Launching a Membership Site on WordPress: Plugins Review

Using WordPress, there are many plugins which will enable you to expand the functionality of the website to grow a community & membership. We have looked and reviewed a few plugins.

Membership Plugins on WordPress

Enabling different level of membership on a site to enable only subscribed members to rad certain content is a great way to build a community. Having some free content is key to hook people in and to convert browsers -> members.

When choosing which plugins to use, a key area to research is the support they provide.  There’s always going to be some glitches (it’s software after all!) but how companies respond and manage their support is key. This plugin is fundamental to your members, and if there are problems, you don’t want to annoy your members!

Upgrading to the paid for plugins is also recommended and if these are fundamental to your business, perhaps looking at the support contracts as well. (more…)

15 Top Tips to Boost Your Facebook Edgerank

Boosting your Facebook Fan Page Edgerank is imperative to ensuring you are maximising the reach of your page.  Creating a content strategy that is ongoing and engaging is the key to this.  BuddyMedia created a great PDF on ideas for content to boost your edgerank. (more…)

Hybrid Events – Combining Virtual & Real World

A hybrid event is a conference, seminar, tradeshow that combines the traditional physical event with some element of online activity.

Back at the beginning of September I presented at Scotland Conference which was in Edinburgh. This was conference was around how to run hybrid events, which is a growing area in social media. (more…)

Book Review: Organisations Don’t Tweet People Do

Euan Semple was the Head of DigitalLabs at BBC before he left and went freelance. His new book ‘Organisations Don’t Tweet, People Do – A Managers Guide to the Social Web‘ is about how social media an create a knowledge sharing organisation internally.

Social Media doesn’t just have to be about how business interact with their customers, if can be used internally to build a culture of knowledge sharing and transparency.

The book talks through the challenges and ideas of how social media can be used and should be used within an organisation. But it’s the wider business change management that runs along side such a theme that is the interesting part.  It gives ideas on upward management to get the senior team on board down to how to build a social media policy for employees.

Within large organisations, teams are slio-ed and rarely collaborate on projects.  Using blogging and forums internally is a key way to break down those barriers and share best practice.

It’s about individuals taking ownership of the change and growing a voice within the business. It’s about taking calculated risks to influence the culture within a company. From a digital evolution view, those companies that take the leap of faith and start building a far more open, transparent and innovative culture where people can express themselves online, will be a better place to work.

I’d like to thank  Wiley Business for the copy of the book – a great way to spend a snowy sunday afternoon!

 

Moving From Blogger > WordPress

I have been using Blogger for my platform for over 3 years and I have taken the decision to migrate my blog and website over to WordPress.

Over the 3 years I have been using Blogger, Google does not seem to have kept the softeware up to date with developments in Open Source Software.  Wordpress has overtaken Blogger in terms of market share and functionality. Blogger is definitely the poor relation and has been neglected.

(more…)

Call yourself a social media expert?

You may have noticed that I haven’t blogged for  months.  To be honest I got tongue tied and overwhelmed.
I’ve been blogging for 8 years now and on this blog for 2 years.  In that time the world of SEO and social media has become a very crowded place. So what differentiates the experienced social marketeers compared to the new comers in the industry?
The barriers to entry are very low to the SEO and Social media industry.  Anyone can read a few books and then set themselves up as a social media expert. (more…)

How ready is your business for social media?

57% enterprises are making some investment into social media in 2011 (based on data from Forresters)

Social media is a disruptive technology as it changes how a company operates. No organisation can adopt social media unless the underlying business processes, workflow and resources are aligned with the social media strategy and tools to manage this.
Altimer Group recently released a report based on research they have done into the social readiness of businesses. (more…)
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Your online credibility is an increasingly important way of showcasing your specialised knowledge and expertise which will build your online credibility. As more people engage with the social web differentiating yourself become imperative

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Mheall Mhor
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