My 10 Base Install Wordpress Plugins

There are some plugins that are standout candidates to be rolled into the core of Wordpress as ‘canonical’, ‘core’, ‘anointed’ or whatever Automattic end up calling them. I just think of them as essential.

For now you’ll just have to install them manually. These are the plugins that I install into a Wordpress site as soon as I set it up, with a little explanation of what it does and why you want it.

To install a plugin, go to the ‘Plugins > Add New’ page in your Wordpress Admin area.

WP Supercache
It’s all too easy to go overboard with Wordpress plugins but each of them takes time to process a post, slowing down your blog. QP Supercache helps speed things up by storing cached pages. There are some confusing advanced settings and for maximum compatibility I tend to leave it on ‘half-on’ for the WP Touch plugin.

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Who needs social media when you’re too busy being awesome?

Catching up on some blogs this weekend, I found this post about Comcast’s usage of Twitter by Lisa Barone over at Outspoken Media.

Not living in the US I don’t have the opportunity to try Comcast’s service. My overall opinion of the way Comcast use Twitter is that it’s great for the people who get help that way, though it creates a two-tier support system – people savvy enough to turn to @comcastcares get ‘premium hotline’ support. Those who aren’t so connected (if your internet connection is out, you’re probably using your iPhone) are subjected to phone trees and hold music. If the team that use Twitter in some way can generalise problems and drive organisational improvements then I can see the up-side. Otherwise @comcastcares is just an insiders’ priority support channel.

Anyway, to my point. I’ve been in the Czech Republic since 2001. Over that time I’ve used numerous internet providers (cable, ADSL, Wi-Fi), but the one that’s always my first choice if it’s available (a few years ago we even paid to have a building wired up) is UPC’s cable internet service.

Every year since I moved here their offerings have got faster, when their infrastructure could take it, or cheaper. They’ve driven a stake through the ADSL internet provision business of Telefonica O2 (previously Czech Telecom) by always beating them on price AND quality of service. They were the first ISP here to get rid of FUP limits. They don’t have blanket coverage of the city yet but where they offer service, you’d be crazy to go with anyone else.

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How much is a fan?

I’ve been experimenting with Facebook advertising, with relatively small amounts of money.

One of the surprises is just how inexpensive and precise you can be with your advertising on Facebook. You can really dig deep into demographics that aren’t possible with other forms of advertising.

I set up two campaigns, both as cost-per-click rather than cpm (cost per thousand). Both campaigns were for local businesses in Prague which are primarily targeted at the English-speaking expatriate population of Prague. Geographic targeting isn’t available at city level for the Czech Republic but that’s not particularly important, I was able to use the ‘language’ filter to target people using Facebook in English, which brings the potential audience down to just the people were interested in targeting.

Interesting lessons from using that criterion: choosing English US and English UK is essential. The default language for Facebook is American English, British English having been added later, so many people would never have switched.

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Missing the point about Pepsi’s Before you Score App?

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Lots of vitriol being poured out about Pepsico’s AMP UP Before You Score branded app (see Twitter search results to the left) and this Mashable piece.

Most of the opinion (most of which is just people retweeting) is overwhelmingly negative, but then how many people of these people have actually tried it out?

I did, and this app has its tongue placed very firmly in its cheek. Would a branded app supporting a fairly bland energy drink have got this much coverage or attention if it didn’t pose as misogynistic?

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Back to School

A few weeks ago I sat an exam for the first time in many years. It was the online certification test for Inbound Marketing University, a project driven by Hubspot, providers of a web based software solution that is designed to assist SMEs with, well, inbound marketing. The ‘professors’ of Inbound Marketing are all high level practitioners in their relative fields – it reads like a who’s who of ‘new marketing’ types.

What’s Inbound Marketing anyway?

Inbound Marketing is the antithesis of many elements of traditional marketing – it’s about creating relationships and establishing a presence, making potential customers aware of you in a more natural way than interruptive tactics like TV advertising.

Course overview

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Are comments on blogs too long?

Ever notice how most review sites ask you to sum up your review with a one-liner?

I wish blog comments worked that way – write a comment over 50 words and you have to write a very concise summary. Maybe I’ve become conditioned by the soundbite nature of Twitter, but it seems to me that most comments could be summarised in 10 words or less.

Brevity is the soul of wit

Reading blog posts takes time, often there’s some significant action in the comments too, and reading them can take much longer than the original post.
Some comments are just a ‘yes, I agree’, others have valuable information, often there’s no way to tell, and even skimming a three paragraph comment takes time. Read the rest of this entry »

Case study – the sports bar – part three – summer update

Just a quick update on the website situation

Web traffic is holding steady (even though it’s off-season for their main sports).

Now number 2 result on Google.com (above the local 10-pack) for a search for “Sports Bar Prague”. Beating out sportsbar.cz

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Not performing as well on Google.cz (which Firefox defaults to when you’re in the Czech Republic) because there is no Czech version of the site. Though the Czech language version of the Facebook Fan Page that we set up does make a showing lower down the first page, compensating somewhat.

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There’s no way this ends well

So a Chicago real estate company decides to sue a woman for a tweet she wrote, seen primarily by her by 20 followers, for $50,000.

The $50,000 line? “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.”

Kudos for them for using social media monitoring tools to look for brand mentions. Though the off-the-cuff remark from Jeffrey Michael of Horizon:

We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization.

Hardly a line likely to get you any sympathy.

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3 reasons why I correct other bloggers’ spelling mistakes and typos

Every so often I’ll come across typographical errors and spelling mistakes on blogs that I read.

Going back over my own posts I’ve come across them too so I know why they happen – I’m writing something quickly, I’ve got a thought in my head that I want to get up on my blog and proof-reading my own stuff is virtually impossible – besides, I’m infallible, right?

It is my hope that my own readers will spot the mistakes I’ve made too. So here are my reasons for being a spelling nazi:

1. I read your content regularly (I’m probably one of your followers on twitter, for example) and I feel that this really is the least I can do to pay you back.
2. If something made me stop to parse out the error, it will make your other readers stop, like hitting a hidden speed bump, and I want them to get the most out of your content by making it smooth.
3. With some of the blog posts I read I get the feeling that they would make great short chapters, or parts of chapters, of a book. A book that I’ll probably buy.

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Why Twitter really isn’t about the numbers

There’s still a big fuss about follower numbers on Twitter, still people tweeting out ‘Just need 5 more followers to hit 1000′ and ‘I gained 8k in followers quickly by using this simple technique’ type scam artists.

The Test Case
I set up a test account a few days back, partly to see if an affiliate account on twitter can make any money but also to see how large, and how quickly, it was possible to grow a following with something running on autopilot. I have some code that screen-scrapes data from a popular online store then uses the Tweetlater API to schedule announcement of newly arrived products or price drops. Less than 4 days in it has over 80 followers and has generated over 600 clicks on the links it is tweeting out. I didn’t follow any users when I set the account up, but it is set to auto-follow any new followers it gets – it does this up to 8 hours after the follow, and unfollow anyone who stops following it. Since the account has been tweeting out, I’ve also run some searches for keywords to find people who would benefit from following the account, to let them know. The majority of these organically found people become followers.

Most of the followers however aren’t interested in what’s being tweeted out, they’re just playing the ‘build my follower numbers’ game using the ‘if I follow you, you might follow me back’ logic. A fair number of them send auto-DMs when the account follows them back too.

What does this prove?
From this test it’s clear that anyone can build a following with almost zero quality or relevance (of tweets, or followers). Best Buy’s Emerging Media Marketing job with a requirement of 250+ followers on Twitter missed the point, as the discussion that stemmed from it illustrates.

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