure the reader in. Think of it this way: if anyone wanted to quote your blog post on twitter, they would only use the title and a link back to your blog. If that were the case, would readers find it interesting enough to click on?
- Think story. Is there something in your blog post that is interesting enough to be quoted by a newspaper? Is there a human element to a story that can make it more accessible and interesting?
You've doorstepped, distributed pamphlets, got photographed with the needy, but what would your constituents think of you if they bought into your campaign and wanted to learn more about you? If you had a good conversation over a cup of tea with Mr Doe, and he decides to check you out, what will he find about you online that would encourage him to support your campaign?
Mr Doe is likely to ask two key questions:
- What do you stand for? What are your policies, especially on local issues and those relevant to him. Are you going to represent him and his views? Are you going to do good? Your general policy views are also important - they convey the full picture, and the background to who you are politically - and whether you deserve his support.
- What kind of person are you? This is where the personal touch comes in. Blog entries about topics that show that you are of substance as a person besides your politics. Would Mr Doe think you are a person of substance and integrity? Can he relate to you? Can he trust you?
If you want your blog entry to be quoted and mentioned, it needs to be engaging. On the Internet, readers tend to scan content, rather than read everything. If the title to your piece is not engaging, they won't follow through to the body. If the first paragraph is boring, they are likely to go elsewhere. Attention spans online are fleeting, and journalists on the lookout for interesting stories are bombarded by too much inane information.
Some key points to getting it right:
2. Create relationships through your blog
For many voters, your blog would be a place they visit once, but if you write well and often, and make your posts interesting, you can create a readership. When your blog becomes a popular read, not only do people engage with you and feel like they have a relationship with you, they also spread the word.
3. Make sure your blog gets exposure. Don't expect people to just come to your blog by virtue of it being there. They won't. You need to take steps to publicise it.
- Make sure you write often, and at least 2-3 times a week (more is better). Google ranks popular blogs higher and better than those that are less active.
- Ensure that every one of your entries gets Twittered. Some blogging platforms allow you to automate this process
- Ensure that your blog is search-engine friendly. Some blogging platforms provide Search Engine Optimisation steps automatically, for example by adding keywords to each entry, and notifying search engines whenever you've written a new post.
- Get other bloggers and websites to link to you. This is another way not only to generate traffic, but also to increase your visibility on search engines.
Ways to increase your blog's popularity:
4. Create a multi-blog campaign
This is a little more sophisticated, but can work extremely well if there is a group of people campaigning together or alongside each other - or the volunteers/staff of a campaign are available to launch their own blogs. You launch several blogs and Twitter accounts that engage in debate with each other and with external websites, cross referencing and highlighting relevant post. If this is done well, and in an engaging way, the campaign itself can start to generate a following, and with it exposure. Of course wit and good writing cannot be guaranteed, but if you are passionate about the issues, it will often come across and engage your readership.
5. Don't get your nephew/niece/neighbour/friend to design a blog for you. Design disasters are often left unobserved by their grateful victim, but are not appealing to the wider audience. The reason we launched a free political blogging platform was, to a large extent, because we saw quite a few such disasters.
6. Be yourself. This may sound like it flies in the face of all the elaborate tips above, but actually it doesn't. When you write from an honest place, it often shines through, and you come across as more accessible and more genuine.
7. And finally - don't delay. The earlier your blog is out there, the more popular it becomes. It takes time to build a readership. Get one going now.
* Danny Dagan is founder of blogminster.com. He has fifteen years of new media experience, including as Head of Online Communities for News Group Newspapers, Web Consultant to the European Bank and Senior Product Manager at Freeserve.
I first published this article here.
Problems for RackSpace Cloud users with WordPress after migration
This is a very specific technical entry for WordPress users of the RackSpace Cloud (formerly Mosso), who have been part of the big migration on that platform today.
This would be boring and incomprehensible to anyone else...
We'll start with the easy part:
FOR USERS OF THE WP-DBMANAGER PLUGIN
There is a red alert that shows up on the dashboard for users of the wp-dbmanager plugin.
The alert reads
Your backup folder MIGHT be visible to the public To correct this issue, move the .htaccess file from wp-content/plugins/wp-dbmanager to (your specific path).
Firstly: don't panic. It's a false alarm. When RackSpace migrated your file to a new path, they ran an automated script to change any hard-coded references from the old absolute path to the new one. Unfortunately this script did not catch any entries in the database, and plugins that wrote the path to the db were still looking for the old path.
In this case the trusty WP-DBManager plugin was baffled, because it looked for an .htaccess file in the old path backup folder and couldn't find it, therefore sparking an alert.
To fix this, all you need to do is uninstall the plugin through the Database button (DATABASE tab on the left hand nav - choose the uninstall option - NOT through the plugin menu) and then reactivate the plugin from the plugins tab as usual. This should remove the alert and bring things back to normal. Finally, check that all the settings are as they should be.
DATABASE SEARCH AND REPLACE
Unfortunately there are likely to be other functions and plugins that write absolute paths onto the databse. The implication is that you have no choice but to either run a sql script that replaces the old path with the new path EVERYWHERE (not just in one table) - if anyone knows what that script would be, please add it as a comment. It's too late at night here for me to find out.
Otherwise the good old way still works:
1. Back up your DB (don't do anything before you do this!).
2. Download a copy of the database, open with a text editor, replace all old paths with the new.
3. Restore the corrected database.
4. Test.
Guardian jobs site hacked – personal data compromised (and who else is at risk?)
The Guardian has written to users of its jobs website tonight, informing them that the Guardian Jobs site has been hacked into, and that their personal information may have been compromised.
Unfortunately the Guardian did not say which information this applies to, and left you assuming uploaded CVs were at risk, but unsure if your username (email) and password were also vulnerable.
Is the problem limited to The Guardian?
It is worrying that the same software used to power Guardian Jobs, provided by Madgex, is also used by several other mainstream recruitment sites including, among others The Times, The Sun, The Manchester Evening News, Trinity Mirror titles, Cima, emap and Haymarket (full list here). There is no word yet whether these other sites have also been affected.
Weird wording
What no doubt baffled users of the site who received the warning email was the following statement explaining precautionary measures they should take: “Contact a credit reference agency: Callcredit, Equifax or Experian provide suggested steps to resolve the situation and prevent it happening again.” It is not clear why the Guardian thinks a user can “prevent it happening again”. Presumably by being careful and not submitting personal information on sites such as Guardian jobs? Shirking responsibility?
The wording of the email sent out by the Guardian today:
24 October 2009
Security breach – Guardian Jobs
We learned yesterday evening that the Guardian Jobs website has been targeted by a sophisticated and deliberate hack, which has breached the security of the data on the site. You have used the site to make one or more job applications and we believe your personal data, relating to those applications, may have been accessed.
We are absolutely committed to the privacy of our users, and would like to assure you that we are treating this situation with the utmost seriousness. The matter has been reported to the police, who are now undertaking a full investigation through the police central e-crime unit at New Scotland Yard.
The supplier who runs the site has identified the manner in which it was hacked and taken steps to prevent a recurrence.
We have no reason to believe that any financial or bank data was compromised in this incident. However the police advise that those whose personal data may have been stolen in this way should take a number of precautionary measures. These are outlined below:
1) Contact your creditors, even if they have not been affected, so that they can monitor your accounts to ensure they remain protected.
2) Contact a credit reference agency: Callcredit, Equifax or Experian provide suggested steps to resolve the situation and prevent it happening again.
3) Contact CIFAS protective registration: If you think you have been a victim of identity theft you should consider subscribing to CIFAS. This places a notice on your credit file indicating that your name and address may be used to perpetrate identity fraud.
In addition the following websites are sources of useful information:
www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/
www.stop-idfraud.co.uk
www.banksafeonline.org.uk
www.getsafeonline.org
We will continue to work with the police whilst the investigation is carried out. Please refer to the following page for updates:
jobs.guardian.co.uk/securityupdate.html
Please do not reply to this e-mail.
UPDATE on 25 October: I’ve received a response from Simon Conroy, CEO of Madgex, the company that provides The Guardian with its jobs site, as follows:
We can confirm that hackers accessed the personal details from some job seeker CVs on our client's recruitment website, Guardian Jobs, on Friday 23 October.
We are not aware of any other Madgex-operated website having been targeted in this way, but we have taken preventative measures to ensure the same issue cannot occur with other client Job Boards.
Madgex has an excellent security record and we are continually reviewing our systems and comply with industry standard practices. Unfortunately, no site can ever be warranted as 100 per cent safe from concerted and technologically sophisticated criminal hackers.
This situation has been treated with the utmost seriousness and Guardian Jobs has contacted all those affected by this security breach, advising them of precautionary measures they can take. Madgex and Guardian Jobs are supporting the relevant authorities with their investigations.
Analytics based sales – brilliant or creepy?
Has analytics-based sales taken a step too far?
I got the following contact through Linked-In:
The reason why I contacted you is that our marketing analytic tools indicated that somebody at (name of my client – ThatDanny) spent a considerate amount of time on our website informing himself about our products and services. I would like to take this opportunity to help answer any questions you might have concerning our products and services. Can we schedule a call to discuss this or would you be able to point me in the right direction to who would be the most appropriate person to reach out to?
Earlier that day I had gone onto the company’s site, to look at some of their products. I was on site at a client’s office, and they noticed my visit, and found through Linked-In that I consult to that client and then made contact with me.
I am not quite sure whether to be creeped out or impressed by the way this company uses analytics. They work with a tool called Leadlander from a company based in San Francisco. According to its own literature “Leadlander provides invaluable information for your sales people to determine which companies are actively interested in your product offerings, how they reached your web site, and what aspects of your product offerings they’re most interested in researching. “
As I am interested in the use of technology, I wasn’t that taken aback by this approach, but given the sensitivity to user behaviour tracking, I think companies should take extra care that this sort of use does not backfire – which, knowing how many senior executives would react, it most certainly could.
European Bank (EBRD) ventures into blogging
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has launched a blog which is described by the bank’s Communications Director Reijo Kemppinen as an opportunity “to build dialogue, share knowledge and exchange lessons learnt in an informal forum.”
The first article, by Chief economist Erik Berglöf, describes how the global financial crisis has changed the bank’s operations, and sets the tone for analysis and future articles to come. Four bloggers are currently signed-up to contribute to the blog, and others are planned to follow, to ensure a constant flow of articles.
The blog was created for the bank by digital consultancy Blogminster Media, which is also advising EBRD on its digital strategy. Danny Dagan, Director at Blogminster Media said: “to succeed, a corporate blog not only has to look good and work well, it also needs to have something interesting to say. The illuminating point about the European Bank launching a blog now is that it obviously sees a need to communicate more openly with its stakeholders at a time when financial markets and their players have such high visibility.”
Internet Filtering in the United Arab Emirates- What you see if you hit a forbidden site
The full list of prohibited content is here. Removal requests for the UAE firewall can be submitted here.
Desert safari in Dubai/UAE – tips and our experience
Desert safari in Dubai: which company to choose, what's included, staying overnight and dune bashing.
We went on a desert safari in the UAE in April 09, which included an overnight stay at a desert encampment. Here are some tips and highlights from our experience:
At around 3pm, we got picked up in Dubai by a driver in a sturdy four-wheel-drive, and headed north into the desert.
QUAD BIKE STOP
Our first stop was a tourist trap "farm" where you can hire a quad bike and go crazy on the dunes (15 minutes = AED150 [roughly £30/$45, at the time of writing]). We did, and it was great fun. Naturally, you have to sign a waiver before you start ("no insurance is included and you are liable for anything that happens to you"). There are the usual tourist tat shops and this is also where the drivers deflate their tyres a little to prepare for the dune bashing that comes next.
DESERT SAFARI - DUNE BASHING
If you aren't sure what the guides mean by desert safari, then this is the main part of it. The drivers from the various companies make a bee-line for the big Tatooine-style sand dunes, and then let loose their inner boy racer. The idea is to slide, leap, bash and surf the dunes in their four wheel drives until all their passengers get motion sickness and are ready to stop for a photo-opportunity. The experience is a bit like being on a roller-coaster without the safety features, and at an angle that looks like the car is going to roll-over. You are either an adrenaline junkie and love it, or you're not and you love the moment when it's over. This goes on for a while, with various stops, and then you head for camp.
ARABIAN ENCAMPMENT AND DINNER
We liked the camp. Just be aware that If you're expecting an authentic Arabian Nights experience this isn't it. In true Emirates fashion, the locals have delegated their cultural heritage to migrant workers, and so, even the hosts dressed in traditional dishdashas were more likely to speak better Urdu than Arabic. Our driver told us there were two main encampments serving the desert safari tourists: the one we went to (about 45 minutes out of Dubai) and one that's smaller and closer. The camp had the usual tourist amenities: take your picture on a camel or in traditional dress, have a henna tattoo, smoke the shisha, buy tat and get repeatedly approached by the man selling fake Rolexes and his friend who will absolutely write your name in sand in a bottle. Apart from the tat and alcohol at the bar, everything is free in the camp, and following the coffee and shisha, you get served a fairly sumptuous barbecue dinner, which is followed by a sword-wielding belly dancer show (about 20 minutes).
Overall, I would say there were about 200 visitors in the camp.
Once the show is over, the various tour groups depart, and within a short time, the whole place empties leaving only those who are on the overnight safari.
SHOULD I STAY OVERNIGHT AND SLEEP AT THE ENCAMPMENT?
Probably not. As everyone else left and only the three of us remained (along with camp staff who were busy clearing up the tables and preparing the encampment for the next day's tourist herd), we pondered the virtues of staying overnight. On reflection it was good that we were the only ones left. Apparently fifty people stayed on Saturday night, and I couldn't imagine they got much sleep, sharing the same tent space with young children and snoring adults. The idea is that you are given a sleeping bag and a space in a closed tent area, to sleep among the carpets and cushions. Despite the beautiful night sky outside, this isn't the most comfortable of sleeping arrangements. The generator noise stays constant all night, there are mosquitoes aplenty and the sleeping bags aren't the cleanest. You are awoken sometime between 6am and 7am and given a tray of breakfast (scrambled eggs, sausages, bread, jam, Lipton’s tea and instant coffee), and ushered out afterwards. We were then driven back to where we were staying in Dubai.
Verdict: there's no real point in paying extra and staying overnight, as all you get is an uncomfortable sleep, that's not too authentic or exciting, and despite the brochures talking up an extra trip the next day, we already covered that part the previous day, so the stay was sort of pointless.
If you do decide to stay overnight make sure you take the following with you:
- Ear plugs (to help you sleep against the backdrop of generator noise)
- Toilet paper (the toilets are wash-your-bum style, and do not have any loo paper in them)
- Mosquito repellent (trust me, you'll need it)
- Some clean sheets (if you don't like the idea of a slept-in sleeping bag).
WHICH SAFARI COMPANY SHOULD I USE?
Based on our experience, I would say that most companies follow exactly the same route, stop in the same places and end up in the same encampment. Along the route and while dune bashing, there were some 15-20 different companies going to exactly the same places and stopping for exactly the same photo-opportunities, so it's likely that you would end up on the same trail. If you've had a significantly different experience to what's described here, by all means do leave a comment at the bottom of this article for the benefit of others.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
The overnight desert safari experience cost us AED450 each (around £80/$120), which included the dinner and breakfast. for the whole thing without the overnight stay we were quoted AED175-275 (£30-£50/$50-75) depending on the company and extras.
WOULD YOU RECOMMEND IT?
Absolutely. If you want to get a real sense of the sandy desert dunes, and aren't sick on roller-coasters, it is highly recommended. If you like the adrenalin rush you'll love it even more. I wouldn't really stay overnight if I did it again, but that's all part of the adventure.
What to do if your Hotmail account got hacked – the recent spate of attacks on Hotmail accounts
If your friends and contacts have received an email or IM message from your Hotmail account with wording along the lines of "I would like to introduce a good company who trades mainly in electronic products... etc" - it is highly likely that your Hotmail account has been compromised.
IF YOU ARE THE POOR SOUL THIS HAPPENED TO, THEN YOU SHOULD READ ON AND FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS ARTICLE.
In most cases when a spam email is sent in your name to someone else, the spammer doesn't need access to your account. All they need to do is spoof your email address - i.e. make it look like it was sent from you. That's very simple to do, and is very common.
However, the latest spate of spam from Hotmail accounts is different in that the attackers actually hack into your Hotmail account and then do some or all of the following things:
- They send a spam email to all your contacts.
- They may send a spam IM message to all your Messenger contacts
- They may delete all your Hotmail contacts
- They may set your autoresponse (the one you set when you go away) to send this spam message
- They may set your email signature to include the spam message
You know that they have hacked into the account because you can see clearly that they have sent an email from it to all your contacts, or even an instant message. They would not be able to do this if they did not have access to the account.
HOW IT HAPPENS
I don't have a definitive answer, but I do have a theory which, based on the evidence, looks likely. If your password is a common name or a word that appears in a dictionary, then your account is vulnerable, even if it has a year of birth or number attached to it.
This is how the hackers do it:
- They employ an automated script that is fed your Hotmail address and then goes to work./li>
- It feeds the entire dictionary and common passwords and names into Hotmail one by one, trying to log in.
- After several attempts Hotmail "locks" the account and present a CAPTHCA (i.e. a string of wonky letters and numbers that are supposed to stop scripts from doing exactly that, because only a human can read these letters, supposedly).
- Unfortunately the CAPTCHA method no longer stops scripts, because hackers have found ways around them. One of those ways works by using sophisticated character recognition software that can read the wonky letters. Another is to feed the letters to "CAPTHCA farms" - the letters are fed to human users, employed by the hackers to read and enter CAPTCHAS, and they are often paid by the number of CAPTCHAs they enter (for example 1 cent per entry). This becomes viable financially if the spam is part of a bigger scam. The scale of the deception means it makes more money, especially because people are much more likely to trust spam messages sent by their friends. This achieves greater returns for the hackers and means they can attack many accounts, bypassing email security systems.
- Sometimes the scripts do their work over days, and sometimes weeks, to escape being caught by Hotmail's attack detection systems.
There are of course other ways for hackers to achieve this kind of attack, such as spyware on your computer, or you being deceived by a rogue website. My instructions below would help you tackle these as well.
WHAT SHOULD I DO IF MY HOTMAIL ACCOUNT GOT HACKED?
Go through the following steps, one by one:
1. Before you do anything else, change your Hotmail account password to something very safe. Not a dictionary word or name, or even a word and numbers. Use symbols such as $ and & in your password, and make it long. I know it is difficult to remember, but if you don't want to be hacked, you'll have to start using strong passwords.
2. Now check that your autoresponse and email signature on Hotmail do not have any spam text added to them, as this would go out to your contacts automatically.
3. Then check that your computer does not have spyware or viruses, by following the instructions here.
4. From now on keep your passwords safe, and be extra careful when using public computers (such as those in Internet cafes). If in doubt - change your passwords.
5. You may want to alert Hotmail support to the problem. It seems to be happening all over the place, and the more they know about it, the better it is for their efforts to address it.
And please note: if for some strange foolish reason you decide to go to the site advertised by the spammers, and you are even more foolish and decide to buy something on it, don’t be surprised if it never arrives. This is a well known scam, and you will never get your goods, you muppet.