Policies are a good thing when used properly. They set out the rules on how you are going to regulate what you are doing. One thing I also believe in is being upfront with people. This helps may be up front. By reading my comment policy people now what to expect when they post a comment. They realize that certain comments for example personal attacks are prohibited.

I have a couple of people in past accuse me of censoring my comments. This is something I never do. I believe in HEALTHY discussions . I always have.  Personal attacks are not healthy nor is illegal activity in my comments. About a year ago I had someone tell me that were entitled to attack me personally. They are only 1 of 2 comments I have ever deleted as long as I have been blogging. My comment policy covered myself when this incident happened.

Posting policies can really bail you out on any blog. One of the key words are to use “These posts are in my opinion”. Legally you may never slander someone but these words have bailed me out of 3 law suits in the past year. I have a customer service blog and often write about bad service.  In all 3 cases I would have been fine because of I have included these words.  Big companies will often use law suits as a bully tactic. In my case I have never been able to be bullied.

Disclosure Policies are a must as well. One of the big reason’s I do is for integrity reasons. I believe in being upfront and honest with my readers/ I do not want someone to ever question why I posted an article. I believe in disclosing the companies and people who I work with in order to be honest and upfront with my community. For me being honest is a big part of who I am.

Having policies does not mean I am quick to enforce them all the time. It means I have something to fall back on when I need to.

Please share with us how you feel about policies on blogs by leaving a comment in the box below.

In terms of new software, one thing I always suggest is leave your self time to learn it properly. Take the time and use it on non production work to learn and get to know your software package well. All software packages have changes in how they do things. Depending on the package the learning curve can be small or it can be large.

Take Headway 3.x for example. The Visual Editor is more powerful then 2.x . It has be rewritten and changed. One reason it was done is because the community asked for more power. The minute you make a software package more powerful, the learning curve is higher. This is something to keep in mind. The more bells and whistles the higher the learning curve.

Every new package has it’s issues. I do not know of one version of Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Office that has zero bugs.  They key is to identify the bugs and learn to deal with them. All products are not 100% perfect.

Now many of us will go to a training class to figure out the new software package. When choosing a trainer I would suggest using one that has worked with the new package for a large amount of time. 10 hours just does not cut it. 10 hours on a new involved product does not make you an expert or a trainer. It makes you a user who has spent 10 hours learning a product. Choose your trainer wisely and carefully.

Now give yourself the time to learn the product. Do not get caught using a new version of any product when you have a tight deadline on your schedule. Learn it when your schedule is not so packed and you can learn it properly.

If you take this advice your experience with a new software product will be much better. Please share in the comment box below how you learn a new software product.

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Now a lot of people would argue that why do I need another comment system. The one that WordPress uses works fine. I agree for some people it might work fine. The biggest reason to use a comment system is COMMUNITY. When you use a comment system your comments now become part of a community. Is that not why we blog?  To build a community. Being part of a community will increase your blogs reach.

The 2nd reason to use a comment system is people who wish to comment can log in with their Face book or Twitter accounts. This makes it easy and they do not have to create another profile specific for your blog.

Comment systems often have some enhanced spam prevention tools. This helps keep the spam off your blog and will save you having to manually remove spam in the end.

Many people ask me which comment system I prefer. The one that I use is Livefyre. The support is great and Livefyre’s support staff really cares about their community. I have used Livefyre for over a year and I would not switch to any other comment system. It is the easiest and most robust of the comment systems that I use.

This is why I prefer a comment system.  Do you like to use a comment system on your blog. Please share with a comment below and tell us why you use a comment system or why you like WordPress native comments.

Headway 3.0 finally came out today. Check this video out:

Headway 3.0 from Headway Themes on Vimeo.

1. Having Social Media Sharing Widgets On Your Blog

Having social media sharing widgets on your blog is one of the best ways to have your content shared with other people. People are generally lazy and as a blogger if you want to have your content shared, you need to make it really easy. One of the easiest ways is to add social media sharing widgets to your blog. Some really good examples for WordPress are as follows:

a. Digg Digg
b. Sexy Bookmarks
c. Add This

The above 3 are examples of social media sharing widgets and ones that I really like to use.

2. Showing Where People Can Reach You On Social Media

One thing that is really important is to link your social media sites link back to your blog. The best way of doing this is by using a social media widget which has links back to the social media sites that you are on. Many themes such as Headway have social media icons built in. One of my favorite social media icon sets is Social Media Widget. I really like this widget since it has lots of built in options and room for customer options as well.

3. Conclusion

Making your blog social media friendly has many advantages. One of the big advantages is readers will be more likely to share your posts on social media sites. The other big reason is for people to link back to you on social media platforms. Social media is a great place to share and exchange information with others.

Is your blog social media friendly? Please leave your thoughts and comments below.