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In preparation for my second German-American Social Media Boot Camp, which is scheduled for Oct. 10-11, 2011 in Berlin, I assembled an expert panel of digital communications professionals to discuss the state of social media in Germany, and the start-up scene in Berlin.

 

Germany has come a long way since Fredric Lardinois wrote on ReadWriteWeb that the country is still 5 years behind with lots to learn.  But that may not be true for all companies.

 

Big organizations are hiring big agencies and jumping in feet first. But privacy concerns among small and medium sized businesses have stymied adoption. In fact, Xing’s compliance with local privacy laws has allowed the service to lure more users in Germany, despite a veritable lack of features and some municipal officials are still scared to launch Facebook Pages.

 

Berlin’s start-up scene, including SoundCloud and Etsy, is creating jobs for the digitally literate, but the post industrial generation is still left out, because they lack the skills to compete in the digital communications marketplace and almost now formal trainings opportunities exist for them to learn these important new job skills.  

 

Thomas Praus (@stylewalker), managing director of Panorama 3000, a member of Box Network Europe and an advisory board member for Social Media Week Berlin 2011

Oliver Gassner, (@oliverg) conversation evangelist and Blog Coach at carpe.com communicate GbR.

Sebastian Vasta (@sebastianvasta), Australian expat, former digital strategist and community manager, most recently for @Optus.

 

This episode also includes a tribute to the great Liza Minnelli and her inimitable performance in the Oscar winning film Cabaret.

 

 

 

 

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About the Podcaster:

Eric Schwartzman (@EricSchwartzman) provides social marketing services, social marketing research and social media training to businesses, government agencies and nonprofits. He has over 15 years experience integrating emerging information technologies into organizational communications programs.  He has served Boeing, BYU, City National Bank, Environmental Defense Fund, Government of Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, NORAD Northcomm, Southern California Edison, Toyota, UCLA, US Dept. of State, United States Army, US Embassy of Athens, US Embassy to Rome, United States Marine Corps and many other small to medium-sized companies and agencies.  Eric is also the instructor behind top-rated social media training seminars and the Social Media Boot Camp which are offered regularly in the US and abroad. Visit the social media training calendar for upcoming dates.

In preparation for my second German-American Social Media Boot Camp in Berlin, I assembled an expert panel of digital communications professionals to discuss the state of social media in Germany, and the start-up scene in Berlin.  

Germany has come a long way since Fredric Lardinois wrote on ReadWriteWeb that the country is still 5 years behind with lots to learn.  But that may not be true for all companies.  

Big organizations are hiring big agencies and jumping in feet first. But privacy concerns among small and medium sized businesses have stymied adoption.

In fact, Xing’s compliance with local privacy laws has allowed the service to lure more users in Germany, despite a veritable lack of features and some municipal officials are still scared to launch Facebook Pages.  

Berlin’s start-up scene, including SoundCloud and Etsy, is creating jobs for the digitally literate, but the post industrial generation is still left out, because they lack the skills to compete in the digital communications marketplace and almost now formal trainings opportunities exist for them to learn these important new job skills.    

Our Panelists:

Thomas Praus (@stylewalker), managing director of Panorama 3000, a member of Box Network Europe and an advisory board member for Social Media Week Berlin 2011 Oliver Gassner, (@oliverg) conversation evangelist and Blog Coach at carpe.com communicate GbR. Sebastian Vasta (@sebastianvasta), Australian expat, former digital strategist and community manager, most recently for @Optus.  

This episode also includes a tribute to the great Liza Minnelli and her inimitable performance in the Oscar winning film Cabaret.

Photo by Stefan Widua on Unsplash

How do you find and retain the best WordPress Designers?

 

WordPress, web software built by hundreds of community volunteers, to create websites and blogs, currently powers 14.7% of the top million websites in the world, up from just 8.5% last year, and the latest data shows that 22 out of every 100 new active domains in the US are running WordPress.

WordPress has over 15,000 plug-ins and has seen 200 million plug-in downloads. In the fastest upgrade in the platform’s history, WordPress 3.2, the latest version, had 500,000 downloads in the first two days according to a talk Matt Mullenweg, the original developer of WordPress, gave in August.

WordPress is easy to learn and easy to use, and has given rise to an exploding community of website designers and website developers who use the platform to build new sites for themselves and for their clients.

But because this community of specialists is still so new, and because, at least based on my own analysis, demand for competency, professionalism and quality appears to outstrip supply, finding the best WordPress designers requires a working knowledge of the platform, the people and its pieces to hire to identify and retain the right specialists to get you up and running.

Voce Communications, which was purchased by Porter Novelli earlier this year, and which counts Matthew Podboy and Mike Manuel as key team members, has gorwn it’s business over the last few years and expanded its operation with the inclusion of web development as part of its portfolio of services, and most of the sites the build run on WordPress.

Voce Communications employs a full time team of WordPress experts and with us today to talk about hiring the best WordPress designer from Voce Communications WordPress Designer Jeremy Harrington (pictured right) and WordPress Developer Chris Scott, who have built dozens of high-profile WordPress sites for the agency’s clients, and they’re going to tell us everything we need to know to find and retain the best WordPress website designers.

Topics Discussed:

 

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Eric Schwartzman (@EricSchwartzman) provides social...

How do you find and retain the best WordPress Designers?   WordPress, web software built by hundreds of community volunteers, to create websites and blogs, currently powers 14.7% of the top million websites in the world, up from just 8.5% last year, and the latest data shows that 22 out of every 100 new active domains in the US are running WordPress.

WordPress has over 15,000 plug-ins and has seen 200 million plug-in downloads. In the fastest upgrade in the platform’s history, WordPress 3.2, the latest version, had 500,000 downloads in the first two days according to a talk Matt Mullenweg, the original developer of WordPress, gave in August.

WordPress is easy to learn and easy to use, and has given rise to an exploding community of website designers and website developers who use the platform to build new sites for themselves and for their clients. But because this community of specialists is still so new, and because, at least based on my own analysis, demand for competency, professionalism and quality appears to outstrip supply, finding the best WordPress designers requires a working knowledge of the platform, the people and its pieces to hire to identify and retain the right specialists to get you up and running.

Voce Communications, which was purchased by Porter Novelli earlier this year, and which counts Matthew Podboy and Mike Manuel as key team members, has grown it’s business over the last few years and expanded its operation with the inclusion of web development as part of its portfolio of services, and most of the sites the build run on WordPress.

Voce Communications employs a full time team of WordPress experts and with us today to talk about hiring the best WordPress designer from Voce Communications WordPress Designer Jeremy Harrington (pictured right) and WordPress Developer Chris Scott, who have built dozens of high-profile WordPress sites for the agency’s clients, and they’re going to tell us everything we need to know to find and retain the best WordPress website designers.

Wordpress Topics Discussed:

Advantages of WordPress over Joomla and Drupal and the extensive documentation on the framework that exists.Wordpress.org versus Wordpress.com hosted sites: What are the advantages and drawbacks of either option, and how do you decide which one is right for you?The difference between Wordpress designers and Wordpress developers, who does what and who do you need first?How to hire the best WordPress Designers and the right questions to ask to identify the best WordPress Designers. One place to look for good WordPress Designers is https://codepoet.com/How to you hire the best WordPress Developers and the right questions to ask to identify the best WordPress Developers.Have they contributed any patches to the WordPress core code?Have the built and released any Themes?Have they developed any Plug-Ins?What’s their WordPress.org user name and what does their profile look like?Have they answered any support questions in the forums on WordPress.orgDo they have any code samples they can share?Ask specifics about what their hand was in the sites in their portfolio.WordPress Themes, Premium WordPress Themes and WordPress Frameworks.Finding the best WordPress themes by using the theme directory at: https://wordpress.org/extend/themes/  Pay special attention to the featured themes on the main page, and the themes by popularity in the right-hand column.How to upgrade a WordPress website and how to safely back-up a WordPress site prior to updating a site with https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/backwpup/The advantages of premium themes like Genesis and Thesis.WordPress Designers who focus on specific WordPress theme: Is it a better idea to go with a designer who works with a bunch of different themes, or are there advantages to hiring someone who specialize...

What is the future of elearning. How do you design online training courses? How do you keep people interested? And how, if at all, will gamification and the social web change the way we learn?

Keeping up to date with the latest changes to software and web services we use for work has become a huge challenge.  And learning to use new software and online services requires a significant investment of time and energy.

Sure, there are plenty of options for coming up to speed. You can search Google for example, but you’re on your own to vet the results.  Or you can attend a workshop or seminar, but it’s expensive, you usually have to travel, and they teach to center of the class, which is either too slow or too fast for beginners or advanced users.

Online training provider Lynda.com had a library of 53,000 on-demand, online video tutorials which it makes available on a subscription basis. And 95% percent of those videos are produced in house.

In this episode, Michael Ninness, Vice President of Content atlynda.com provides an overview of how to design an online training course and the state and future of online training.

Topics Discussed:

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About the Podcaster:
Eric Schwartzman (@EricSchwartzman) provides social marketing services, social marketing research and social media training to businesses, government agencies and nonprofits. He has over 15 years experience integrating emerging information technologies into organizational communications programs.  He has served Boeing, BYU, City National Bank, Environmental Defense Fund, Government of Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, NORAD Northcomm, Southern California Edison, Toyota, UCLA, US Dept. of State, United States Army, US Embassy of Athens, US Embassy to Rome, United States Marine Corps and many other small to medium-sized companies and agencies.  Eric is also the instructor behind top-rated social media training seminars and the Social Media Boot Camp which are offered regularly in the US and abroad. Visit the social media training calendar for upcoming dates.

What is the future of elearning?   How do you design online training courses?   How do you keep people interested? And how, if at all, will gamification and the social web change the way we learn?

Keeping up to date with the latest changes to software and web services we use for work has become a huge challenge.  And learning to use new software and online services requires a significant investment of time and energy.

Sure, there are plenty of options for coming up to speed. You can search Google for example, but you’re on your own to vet the results.  Or you can attend a workshop or seminar, but it’s expensive, you usually have to travel, and they teach to center of the class, which is either too slow or too fast for beginners or advanced users.

Online training provider Lynda.com had a library of 53,000 on-demand, online video tutorials which it makes available on a subscription basis. And 95% percent of those videos are produced in house.

In this episode, Michael Ninness, Vice President of Content at lynda.com provides an overview of how to design an online training course and the state and future of online training. Topics Discussed:

How lynda.com grew based on customer demand.What makes a great online learning course.Formal versus informal presentation styles.What type of Internet training do tomorrow’s professionals want?Lynda.com’s online social media training courses on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.The episode of the Xyleme podcast, in which George Siemens argued that the future of online learning is not necessarily instructor led, on demand training, but rather, a more chaotic, participant organized environments.  Delivering compelling elearning to mobile devices.Globalization and technology have increased productivity, largely at the expense of workers.  How can online training improve efficiencies.Are activity streams and social networks a better way to locate information than directories and catalogs?Is gamification the key to keeping people interested?

 

The latest blogging stats, including counts on blog readership and blog traffic, were presented by Technorati CEO Shani Higgins at the PR Summit in San Francisco earlier this month.  This podcast is an exclusive recording of her talk.

 

Much of the data she shared was a preview of the blogging stats to be included this fall in the Technorati 2011 State of the Blogosphere Report.  The blogger statistics revealed in her talk provide critical insight into best practices for blog pitching.

 

Blogging Statistics (Highlights):

 

Blog accuracy perception continues to rise, the credibility of mainstream news outlines continues to erode, mommy bloggers are the toughest to pitch, more brands are compensating bloggers and brands like Vogue, Samsung and Ebay are all more invested in blogger outreach programs than they were a year ago.

 

 

 

7:37 Hobbyists account for 65% of bloggers. Professional bloggers are broken down into three groups:

 

 

For brand marketers, with the most important are Self-Employed Professional Bloggers, since they have more at stake.

 

 

8:16 Bloggers are heavy users of social media.

 

 

10:19 Bloggers are Talking about Brands - Nearly half of non-corporate bloggers write about brands. One fourth of bloggers overall post products or brand reviews monthly and one fifth post weekly. 20% of corporate bloggers post daily about products and services.

 

Brand Reputation Matters to Bloggers - Bloggers care deeply about brand reputation so brand acceptance is required if companies want bloggers to write about them.

 

 

13:16 Mommy Bloggers talk about Brands More - Even though women only represent 5% of bloggers, they are the most coveted blogging segment by brands because they blog more about brands.

 

 

 

15:44 Blog reliability and blog accuracy, as perceived by readers is on the rise.

 

 

 

17:35 Blog pitching success increases dramatically when you know how to identify the most influential bloggers who cover your topic.  Understanding how to research and select bloggers, though is not discussed in this podcast, but can certainly be attained through social media training.  

 

21:02 Bloggers are looking for audience value in a blog pitch. Investing in the quality of the news pitch, customizing high quality of content and offering the blogger recognition never goes out of style.

 

23:44 Latest Blog Trends - The level of professionalism among bloggers is on the rise, as is giving bloggers opportunities to become true brand advocates.  Bloggers are also becoming more savvy about compensation and are well aware of how they are helping brands achieve goals. More brands are compensating bloggers to attend conferences to help these brand ambassadors and enthusiasts amplify the brand message and foster a tighter relationship.

 

25:13 Shani Higgins included a number of interesting Blogger Relations Case Studies, including:

Blogging statistics, including counts on blog readership and blog traffic, were presented by Technorati CEO Shani Higgins at the PR Summit in San Francisco.

Much of the data she shared was a preview of the blogging stats to be included this fall in the Technorati State of the Blogosphere Report.

These blogger statistics revealed provide critical insight into best practices for pitching stories ideas to blogs.

Business Blogging Statistics  

71% of bloggers only write about brands they think are reputableMommy bloggers get 500 pitches a dayOnly 20% of bloggers like the pitches they get

Blog accuracy perception continues to rise, the credibility of mainstream news outlines continues to erode, mommy bloggers are the toughest to pitch, more brands are compensating bloggers and brands like Vogue, Samsung and Ebay are all more invested in blogger outreach programs than they were a year ago.

Professional bloggers are broken down into three groups:

Corporate BloggersPart-Timer BloggersSelf-Employed Professional Bloggers

For brand marketers, the most important earned media mentions come from Self-Employed Professional Bloggers, since they have more at stake.

Blog Usage Statistics

33% have worked within traditional media27% are still employed by traditional media3% blog for their traditional media employer65% say blogs are being taken more seriously

  8:16 Bloggers are heavy users of social media.

Statistics on How Blogger's use Social Media

87% of all bloggers use Facebook81% use Facebook to promote their blog64% use Facebook to interact with readers45% say Facebook drives more traffic to their blog than it did a year ago73% of hobbyists and 88% of professional bloggers still use TwitterMore than half of all bloggers link Twitter to their blog34% of bloggers say Twitter is a more effective traffic source than it was a year ago

10:19 Bloggers are Talking about Brands - Nearly half of non-corporate bloggers write about brands. One fourth of bloggers overall post products or brand reviews monthly and one fifth post weekly. 20% of corporate bloggers post daily about products and services.   Brand Reputation Matters to Bloggers - Bloggers care deeply about brand reputation so brand acceptance is required if companies want bloggers to write about them. 

Statistics on Brands that Blog

42% of bloggers say they blog about brands they love (or hate)34% say they never talk about products or brands on their blogsAmong respondents who say they do blog about brands, 51% they said they rarely review brands, services or products among companiesAmong respondents who say they do blog about brands, 48% say they post reviews weekly33% of hobbyist and more than 50% of the professional bloggers look at reputation when determining what to write about64% of bloggers say brand representatives treat them less professionally than they'd like

13:16 Mommy Bloggers talk about Brands More - Even though women only represent 5% of bloggers, they are the most coveted blogging segment by brands because they blog more about brands.

Mommy Bloggers Statistics

92% use Facebook to promote their blog75% use Twitter to promote their blog55% follow brands on social media sites like Facebook54% have been approached by a brandHalf say a brand's reputation influences their decision to write about it72% of mom bloggers are being taken more seriously than they were a year ago

15:44 Blog reliability and blog accuracy,

Life on Mars, space colonies and inspiring innovation with Peter H. Diamandis (@peterdiamandis) Chairman and CEO, X PRIZE Foundation, a key figure in the development of the personal spaceflight industry.

Peter has created many space-related businesses and organizations, including the X PRIZE Foundation, an educational nonprofit prize institute whose mission is “to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.” The foundation, which presents a $10 million award to the first team to achieve its current goal, is best known for the Ansari X Prize, a competition to launch a reusable, manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. This was the first private-sector manned spaceflight. Citing anecdotes from X PRIZE competitions in exploration, life sciences, energy, environment, education, and global development, Diamandis shares stories of innovations that are changing the way we think, work, and educate future generations. He promotes intelligent risk-taking, maverick thinking, and environments where failure is allowed and celebrated. Diamandis reveals how organizations can incentivize breakthroughs for new products and strategies and reinvent their industries.

His presentations address technology and how to spur innovation. A Passion and Business Savvy for Spaceflight. Diamandis is an international leader in the commercial space arena, having founded and run many of its leading entrepreneurial companies. Among many other ventures, he is the co-founder and managing director of Space Adventures, a space-tourism company, the co-founder and CEO of Zero Gravity Corporation, a commercial space company which offers weightless flights to the public, and the chairman & co-founder of the Rocket Racing League.

Diamandis co-founded the Singularity University, an academic institution who aims to foster thoughts leaders who will work on humanity’s largest challenges. Diamandis also co-founded the International Space University (ISU) where he served as the University’s first managing director.

Prior to ISU, Diamandis served as chairman of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS), an organization he founded at MIT in 1980. SEDS is currently the world’s largest college and high school-based student pro-space organization He is the winner of the 2007 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Innovation, the 2006 (inaugural) Heinlein Award, the 2006 Lindbergh Award, the 2006 Wired RAVE Award, the 2006 Neil Armstrong Award for Aerospace Achievement and Leadership, the Konstantine Tsiolkovsky Award, twice the winner of the Aviation & Space Technology Laurel, and the 2003 World Technology Award for Space. Peter Diamandis attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he received his undergraduate degree in molecular genetics and graduate degree in aerospace engineering. After MIT he attended Harvard Medical School where he received his M.D. In 2005, he was also awarded an honorary doctorate from the International Space University.

Podcasts You May Be Interested in:

What’s your Klout score? How do you increase your Klout score? And who has the highest Klout score for the topics you’re interested in?

In this episode, you’ll find out why your Klout score matters and what you can do to increase your Klout score.

Klout is the company that’s attempting to use social signals to improve upon Google’s Page Rank algorithm as a way of measuring influence.  Klout’s API had 2 billion calls last month and is working with over 3,000 partners and brands.

The service began by trying to measure the influence of users on Twitter, and has evolved to consider activity on Foursquare, and last week added Blogger, Tumblr, Flickr, Instagram and Last.fm.

Out guest is Megan Berry (@meganberry), marketing manager at Klout, Blogger, social media junkie and Stanford grad talks about how your Klout score, and she talks to us about how to increase Klout scores and why it’s in your best interest to have the highest Klout score you can.

Megan has a Klout score of 71, which puts her ahead of previous guests of this podcast Kara Swisher, the co-editor of All Things D (http://klout.com/karaswisher) at 70, Natalie Petuhoff (http://klout.com/drnatalie) at 54 and your truly at 56.


Topics Discussed

Podcasts You May Be Interested in:

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About the Podcaster:
Eric Schwartzman (@EricSchwartzman) provides social marketing services, social marketing research and social media training to businesses, government agencies and nonprofits. He has over 15 years experience integrating emerging information technologies into organizational communications programs.  He has served Boeing, BYU, City National Bank, Environmental Defense Fund, Government of Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, NORAD Northcomm, Southern California Edison, Toyota, UCLA, US Dept. of State, United States Army, US Embassy of Athens, US Embassy to Rome, United States Marine Corps and many other small to medium-sized companies and agencies.  Eric is also the instructor behind top-rated social media training seminars and the Social Media Boot Camp which are offered regularly in the US and abroad. Visit the social media training calendar for upcoming dates.