• Akismet
• Full Feed
• Feedburner Replacement
• Subscribe to Comments
• Ultimate Tag Warrior
• Sidebar Widgets

Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up…or catch you later

Monday 9:30 a.m. It’s time for a frank talk. And no, it can’t wait. We know, we know: Most of you are sick to death of blogs. Don’t even want to hear about these millions of online journals that link together into a vast network. And yes, there’s plenty out there not to like. Self-obsession, politics of hate, and the same hunger for fame that has people lining up to trade punches on The Jerry Springer Show. Name just about anything that’s sick in our society today, and it’s on parade in the blogs. On lots of them, even the writing stinks.

Continue Reading “Blogs Will Change Your Business“

Blogging 202

March 27, 2007 - Brent Spore

What is TCS?

Essential questions:
(1) What are the basics of WordPress?
(2) How can I begin to market my blog?
(3) What are some of the ‘best practices’ of blogging?

What’s your blog, URL & 30 second about speech?

Business Week article

Wordpress Basics
Basic overview of the administration and settings

Choosing a Theme
themes.wordpress.net

Essential Plugins
Akismet
Full Feed
Feedbruner Replacement
Subscribe to Comments
Ultimate Tag Warrior
Sidebar Widgets (Explain theme support)

Writing a post
Linking
More Link
Tagging

Notable Websites for blogging
Technorati
Digg.com
blogsearch.google.com
Blog Explosion
FeedBurner
MyBlogLog
ReviewMe
TextLinkAds
ProBlogger.com

Useful Applications for blogging
StumbleUpon
Google Reader

Best Practices
Relevent posts
Commenting
Participation in other blogs
Honesty & Integrity

Brief Recap Using Blog with Constant Contact (101)
TCS newsletter
Unique elements for each media form
Drive traffic back to your blog/site
Keep it short & Sweet

Homework
Post a Comment at The Creation Shop
Get the Wordpress 2 Book
Blog!

BLOGGING 202 NOTES

March 27, 2007 - Brent Spore

Welcome to TCS’ Blogging 202!

Essential questions that will be covered today:

1. What are the basics of Wordpress?

2. What are some creative ways to market my blog?

3. What are some of the ‘best practices’ of blogging?

Business Week Article

When blogging for your small business, keep in mind:

• Blogging is here to stay and is part of the social media revolution.
• Business blogging is about setting yourself up as an expert and providing useful and meaningful information for your audience.
• Understand the blogosphere and how it works for your business.
• Be knowledgeable. Have your staff blog but educate them in how to blog.
• Ping: Tracking what new blogs are up and coming.

Decision Time – Select a theme? Or have a custom design solution?

Option 1:
themes.wordpress.net – WordPress’ list of themes. Themes are free.
You just need either a simplified or a more robust hosting solution that has Apache w/ PHP & MySQL Database.
Option 2:
Have a design firm, like Synergy/TCS, create a custom-designed blog-driven website. The advantage to having a custom-designed blog is to reflect your business’ brand in your web-driven blog.

What makes a good theme?
• One that is Widget ready – Allows you to drag & drop widgets into the template & provides new functions of your blog. (Ex: sidebar Widget ready)
• Compliments your brand.
• Has the necessary page elements; ex: calendar, etc.
Where do I find Wordpress themes, if I don’t want a custom-designed solution?
http://themes.wordpress.net/

Admin for your WordPress blog:

Wordpress/ADMIN:
Once you have started your own Wordpress blog, familiarize yourself with the many admin features:

• At the bottom is Wordpress’ “dashboard” and news.
• Under “Latest Activity” - Latest posts where people have linked to your blog via their blogroll.

Misc:
-Blogroll – A list of links that you post on your website.
-Akismit – Regulates spam content, provided by makers of WordPress.

ADMIN/PRESENTATION TAB
Shows the available themes that you have previously chosen; you may change your theme instantly by selecting one here. You may have more than one theme here.

PLUGINS
There are 1000’s of plugins for WordPress blogs. There is a plug-in repository at:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins

Plug-ins every blog should have:
• Akismit – Spam bloger
• Full Feed – New version of WP supports this; Chops off article
• Feed Burner – Feed RSS through this
• Subscribe to Comments – If someone is looking at your post, they can subscribe to comments of a particular post. Every time there is a new comment, they receive an email.
• Ultimate Tag Warrior – You can tag your posts; You can get tag suggestions from Yahoo, etc. This helps with search engine searches and results.
• Sidebar Widgets – Can drag and drop information that is in your blog, to be on a side bar. Make sure to have a template that supports SideBar Widgets
• RSS feed widget

WRITING POSTS AND ADDING PAGES
What is the difference between a post and a page?
Post vs. Page – Posts get filtered into categories, are listed chronologically. Pages are static. Can turn the “reply” feature off on pages.

Admin/Write/WritePost:

Look at the options on the right-hand side:
• Add a category to this post, or create a new category
• Can password-protect
• Mark the status
• Change timestamp

Writing the post:
• Write a catchy, meaningful, and concise title
• There are WYSIWYG functions to help with edits
• Insert links, “break links”
• Break up your posts, so they don’t dominate your posting page
• Add the body/content of your post
• Hit publish!

Admin/Users
Users: Profile & Personal Options

What is the difference between Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org?
To be extremely brief:

(1) Wordpress.com – Free accounts; Go here if you are not familiar with blogging; Practice here; This can export out of .com & import; Allows you to do themes; Plugins

(2) Wordpress.org – Where you find the “installed version” of WordPress, i.e. you how on your own servers (or a server solution you find). Software & plugins are free, but you pay for hosting & set-up (if you need help in setting up your own Wordpress site); wordpress.org/download – where you can download a blog as a zip file; Can do custom designs; Can customize plugins; You have a lot more control over your blog.

WHERE TO GET IDEAS FOR POSTS

Places to get a birds-eye view of what people are talking about in the blogosphere to inspire writing and commentary:

Technorati – When you do a post, it sends a ping here
-It’s a great way to search for current information located on blogs
Blogsearch.google.com – Not a traditional google search listing; It is listed by most recent & updated information (It plays no favorites!)
-Helps with finding recent information on blogs
Digg.com – Submit your articles (posts) to this site to see if anyone will read it and “digg it”; If people continue to digg your post, it can help gain popularity for your blog
RSS Fees / Google Reader – There are many feed reading software solutions, and Google Reader is just one of many. Subscribe to blogs that will be useful to your busienss
Problogger.net – Information about blogging – a ton of useful information

HOW TO GET THE WORD OUT ABOUT YOUR BLOG
• Write relevant posts on your blog
• Respond quickly to comments made on your posts
• Comment on other posts on other blogs - Make them relevant & meaningful
• AdSense.google.com – Drives traffic to your blog
• ReviewMe.com – People will pay for you to review your products, etc.

Sites to keep an eye out for to help you expand your blogging experience:

Flickr.com – Photo storage solution
Twitter.com – Mass communication in 140 characters or less
Woot.com – A site that is utilizing Twitter