Making your WordPress site more Shareable,

Sociable, and Likeable

Benjamin J. Balter web

Ben.Balter.com email

Ben@Balter.com twitter

@BenBalter

The Plan

• Talk– Pushing Content to Social Networks– Pulling Content in from Social

Networks– Encouraging Sharing– Engaging Visitors– Earning Fans– A few Words of Caution

• Genius Bar / Hands On / Q&A

What’s the Goal?

Content is

King

Megaphone v. Cocktail

Party

Hub and Spoke

Hub and Spoke

Push Your Content

Attract Readers to Site

Visitors have Richer Experience

Readers Share Content

Gain Additional Followers/Fans

Better Understanding of Customers

to your Networks

Pushing your Content to your Networks

• Short Urls ( bit.ly, t.co, wp.me )• Manually

– TweetDeck– HootSuite– CoTweet– Etc.

• Semi-Automatically– Simple Facebook Connect / Simple Twitter

Connect– WP to Twitter ( or Twitter Tools / WordTwit )– Leenk.me

to your Site

Pull Social Media to your Site

• Pull in content streams– Facebook Activity Feed / Fan Box– Twitter (via JetPack)

• Embedly– 350+ social media platforms– Automatically embeds by pasting the

standard URL

• Blackbird Pie• Storify

Encourage

S h a r i n g

Encourage Sharing

• AddThis (Integrated Analytics)• ShareThis• JetPack (WordPress.com)• TweetMeme• Sociable (1.2M Downloads)• Sexy Bookmarks (1.4M Downloads)• Or Roll Your Own Network Specific

Buttons (FB Like, +1, etc.)

What Fits Your Site?

Your Visitors

Engage

Engage Your Visitors

• Welcome Messages for New Users (WWSGD)

• Ratings and Ranking (GD Star)• Polls (PollDaddy)• Single Sign-on for Comments

(Janrain, SFT, STC)• Twitter Mentions as Comments• Advanced Commenting (Disqus)

Earning Followers

Build Your Network

• Links to Social Media Profiles– Dedicated page (or contact us)– Sidebar widget

• 100’s of free social media icons online

• Author Bios– Include social media contact info– Include bio below every post

Everything in Moderation

AvoidL e m o n s

Good WordPress Plugins

• Look at the right column of the plugin page

• Recently and frequently updated• High number of downloads• High average rating• Recent support requests• Overall documentation• Full-time developers (sometimes)

Photo Credits

• Cat - http://www.flickr.com/photos/malkoff/135927433/

• Goal - http://www.flickr.com/photos/corscri/1320198723/

• Megaphone - http://www.flickr.com/photos/tranchis/3708549622/

• Wheel- http://www.flickr.com/photos/hitzi/4418320808/

• WaPo - Blame it on the Voices• Buffet -

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremybrooks/3450585089/

• Sharing - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ben_grey/4582294721/

• Push - http://www.flickr.com/photos/thristian/4199776764/

• Pull - http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_justified_sinner/6189366691/

• Lemon - http://www.flickr.com/photos/charles_chan/953927351/

• Followers - http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcysurfer/2944307294/

Benjamin J. Balter web

Ben.Balter.com email

Ben@Balter.comtwitter

@BenBalter