Smart Marketing Show

In this episode, Jason and Bridget discuss the partnership with Jetpack and A2 Hosting and how it impacts the WordPress space. Who benefits and why. Marketing to agencies or end users? Who is the audience and what does Automattic and A2 Hosting have to gain?

Jetpack announces strategic partnership with A2 Hosting - bizjournals.com - Partnership will allow A2 Hosting customers to use Jetpack Personal at no additional cost

DreamHost to include Jetpack Professional with Advanced DreamPress Packages - globenewswire.com

WPWebHost to Include Jetpack Premium with its Managed WordPress Hosting - prweb.com

Recommended WordPress and Jetpack Hosting Providers - jetpack.com

Check the comments on Bridget's post on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/bridget.willard/posts/10156775585801614

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode, Jason and Bridget are joined by Joshua Knapp of AnHonestHost. He’ll be talking about ways to gain and retain a customer base by offering services that improve their workflow.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

• https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/automattic/acquisitions/acquisitions_list
• https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/godaddy#section-acquisitions
• https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/wp-engine#section-investors
• https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/anheuser-busch

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on WPblab we have Laura Coronado the Communications Specialist at WebDevStudios. Russell Aaron and Jason Tucker will be talking with Laura about some techniques for starting and maintaining an editorial calendar, plotting your posts and allowing yourself to be flexible in order to remain timely. If you or your staff haven't created an editorial calendar yet now is your chance to get yourself educated on it, use the social link here to share this content with your coworkers and friends on social media.

Laura Coronado is the Communications Specialist at WebDev Studios (which is over several other brands). She manages content and social media for 4 brands in total. She has been using WordPress for over a decade.

Laura uses a spreadsheet to help with planning & keeping everything organized. She always has pen and paper handy (Bridget uses a notebook to plan out her content).

• On her own blog, Laura doesn’t have an editorial calendar at all
• It depends highly on your own goals and plans – WebDev does have a calendar
• She likes spreadsheets because they are simple and there is transparency – no buffer between her and everyone else at the company

Plugins:

1. Editorial Calendar – can manage multiple authors, accessible from WordPress dashboard, drag & drop capability, can schedule & edit schedule, shows you visually where things are in the calendar – highly recommended
2. CoSchedule – Premium plugin, all the way up to enterprise level – has all the bells and whistles

Can also use Hootsuite for light scheduling and planning/tracking of posts.

Russell – “I don’t have a filter! And usually it’s not grammatically correct.”

He doesn’t use a schedule, it’s more stream of consciousness. He thinks it and just has to get it out on the blog. He voice blogs.

Laura doesn’t like to rock the boat and prefers to do what is easiest for the people she works with. She’s just grateful that their people are willing to write for the blog & will happily take the blog articles in whatever format they come – google doc, pen & paper, word doc, etc.

Hot Tip: There is more than just paragraphs. Bullet points / numbered lists / headlines and subheadings are great. Don’t be afraid to format!

Russell uses his headphones to record and utilizes Google Keep to store his content. Every 4 sentences he’ll skip a line to break up his paragraphs. His articles focus on two things: what is the problem & what is the solution?

On the WebDev calendar they have the due date and the publication date. For her, the due date is usually 24 hours before publication. It gives her time to work on it, proofing/editing, etc. She usually receives the blog post on the exact due date.

Russell works support and never knows what’s going to come in on a given day, so sometimes his blog posts will arrive at the very last minute (or rarely, he misses the deadline). This is why editorial calendars need to have some flexibility.

She recommends having a strategy for when blog posts don’t come in on time. Maybe going to WordPress.tv and finding a great talk to highlight.

What’s good about video is that video takes time to watch which means more time on the site and great engagement!

Jason loves that with us (Sherie & Cheryl) recording the show notes, we’re creating extra content that can be used on social media and on the site. The more content you have the better!

One of the things you need to figure out from the beginning (and keep analyzing) is how often you want to blog. Then establish the best days and times to blog. Then you can start planning your calendar. She only plans out about 2 months in advance to make sure to keep things flexible! There’s always going to be timely/seasonal topics that you want to touch on, so it’s important to have room in the schedule for that.

When you are planning out far in advance, choosing “evergreen” content means that it can be pushed to another date if you have something timely or significant that comes up and needs to be posted first. Such as when Ben came to her and said we really need to address GDPR and should probably get it posted in the next few days.

Laura does not (yet) have a disaster plan, so it can be a bit worrisome wondering what would happen if she was available. It’s probably something that should be written down (style guides, guidelines, etc.) so that others can jump in when needed.

She also thinks that WebDev (and any company really) could really use a Style Guide. How you format your text, how and what you post. That way if someone takes over for you, the tone doesn’t have to change.

She loves using Buffer for social media. She has that and the WebDev site all day long so she can monitor and make sure things are going out when they are supposed to.

You need to keep on top of things and keep the site and plugins up-to-date – if the site goes down, so does your ability to create and share content.

Bridget always recommends not to automate the entire process when posting to social media – inevitably, things will break – there are lots of moving parts to keep track of, and chances are something will get missed.

Sharing posts across multiple platforms can be iffy. If you daisy-chain them, chances are your content is going to look horrible on at least one of the platforms. Try to use an app that will let you post the same content directly to each platform instead of sharing from one platform to the other.

Using Rebrandly to create their shortlinks. WDS.AF

Russell uses a plugin called InstaGo to redirect traffic

What is the payoff for WDS? In the end, the editorial calendar & content strategy is designed to support their marketing strategy, which in the end, supports their business goals.

They have found that their old blog posts were very technically oriented, which is a great audience, but they’re not the decision makers. Who they really want to talk to is the marketing & business executives. They have to decide if their old posts are worth re-posting and if they will reach the right audience.

They’ve identified 3 older blog posts that could be updated and need to decide if it’s worth the time to update them and re-present them or if it’s not worth the time sink.

If something lives on the internet (like a blog post), it’s important to make sure it’s kept up to date, especially in regards to rates/fees for services your company offers. Sometimes it’s better to choose to delete old content instead of refurbishing it. Russell worked for a financial company and had a post with rates in it – set up a plugin to scrape the current rates so he would never have to worry about updating it but it would still be current.

If you decide not to update an out-of-date post and delete it instead, how do you handle the dead link? Laura suggests redirection to something that is more relevant or current.

WebDevStudios is communicating all the time so they work hard to keep things interesting. Sometimes they include contests, and hidden ‘easter eggs’ but all of this takes planning.

Tools and tips of the week:

1. Laura – Loves to use Grammarly, but it does have some conflicts with WordPress – it will make you a better writer
2. Jason – Ginger – it’s a chrome extension that helps with proofreading & Grammar.
3. Russell – Composer – it goes into all the dev projects and pull all the necessary files for each person

Cheryl LaPrade – @yaycheryl

Sherie LaPrade – @heysherie

The post WPblab EP104 – Planning & Maintaining a Flexible Content Calendar w/ Laura Coronado appeared first on WPwatercooler.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on WPblab we have Laura Coronado the Communications Specialist at WebDevStudios. Russell Aaron and Jason Tucker will be talking with Laura about some techniques for starting and maintaining an editorial calendar, plotting your posts and allowing yourself to be flexible in order to remain timely. If you or your staff haven't created an editorial calendar yet now is your chance to get yourself educated on it, use the social link here to share this content with your coworkers and friends on social media.

Laura Coronado is the Communications Specialist at WebDev Studios (which is over several other brands). She manages content and social media for 4 brands in total. She has been using WordPress for over a decade.

Laura uses a spreadsheet to help with planning & keeping everything organized. She always has pen and paper handy (Bridget uses a notebook to plan out her content).

• On her own blog, Laura doesn’t have an editorial calendar at all
• It depends highly on your own goals and plans – WebDev does have a calendar
• She likes spreadsheets because they are simple and there is transparency – no buffer between her and everyone else at the company

Plugins:

1. Editorial Calendar – can manage multiple authors, accessible from WordPress dashboard, drag & drop capability, can schedule & edit schedule, shows you visually where things are in the calendar – highly recommended
2. CoSchedule – Premium plugin, all the way up to enterprise level – has all the bells and whistles

Can also use Hootsuite for light scheduling and planning/tracking of posts.

Russell – “I don’t have a filter! And usually it’s not grammatically correct.”

He doesn’t use a schedule, it’s more stream of consciousness. He thinks it and just has to get it out on the blog. He voice blogs.

Laura doesn’t like to rock the boat and prefers to do what is easiest for the people she works with. She’s just grateful that their people are willing to write for the blog & will happily take the blog articles in whatever format they come – google doc, pen & paper, word doc, etc.

Hot Tip: There is more than just paragraphs. Bullet points / numbered lists / headlines and subheadings are great. Don’t be afraid to format!

Russell uses his headphones to record and utilizes Google Keep to store his content. Every 4 sentences he’ll skip a line to break up his paragraphs. His articles focus on two things: what is the problem & what is the solution?

On the WebDev calendar they have the due date and the publication date. For her, the due date is usually 24 hours before publication. It gives her time to work on it, proofing/editing, etc. She usually receives the blog post on the exact due date.

Russell works support and never knows what’s going to come in on a given day, so sometimes his blog posts will arrive at the very last minute (or rarely, he misses the deadline). This is why editorial calendars need to have some flexibility.

She recommends having a strategy for when blog posts don’t come in on time. Maybe going to WordPress.tv and finding a great talk to highlight.

What’s good about video is that video takes time to watch which means more time on the site and great engagement!

Jason loves that with us (Sherie & Cheryl) recording the show notes, we’re creating extra content that can be used on social media and on the site. The more content you have the better!

One of the things you need to figure out from the beginning (and keep analyzing) is how often you want to blog. Then establish the best days and times to blog. Then you can start planning your calendar. She only plans out about 2 months in advance to make sure to keep things flexible! There’s always going to be timely/seasonal topics that you want to touch on, so it’s important to have room in the schedule for that.

When you are planning out far in advance, choosing “evergreen” content means that it can be pushed to another date if you have something timely or significant that comes up and needs to be posted first. Such as when Ben came to her and said we really need to address GDPR and should probably get it posted in the next few days.

Laura does not (yet) have a disaster plan, so it can be a bit worrisome wondering what would happen if she was available. It’s probably something that should be written down (style guides, guidelines, etc.) so that others can jump in when needed.

She also thinks that WebDev (and any company really) could really use a Style Guide. How you format your text, how and what you post. That way if someone takes over for you, the tone doesn’t have to change.

She loves using Buffer for social media. She has that and the WebDev site all day long so she can monitor and make sure things are going out when they are supposed to.

You need to keep on top of things and keep the site and plugins up-to-date – if the site goes down, so does your ability to create and share content.

Bridget always recommends not to automate the entire process when posting to social media – inevitably, things will break – there are lots of moving parts to keep track of, and chances are something will get missed.

Sharing posts across multiple platforms can be iffy. If you daisy-chain them, chances are your content is going to look horrible on at least one of the platforms. Try to use an app that will let you post the same content directly to each platform instead of sharing from one platform to the other.

Using Rebrandly to create their shortlinks. WDS.AF

Russell uses a plugin called InstaGo to redirect traffic

What is the payoff for WDS? In the end, the editorial calendar & content strategy is designed to support their marketing strategy, which in the end, supports their business goals.

They have found that their old blog posts were very technically oriented, which is a great audience, but they’re not the decision makers. Who they really want to talk to is the marketing & business executives. They have to decide if their old posts are worth re-posting and if they will reach the right audience.

They’ve identified 3 older blog posts that could be updated and need to decide if it’s worth the time to update them and re-present them or if it’s not worth the time sink.

If something lives on the internet (like a blog post), it’s important to make sure it’s kept up to date, especially in regards to rates/fees for services your company offers. Sometimes it’s better to choose to delete old content instead of refurbishing it. Russell worked for a financial company and had a post with rates in it – set up a plugin to scrape the current rates so he would never have to worry about updating it but it would still be current.

If you decide not to update an out-of-date post and delete it instead, how do you handle the dead link? Laura suggests redirection to something that is more relevant or current.

WebDevStudios is communicating all the time so they work hard to keep things interesting. Sometimes they include contests, and hidden ‘easter eggs’ but all of this takes planning.

Tools and tips of the week:

1. Laura – Loves to use Grammarly, but it does have some conflicts with WordPress – it will make you a better writer
2. Jason – Ginger – it’s a chrome extension that helps with proofreading & Grammar.
3. Russell – Composer – it goes into all the dev projects and pull all the necessary files for each person

Cheryl LaPrade – @yaycheryl

Sherie LaPrade – @heysherie

The post WPblab EP104 – Planning & Maintaining a Flexible Content Calendar w/ Laura Coronado appeared first on WPwatercooler.

Everyone knows DesktopServer. But it wasn't magic. In this episode, Jason and Bridget are joined by Marc Benzakein. He'll talk about how DesktopServer went from a development project to a common and popular workflow solution. Join in the live chat to ask questions.

Interested in getting your product or service in front of our viewers and listeners? Check out how to sponsor an episode of one of our shows.

• Bridget Willard – https://www.linkedin.com/in/bridgetwillard/
• Jason Tucker – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasontucker/
• Marc Benzakein https://serverpress.com
  • @marcbenzak | @serverpress

• Gregg Franklin – handles 90% of the customer service because he’s so good with people
• David Jesch
• Stephen Carnam

Branding is something you have to do for yourself personally as well as the company you are with – Marc has been told he’s the face of ServerPress because he’s gone to so many WordCamps, but he also has his own “brand”

You want to know who these people are, you want to know that they’re people of integrity and you want to know what their mission is

Marc has known Gregg since 1989 – they both worked in the video department at Circuit City!  

Gregg always made sure to be very knowledgeable about the products and he was very good with the customers, but he was also very competitive!

If an agency’s specialty is WordPress, it makes sense to go to WordCamps – the first year Marc was involved with ServerPress, he did 26 WordCamps (2014), basically one every other weekend! Kept up a similar pace the next few years.

Marc went to WordCamp San Diego before he even became involved with ServerPress and that’s when he first fell in love with the WordPress community. Phoenix was the first WordCamp that he spoke at.

Other than Southern California, ServerPress’ footprint was very small at that time.  When he went to speak at Phoenix, he gave a talk/workshop that was 2 hours. There were about 100 people in the room and it went without a hitch! Marc had planned for almost every contingency, but nothing happened.  Phoenix was bigger than WordCamp Miami at the time so he knew he had to be on his game!

They were a bootstrap company with not a lot of capital.  How do they get their name out there?

Branding is more important than “marketing” at that level. “You get to control your marketing, but people control your brand. They get to decide what they think of you whether you like it or not.”

What did they want people to think about ServerPress:

1. We’re at every single WordCamp
2. We’re an established company in the community

They decided to provide lanyards with their name and logo on it and the WordCamp’s logo on the other side – but after about a year were asked to stop doing that – he knew when they did it the first time, they might eventually be told to stop! (reminiscent of what happened with Pantheon branding the hotel elevators at WCUS 2016)  Andrea Middleton (from the WordPress Community team) called him (and was SO nice), and politely encouraged them to stop, which they agreed.

Jason: you should provide power strips in the rooms with your logo on them! People would LOVE you!

Marc: better idea – take your sponsor table and just fill it with power strips. People would hang out there all day long!

Bridget: almost all businesses in the WordPress spectrum are self-made, small businesses. But they are the ones that are sponsoring the local community, the meetups – they are making an investment in the people which keeps them in the WordPress ecosystem.  

This is why one of Bridget & Jason’s main goals with this show is to give people actionable ideas to improve their marketing and learn how to reach their audience better

The question you have to ask yourself is: What is our return on investment?  It’s not a concrete, easy number when you are involved in WordCamps. Money/profit is the scorecard that most people look to.  But for small businesses in the WordPress ecosystem, the people, the loyalty and community that you gain are the ROI. They will sell your product without you asking them to do it – you are providing something that is so valuable to them that they have to preach it from the mountaintops – you are giving them so much more value than they expected.

Marc started programming on a mainframe computer at the age of 10, – he’s smart but he feels lucky that he gets to work with 2 of the smartest people he knows representing a great product!

2017 was a tough year for DesktopServer – Apple had more security updates than ever, Microsoft had more security updates than ever and they had to react to all of it. Also, PHP7 came and they had to react to that as well. It was a perfect storm – a year of being reactive rather than proactive. It was because of their branding and the loyalty that they built up among their customers, that people were willing to give them grace and work with them during that time.

What can we do to make our customers feel like they are getting the value for what they are spending?

They appreciate that they have such a loyal following and fanbase. Bridget: you can either make your influencers or find your influencers and ServerPress “made” their influencers.

Marc has never had a partnership like this one.  They have a deep respect for each other. It might be fate … it just worked out! There needs to be some overlap between the roles, but not so much that everyone is stepping on each other’s toes.  

Marc handles operations, business development, billing, marketing, etc.  Gregg handles customer service and people. Dave/Steve speak their own language and understand each other.  They make sure not to step on each other’s toes. They all have their jobs pretty well defined and nobody wants to take over anyone else’s!

It’s all a matter of having a healthy amount of respect for each other and boundaries. Within the company, Marc has the nickname of “The Mayor”. There have been times that they’ve all talked about the direction that the company should go and it often came down, in the end, to “What does Marc think?”, but everything at ServerPress is really a consensus. Everyone has a say. They have disagreements, but they end up with a better end-product as a result. They don’t let their egos get in the way of building a better product and building a better company.

What you see is what you get with them.  They are exactly who you see on a weekend at a WordCamp and during the week at ServerPress. People don’t care how big a company is, they want to have some sort of personal connection to the company. This is why they go to so many WordCamps – they want to have that same connection to their customers.

If I treat people with respect and honesty, I can be the same person inside my company and outside, personally.

Marc

New plugin for ServerPress that automatically backs up your database

Google Photos – https://photos.google.com/

Bridget

Revive Old Posts plugin – bring up older content from your blogs and recycle it – great for sharing evergreen posts, lots of custom settings

Jason

https://agenda.com/ – Note-taking app that ties into your calendar – you can write notes about specific events that you are attending. Supports markdown.

https://developer.apple.com/design/awards/

https://overcast.fm/+K8lgFR3dk Rene Ritchie and Serenity Caldwell speak with the creators of Agenda — a WWDC 2018 Apple Design Award winning note taking app for Mac. They discuss Agenda as well as this year’s major announcements from a developer and end user perspective.

—
Show notes contributed by:

Cheryl LaPrade – @yaycheryl

Sherie LaPrade – @heysherie

The post WPblab EP103 – Bootstrap to Commonplace: Talking Branding & Grass Roots w/ Marc Benzakein appeared first on WPwatercooler.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Everyone knows DesktopServer. But it wasn't magic. In this episode, Jason and Bridget are joined by Marc Benzakein. He'll talk about how DesktopServer went from a development project to a common and popular workflow solution. Join in the live chat to ask questions.

Interested in getting your product or service in front of our viewers and listeners? Check out how to sponsor an episode of one of our shows.

Branding is something you have to do for yourself personally as well as the company you are with – Marc has been told he’s the face of ServerPress because he’s gone to so many WordCamps, but he also has his own “brand”

You want to know who these people are, you want to know that they’re people of integrity and you want to know what their mission is

Marc has known Gregg since 1989 – they both worked in the video department at Circuit City!  

Gregg always made sure to be very knowledgeable about the products and he was very good with the customers, but he was also very competitive!

If an agency’s specialty is WordPress, it makes sense to go to WordCamps – the first year Marc was involved with ServerPress, he did 26 WordCamps (2014), basically one every other weekend! Kept up a similar pace the next few years.

Marc went to WordCamp San Diego before he even became involved with ServerPress and that’s when he first fell in love with the WordPress community. Phoenix was the first WordCamp that he spoke at.

Other than Southern California, ServerPress’ footprint was very small at that time.  When he went to speak at Phoenix, he gave a talk/workshop that was 2 hours. There were about 100 people in the room and it went without a hitch! Marc had planned for almost every contingency, but nothing happened.  Phoenix was bigger than WordCamp Miami at the time so he knew he had to be on his game!

They were a bootstrap company with not a lot of capital.  How do they get their name out there?

Branding is more important than “marketing” at that level. “You get to control your marketing, but people control your brand. They get to decide what they think of you whether you like it or not.”

What did they want people to think about ServerPress:

They decided to provide lanyards with their name and logo on it and the WordCamp’s logo on the other side – but after about a year were asked to stop doing that – he knew when they did it the first time, they might eventually be told to stop! (reminiscent of what happened with Pantheon branding the hotel elevators at WCUS 2016)  Andrea Middleton (from the WordPress Community team) called him (and was SO nice), and politely encouraged them to stop, which they agreed.

Jason: you should provide power strips in the rooms with your logo on them! People would LOVE you!

Marc: better idea – take your sponsor table and just fill it with power strips. People would hang out there all day long!

Bridget: almost all businesses in the WordPress spectrum are self-made, small businesses. But they are the ones that are sponsoring the local community, the meetups – they are making an investment in the people which keeps them in the WordPress ecosystem.  

This is why one of Bridget & Jason’s main goals with this show is to give people actionable ideas to improve their marketing and learn how to reach their audience better

The question you have to ask yourself is: What is our return on investment?  It’s not a concrete, easy number when you are involved in WordCamps. Money/profit is the scorecard that most people look to.  But for small businesses in the WordPress ecosystem, the people, the loyalty and community that you gain are the ROI. They will sell your product without you asking them to do it – you are providing something that is so valuable to them that they have to preach it from the mountaintops – you are giving them so much more value than they expected.

Marc started programming on a mainframe computer at the age of 10, – he’s smart but he feels lucky that he gets to work with 2 of the smartest people he knows representing a great product!

2017 was a tough year for DesktopServer – Apple had more security updates than ever, Microsoft had more security updates than ever and they had to react to all of it. Also, PHP7 came and they had to react to that as well. It was a perfect storm – a year of being reactive rather than proactive. It was because of their branding and the loyalty that they built up among their customers, that people were willing to give them grace and work with them during that time.

What can we do to make our customers feel like they are getting the value for what they are spending?

They appreciate that they have such a loyal following and fanbase. Bridget: you can either make your influencers or find your influencers and ServerPress “made” their influencers.

Marc has never had a partnership like this one.  They have a deep respect for each other. It might be fate … it just worked out! There needs to be some overlap between the roles, but not so much that everyone is stepping on each other’s toes.  

Marc handles operations, business development, billing, marketing, etc.  Gregg handles customer service and people. Dave/Steve speak their own language and understand each other.  They make sure not to step on each other’s toes. They all have their jobs pretty well defined and nobody wants to take over anyone else’s!

It’s all a matter of having a healthy amount of respect for each other and boundaries. Within the company, Marc has the nickname of “The Mayor”. There have been times that they’ve all talked about the direction that the company should go and it often came down, in the end, to “What does Marc think?”, but everything at ServerPress is really a consensus. Everyone has a say. They have disagreements, but they end up with a better end-product as a result. They don’t let their egos get in the way of building a better product and building a better company.

What you see is what you get with them.  They are exactly who you see on a weekend at a WordCamp and during the week at ServerPress. People don’t care how big a company is, they want to have some sort of personal connection to the company. This is why they go to so many WordCamps – they want to have that same connection to their customers.

If I treat people with respect and honesty, I can be the same person inside my company and outside, personally.

Marc

New plugin for ServerPress that automatically backs up your database

Google Photos – https://photos.google.com/

Bridget

Revive Old Posts plugin – bring up older content from your blogs and recycle it – great for sharing evergreen posts, lots of custom settings

Jason

https://agenda.com/ – Note-taking app that ties into your calendar – you can write notes about specific events that you are attending. Supports markdown.

https://developer.apple.com/design/awards/

https://overcast.fm/+K8lgFR3dk Rene Ritchie and Serenity Caldwell speak with the creators of Agenda — a WWDC 2018 Apple Design Award winning note taking app for Mac. They discuss Agenda as well as this year’s major announcements from a developer and end user perspective.

—

Cheryl LaPrade – @yaycheryl

Sherie LaPrade – @heysherie

The post WPblab EP103 – Bootstrap to Commonplace: Talking Branding & Grass Roots w/ Marc Benzakein appeared first on WPwatercooler.

In this episode, Jason and Bridget are joined by Marcy Massura, who has an extensive background in marketing, to say the least. We're going to apply marketing principles from other industries to WordPress freelancers and agencies and give you all good reasons to use this neglected social network.

You can find Marcy on the following sites:

Marcy Massura & Company
twitter.com – @marcymassura
linkedin.com – marcymassura
instagram.com – @marcymassura

Bridget Willard – https://www.linkedin.com/in/bridgetwillard/
Jason Tucker – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasontucker/
Marcy Massura – https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcymassura/

Linkedin is more help focused and is more self-regulating than other social platforms.

LinkedIn self-polices its groups.

Have a ‘real’ photo for LinkedIn profile photo – how people would see you in real life.

^ Focus on your face and eyes

Your header image is very important.

Header image should communicate what you do

A safe place to promote what you do, You can brag about your accomplishments

Premium LinkedIn allows to better hunt for a job or looking for people to fit a specific role or job. https://www.linkedin.com/profinder

Small biz helping other small biz find right connections.

LinkedIn ads result in actual results, continues to improve all the time.

Linkedin offers all types of advertising and is very open-minded with it comes to ads.

Job titles are great but think about how someone would be searching for the type of job you want to be hired for.

Have fun with your personal tagline, not so much your titles. Have fun with the tagline but do not forget the keywords.

LinkedIn is 15 years old the – same age as WordPress

LI is more than a resume receptacle

Nice way to get more recommendations is to add a note on the bottom of all invoices.

Also, Linkedin is one of the only social network platforms that you want to be friends with your clients.

Connect with New clients on LinkedIn, great way to ask for recommendations AFTER a job well done.

Don’t fake your reviews, make them count.

There is a toggle on your profile that lets you notify everyone or not of changes.

Cool stuff on LinkedIn:
Can follow hashtags to have it show in the feed

Its kinda like a think tank. People seem to be so willing to help. However, this is based on your connections.

Marcy
Sprout Social – Social media management made easy.
– 99/month to start
^ it’s no hootsuite or hexagon, but great for small business and reviewing reports on social interactions.

Bridget
How Adam Smith can change your life]
Goes good with tequila

Jason
Rescue Time – tracks time spent doing tasks on your computer
automatic and IFTT reports to rescuetime when Jason is Lyfting about.

______________
Show notes contributed by:

James Tryon – @jamestryon
Paul Oyler – @PappyOyler

The post WPblab EP102 – LinkedIn: Why WordPressers Shouldn't Ignore it appeared first on WPwatercooler.

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In this episode, Bridget and Jason are joined by Rick Solari. Bland branding is bad branding. Allow your personality to shine. Let’s chat about taking a different approach than the norm.

• Bridget Willard
• Jason Tucker
• Rick Solari

Bridget: Don’t be so stuck on your business model that you’re not willing to ‘shift’!

Rick: Media Producer and consultant – helps people spice things up in their brand awareness, social media, videos, etc – teach how to share your true voice and gain more followers along the way!

There’s a lot of people out there who continuously post the same things – very familiar/similar to others in their industry. Rick teaches people to go ‘outside of the box’ and add fun & personality to their marketing efforts.

Find your voice and just speak it – scream it as loud as you can!

Bridget – I always default to “as polite as possible”

Humor is really tricky in this post-modern world – “skin is so thin, it’s a wonder most people don’t have skin cancer”

Pushing boundaries can get you attention but you want to make sure it’s the right kind of attention.  Make sure it doesn’t backfire on you.

Be careful with hashtags and social media campaigns, you have to be prepared for the hecklers.

It’s one thing to get people to talk about you and your brand, but are you getting them to talk about you and behave or ‘take action’ in the way that you want them to?

Bridget: You really have to know your audience.  The danger is that you are being a source of entertainment but there is no benefit coming your way.

If what is happening or is popular/trending in social media makes sense for your brand, jump on that!

Being funny can be really good – it’s not necessarily a bad thing

pic.twitter.com/kRGBixcBTg

— Yanni (@Yanni) May 16, 2018

#Laurel? #Yanny? Or… pic.twitter.com/5hth07SdGY

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 17, 2018

Torque and ‘Doc Pop’ do a great job with their videos and cartoons

https://torquemag.io/author/doc-pop/

Bridget: One of the reasons I like humor is that it can be a gentler way to communicate a truth.

BrunchBros  – Brunch is a big thing in Miami, FL! They have various different characters like the “business bro” and the “frat bro” and they post memes based around those characters – adds humor and wit to the more typical “food blog” style posts

Bridget: contemplating writing backstories for stock photos!  She loves making up stories about random people at restaurants, public events, etc.  It might be a good way of tricking herself into writing again and would be a great way to show her understanding of people!

There’s a game called ‘memes’ that is similar to that idea with storytelling based on a picture

We’re always pushing to do more, be more, learn more. Sometimes it’s nice to just see something cheery on the internet that makes you smile or laugh.  It might even spark creativity in someone else!

There are limits to how far you should take your humor. Create a pros/cons list – what is the worst thing that can happen if I post this? If you think something is funny, you should try to consider what the opposite reaction could be to that content.

Weigh out the pros/cons – even if it’s completely funny to you, work out how it might be received wrongly by someone else and what would happen – work the cons list and make sure you are comfortable with the possible reactions before you post

If you have a team, try to ping-pong your ideas with a group. If not, bounce it off your good friend and see what they think.

If you can figure out how to quickly jump onto & associate your brand with something that is happening (current events) then that can be social media gold – have to make sure it’s not a sensitive issue though

The biggest hangup with companies, especially bigger ones, is the reluctance to give up control

Make sure if you are going to jump on something that’s trending and bounce off of it, that you do it in a timely manner.  Don’t be the cardboard company that wanted to react to an event that happened 6 weeks ago!

Try creating a google search using boolean operators so that it’s very specific, that way when something actually comes up, you know it’s something worth reacting to

Think about how do you take something boring and turn it into something that sticks?

If you’re a bank, for example, what do you talk about? Talk about stuff that is “a win” for your brand or your customer and use that feature to inject a bit of humor into your marketing.

Southwest is one of Bridget’s favorite airlines.  The flight attendants have a lot of autonomy and get to have a lot of fun with what they do.  She mentioned bad turbulence and made a joke about it on social media during a flight and they replied and then DM’d her back and sent her a gift certificate.

Everything you do in social media is a risk.  There will always be some backlash. There will always be critics.  Take the risk but know what kind of backlash you might get. Go in with eyes wide open.

Jason: If you can be timely (but be sensitive not to push it too far) you can pull off a lot of cool things.

Rick: You want to respond within the hour or within the day depending on what it is and the staying power of the trend.

Tools/Tips of the Week

Rick: huge fan of Mashable.com – they have a shop, including online courses. There is an instagram marketing crash course for entrepreneurs on a huge sale!

Bridget: Had a revelation that Javascript is Algebra and thought maybe she can teach herself! Started Wes Bos Javascript30 but needed more background to get started. Someone recommended FreeCodeCamp and it is SO cool!  On lesson 22 already! Also set up a CodePen account – wants to prove to herself that she can do it!  “We can do anything we want to do, we just have to put our minds to it”; “Say YES to yourself”

Jason: hates Slack, but if you’re going to use it, you need something that will corral it. Franz – you install it and log into all of the services you use to chat with folks, aggregates all of them into one

Show notes contributed by:

Cheryl LaPrade – @yaycheryl

Sherie LaPrade – @heysherie

The post WPblab EP101 – It’s okay to have a personality in your marketing with Rick Solari appeared first on WPwatercooler.

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On this episode, Jason Tucker and Bridget Willard get sentimental and invite past guests to jump on and share what they've learned recently in WordPress. We're all life-long learners. Come join in the fun in the chat and see more details in our Facebook Group.

100 Episodes since October 2015!!

• Bridget Willard
• Jason Tucker

Bridget: “As we learn and grow and teach, our bio’s change and grow!”

• Has been on WPblab off & on since the beginning and was on nearly weekly in the beginning when it was more of a Q&A show
• His girlfriend was super supportive of his journey in WordPress and let him spend the time he needed coding and ‘leveling up’ his skills. They now have a little boy, which is also a big learning journey for them!
• Never thought he could work for a company like WebDev Studios but met the right people and answered the right questions and here he is! Over 2 years with them now!
• If you are ever having errors, you have 3 options – make a backup and try turning things on and off, have a staging site, and reach out to people you are connected to in the community – lean on other people!
• WordPress is so cool! Put your heart into it and you’re gonna love it!

• Kevin remembers WPblab when it was still on the Blab platform!
• Blab was an interesting beast, you never knew who would pop in! Bridget: it was like Chatroulette!
• Had to keynote WordCamp Pittsburgh on 2 days notice, so he covered his WordPress journey, which basically all started with WPblab.
• Decided to try and run his own blab – talked for 30 minutes and no one showed up! Realized that he wasn’t putting things on record – not writing blog posts or sharing his work.  People don’t always operate on your time. I have value to offer but it doesn’t mean the person on the receiving end is ready at that moment. He worked on WordPress for 7 years before he wrote his first blog post!

• Easily Amused, Inc and Wapu.us
• James has been on & off the show for a long time, helping with show notes too!
• Bridget: For a long time WPblab was a virtual meetup!  It was a great option for people who had meetups far from them.
• James looks forward to it every week, it makes his Thursday night! Loves the chatting, and hanging out with everyone!  Even though he’s across the country, it feels like everyone is together on Thursday nights!
• Jason: it’s so strange because he’ll see people online and through Blab all the time and then see them in person and it will be like they’ve just seen each other, even though they are on opposite coasts – all thanks to WPblab
• James’ word of wisdom – he has been thoroughly enjoying an hour a day of yard work lately! Exercise and fresh air!
• He really loved WP Watercooler but WPblab feels like home to him. He looks forward to it every Thursday and feels bad when he has to miss it. We all feel like family!
• Bridget: “It’s so true! If I have a panic attack while I’m at WCEU, will any of my friends be there?” And so many people jumped up to say they would!

• Had him on several WPblab shows in the past & interviewed him several times
• His favorite memory was getting in a deep conversation with Bridget about open source
• One thing that impresses Bridget most is that Roy and none of the WP Crowd ever talk down to her about WordPress & her level of knowledge/skills
• “For every good developer, there is a user to give that developer purpose!”
• You’re a user and without you, I have no reason to build this thing – but you give us purpose and a reason to create!
• Bridget: you can have a cognitive dissonance if you aren’t using your product. Even if you knew it once a few years ago, if you haven’t used it since, everything has changed!

The whole crew

• Roy’s shoutout – go over to Matt Cromwell’s twitter to check out a video of trolling Ben
• Roy – he loved how Jason was always doing tech support with Blab!
• Bridget – you want Jason to be the “guy” – you certainly don’t want it to be me!
• Bridget – I don’t build websites, hire Roy!
• Bridget – just wrote her first WordCamp talk on GitHub with Markdown!
• All – discuss how much (or if any) company logo can appear on WordCamp talk slides and still be acceptable for WordPress.tv
• Bridget – WordPress has taught me how to go to bars – true story LOL
• Bridget – WordPress.TV is the best – free learning! Lynda is great, but WP.tv is free
• Russell – when I got to WordCamp, I want to learn, I don’t want to be bored!  WordPress.tv – if you ever want to see the energy of the community, that’s the place
• Russell & Bridget both dream about their WordCamp talks

• James: Google Drive is amazing for working as a team – we can all take notes on the same documents and share the same files. We use it all the time, along with Slack.
• Russell – WP-CLI (command line interface) – if you don’t know what the command line tool is and how amazing it is, go learn about it – it’s the best tool!
• Kevin: Look into BEM – Block Element Modifier (CSS naming convention)
  https://twitter.com/kevinwhoffman/status/987005921510526976
• Roy: SVG.js – complex animating with SVGs – really great library with lots of cool plugins – wrote a plugin called the Gutenburg Object Plugin. Takes the data and saves it properly in the database as an array instead of in markup format.
• Bridget: TouchNote – will send postcards of your photos & even canvas prints Also: STEP program with the State Department – connects you to US Embassy and give them your info for when you are traveling overseas
• Jason: Markdown editor: https://macdown.uranusjr.com/ – simplest and free – MacDown. It’s 2 panes, type text on one side, renders Markdown on the other side

Roy Question for Bridget – where you used to believe Open Source was not a good thing, how do you feel now? – When you have intellectual property and you give it away for free – it is your choice. The thing that’s great about WordPress, it’s not about planned obsolescence.  They don’t create something that will break to create new customers. This is the issue that she has with Gutenberg. WordPress believes that everyone has the right to publish and stands upon the idea that they will never break your site. Gutenberg might break that. What is the best solution for your customer/user?

Bridget:

• The relationships and people are what makes WordPress valuable.

• WordPress is at a crossroads, do we want to stay with our core beliefs that it’s all about ‘democratizing publishing’ or do we bow to capitalism?
• I love WordPress, I love the community and I love the WPblab group even more!!

______________
Show notes contributed by:

Cheryl LaPrade – @yaycheryl

Sherie LaPrade – @heysherie

The post WPblab – 100th Episode Mastermind – Lifelong Learning with Our Community appeared first on WPwatercooler.

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