This is a first of maybe some more posts about dealing with the “social” elements of your business. When I jumped into this social media role at The Ink Kitchen a couple years ago I wasn’t really aware of what I was getting myself into. Take some photos and post them somewhere “online”, right? Yeah, something like that. Right down the rabbit hole.

Since The Ink Kitchen is a blog (and so much more) I had to learn to work with WordPress, which is a really common platform for all kinds of informational sites. I don’t code much but I do choose and install plug-ins, which don’t always play well with each other. Everything was going fine here until some hacking happened and then I quickly had to learn how to secure the site without getting ripped off by someone selling expensive solutions. I knew there were reasonable options out there and I decided on using WordFence. I liked it so much that we even ponied up for a premium subscription for a really reasonable price. I consider it essential. Safety first, and all that.

Some other things I consider essential are post notifications sent out to subscribers, our viewer stats and a whole bunch of other cool stuff that gets taken care of by Jetpack. I wasn’t very happy when new post notifications stopped going out. I talked to Wordfence support and Jetpack support and some other people that Jetpack support told me to talk to. I got some temporary fixes but every week or so the notifications just stopped going out. I tried setting up other plugins but they didn’t work. I kept sending out annoying test posts to hundreds of people (sorry). It was a drag. But sometimes perseverance finally saves the day. On my fourth go-round with Jetpack customer support I finally got the info I need to actually fix the problem myself, rather than be told the problem was with someone else’s product. Perseverance is strength.