integrating wordpress with social media

Getting your content “out there” on Social Networks*

– Jetpack

– MailChimp

– dlvr.it

– Klout

*Not WordPress.com unless otherwise stated

The JetPack plugin has heaps of Social Network goodies packed into a single plugin.

– Available on wordpress.com. Now a plugin.

– Automattic

Ref: http://jetpack.me/

Social Modules: Publisize, Subscriptions, Likes, Sharing, Enhanced Distribution

Allows you to connect to and automatically post your content to Social Networks.

Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Yahoo!, LinkedIn

You can publish to your Facebook profile or Facebook Page.

Uses post excerpt if it exists.

Only publishes new posts.

Allows visitors to subscribe to posts via a widget

They will be automatically sent your post via email.

You get to build a subscriber list for email marketing.

Click on sub links for email addresses

Allows you to display a WordPress.com “likes” area beneath your posts.

Connect with the social user base of WordPress.com via Gravatar

Likes go into the “Firehose”

No other useful stats just now.

Embed popular social network buttons on your pages and posts

Create your own custom sharing button using:

– Service Name

– Sharing URL

– Icon URL

“Jetpack will automatically take the great published content from your blog or website and share it instantly with third party services like search engines, increasing your reach and traffic.”

But where does it go?

There’s not much information on Enhanced Distribution.

Forums suggest posts, comments and likes go into the “Firehose”

http://developer.wordpress.com/docs/firehose/

The Firehose “These content streams …are intended for partners like search engines and market intelligence providers who would like to ingest a real-time stream of new content from a wide spectrum of publishers.” – can’t be too bad right?

• Auto-post content to social networks

• Build an email subscriber list

• Add social network buttons

• Tap into WordPress.com community

• Distributes your posts to a wider audience

• All in one plugin

• Very resource intensive

• Activation enables 75% of services

– Go through each & deactivate unwanted services

• There are other lighter plugins that do the same thing as one of these services (but not all)

– i.e. If you only need social buttons - probably best to find and use another plugin

• Email Marketing and Email List Manager

• “Email isn’t a Social Network”

– It was the first computer Social Network! (1971)

• Why bother with an email list?

– Email is more personal than a tweet or a Like

– Email is more like a letter than a message (psychologically)

– People who “opt-in” are already bought on your authority – they want you to contact them

• Free account

– 12,000 sends/month

– 2,000 max subscribers

– Branded “Powered by MailChimp”

– Unlimited Auto Responders

– Easy form creation

– Auto-bounce management

– Great stats

You should start building an email list NOW!

How? Three easy ways…

– Gravity Forms MailChimp Addon http://www.gravityforms.com/add-ons/mailchimp/

– Contact Form 7 (code tweak) http://www.limecanvas.com/a-mailchimp-opt-in-field-for-contact-form-7/

– Paste MailChimp form HTML into text widget

– Don’t use official MailChimp widget

• Code is broken and slows down your website (since 2011)

What are Auto Responders?

– Send out automatic email after X days after an event (e.g. subscribing)

Uses

– Email specific tutorial weekly over 3 months then stop and prompt to subscribe to paid membership

– Keep customers who bought a specific product/service updated

– Send out regular seasonal offers

– Christmas card to your clients

External website that reads RSS feeds and auto-posts to Social Networks

Set up a “route”

– Sources (RSS FEED) + Destinations (Social Network)

– Add keyword filters “WordPress, Plugins”

Can auto-post to Google+ (Premium Upgrade)

Set up a new route

And feed details

Add route settings

In the post body: – With “Wordpress”

– Not “Sydney”

Set frequency and # of posts then wait for publishing

Get some nice stats too

Why use an external site and not just auto-post from WordPress?

• Scheduling may not work (shared hosting)

• Minimise resource usage

How do you measure your social reach?

– How many Twitter or G+ followers?

– How many mentions, likes or +1s did you get?

Klout allows you to connect several popular social networks and tries to work out how effective you are at using them for communications by using an overall “Score” out of 100

Very quick summary of your social interactions

No Pinterest option ATM

Choose the topics you’re interested/expert in

Allows you to quickly find out the top “Influencers” in your area of expertise/topics