The PDX Bloggers

October 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I’m so excited to have just joined the most amazing group of local bloggers. A few have them have been meeting for several months working on their WordPress blogs and then attended Portland WordCamp 2011. The first meeting was in October where we dubbed the group the PDX Bloggers. It was great to find a group of like-minded people who are working through the challenges of blogging and using WordPress as a blogging platform. We’ll be meeting monthly and can also be found on Twitter.

PDX Bloggers

Check out their blogs:

GoGinham - Stylishly Frugal Living

WineScamp – Wine, Wine, and More Wine

TwoOregonians - Two native Oregonians gearing up for a year-long journey around the globe to explore social care and food systems, people and place.

CaretakingCouple – The adventures of a Caretaking Team

HairwashingIsForSissies - Put Down That Shampoo

KirstenHope – The Good Life

FeedYourSkull – East Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

And of course, my blogs:

JAM Media Group – Take the Stress Out of Online Marketing

LifeOhm - Living a Balanced Life

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How Social Media Is Changing Business

October 10, 2011 By 2 Comments

Change“It is not necessary to change.  Survival is not mandatory.”  ~W. Edwards Deming 

Any businesses wondering whether or not to get involved with social media, whether to start using Internet resources like Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networking websites, doesn’t have to ponder any more. That’s because, whether you like it or not, whether you’re ready or not and whether you like it or not, your business IS already on those networks.

Consumers have always been willing to talk about the experiences they’ve had with businesses. The difference today is that, instead of chatting on the telephone one-on-one, consumers are taking to the Internet in droves to share their thoughts about businesses with millions of other social media savvy customers. Right now, there are people discussing your business online, putting out information about the good, the bad and the ugly of their experiences with you. The questions are, what do you do about it and how do you respond?

Studies tell us that 86 percent of people don’t trust advertising. These people rely on recommendations, referrals and ratings when choosing where they will take their business. Potential customers check your reputation online through social media resources like Google, Yelp, LinkedIn, Twitter, Merchant’s Circle and many others. And they are more than willing to provide feedback about their experience.

This presents new challenges for businesses but it also creates tremendous opportunities to excel in customer service. For example, imagine you own a restaurant. A customer who has a bad experience at your restaurant takes to the Internet and gives you a scathing review on Yelp or sends out a message on Twitter. Savvy companies are learning the effectiveness of responding to these individual opinions online. Addressing customer concerns directly and resolving their problems, provides a great opportunity to transform disgruntled customers into raving fans.

Your customers are using social media to spread the word about your business. This gives you the ability to respond to their questions and concerns in real time, in whatever format the question was asked. If you take advantage of it, this can mean real benefits to any business. Addressing customer issues one-on-one while the whole Internet watches gives your business the opportunity to establish, strengthen and maintain stronger relationships with your customers and build your image in the minds of your prospects.

What are your thoughts? How has social media changed or not changed your business? Share in the comments below.

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The 5 Most Important Things I Learned at Portland Word Camp 2011

September 22, 2011 By 2 Comments

Portland WordPress WordCamp 2011The Meeting Agenda for the 2011 Portland WordCamp

The team from JAM Media Group attended Portland Word Camp 2011 over the weekend at the Elliot Center in downtown Portland. We, along with several hundred fellow WordPress users enjoyed great food, beer, and whiffies along with talks by WordPress experts and enthusiasts, including several employees from Automattic, the founders of WordPress.

The even was an “unconference” which means that only a few of the presentations are formally scheduled. The rest are set up at the start of the event by the attendees. The 2-day conference had a lot of great information and opportunities to meet other WordPress users. Some of my more interesting/helpful take-a-ways were:

1.) Eat Your Own Dogfood – simply put, this means to use your own products and services. Scott Berkun (@berkun) from  Automattic spoke at the opening of WordCamp and introduced this concept. Even though many developers general avoid blogging, the team at WordPress make a point to blog on their own platform. This helps them identify with user issues and improve the platform and has led to several recent improvements of the interface. This philosophy applies to any business really, eat your own dogfood.

WordPress2.) Helpful plugins - one of the best things about an “unconference” is that there are impromptu groups that form throughout the event. I ended up in one of those groups where they were talking about some of the best plugins for WordPress which include:

  • WP Optimize is a database cleanup and optimization tool that is used to help clean up unnecessary files on your blog.
  • WP Twin easily clones your database, the downside however is that it is $97.
  • WPML.org Language Plugin allows you to run multilingual websites, $29 or $79, depending on the install.
  • Search Everything increases your search ability and also looks at your tags which are not included in most searches
  • Jetpack is a WordPress plugin that supercharges your self-hosted WordPress site with the awesome cloud power of WordPress.com.

3.) If you have traffic ambitions for your blog, the secret is that good regular content will lead to slow steady growth. This is solid advice that top bloggers will tell you but it is very accurate. Most people set up blogs but don’t add nearly enough good content on a regular basis. It’s what will take your blog from a mere hobby to something more.

4.) Blog Topic – so what do you blog about? If you have any shortage of ideas, WordPress has a blog that is run by Scott Berkun called The Daily Post. The Daily Post will give you a daily topic or question that you can use as a blog post topic, or perhaps to spur new ideas for your own topics. Another site that does the same thing is Plinky.

5.) Remember you’re not alone, if you’re struggling with WordPress, or one of its features, chances are that others have had the same challenge. Remember to do a Google search for solutions, ask other WordPress users, or submit a request directly to WordPress. This is a very open community whose members are willing to share their knowledge and experience. Chances are, if you are having an issue, someone else in the community has had the same issue and there are solutions out there.

There are some great free resources for WordPress out there including:

  • WordPress.tv – a place for video tutorials on WordPress
  • WordPress Codex – the online manual for WordPress and a living repository for WordPress information and documentation.
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