Social Media Marketing Comedy

Are there any people out there who might be considered knowledgeable in matters of SEO, Internet Marketing or Social Media/Social Networking and often find themselves getting laughed at when they try to explain Facebook, Linkedin, Blogging and especially Twitter to others!? I am one such person and I’ve witnessed others on the receiving end of this too.

I can maybe understand people laughing at Twitter with all it’s funny acronyms – Tweet, Twitterer, Twits, etc..but I’ve been trying to figure out why people’s eyes glaze over when you start talking about this stuff in general and why they think you’re joking when you say this is probably the most important thing you can do to promote your Website/Business at the minute.

My best guess is that the amount of information you often need to convey about how to use each service/site and exactly what it all means and what it can do for people is just overwhelming to the listener and they can’t fathom where to begin or where they’ll find the time to do it all.

So they laugh out loud in frustration!

If you are one such person who doesn’t get it and who laughs at us poor nerds thinking we know it all, then please don’t and here’s a simple definition of what we’re all talking about  when we mention “Social Media Marketing”:

Social Media Marketing means making friends online through various different websites with the ultimate aim of letting as many people as possible know about your product or service.

Nothing funny about that!?

WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin Review

One of the top feature requests by web design clients is of course the ability to sell items online and I’ve had to do a bit of research to find a suitable and robust shop plugin for my web design tool of choice WordPress. There’s a few smaller, basic plugins that do a job but for a proper cart the main plugin seems to be WP-ecommerce but I’ve had nothing but trouble with that, seems very buggy. Sometimes you just have to go commercial with plugins and get what you pay for! So here’s my recommendation for the best all round commercial wordpress shopping cart plugin at the time of writing.

wordpress-shopping-cart-plugin

It’s logically called WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin by Tribulant Software and its priced at a very reasonable, once off $49.99 for a single installation or $249.95 for the ability to add it to as many sites as you like. Here’s a rundown on the highlight features:

  • Unlimited Products and Categories.
  • Support for automatic Digital Product sales.
  • Multiple payment methods including Paypal and Manual.
  • Multiple Currencies.
  • Customisable shipping structure.
  • Discount Coupons.
  • Product Variations/Styles.
  • Inventory Countdown.
  • Product embedding in wordpress posts and pages.
  • Multiple widgets available.
  • Custom Fields.
  • Ajax powered content tabs.
  • Product Search Widget.
  • Multimple Regional Taxes.
  • Supplier Login.
  • G-Zip Compression.

The standout features for me are:

  • Stripe Payment Integration via extension. (Accept Credit Cards with NO Merchant or Gateway setup or monthly fees!)
  • Realex Payment Integration. (Both Redirect and Remote/Onsite methods)
  • Digital Product support.
  • Affiliate Product Support.
  • Ajax (fast loading) product information tabs.
  • Flexible pricing and shipping options.
  • Custom Fields.
  • Invoice/Order PDF generation.

There’s also a very interesting setting to make any product an External/Affiliate item. I also like the Recommended Retail Price option which displays the RRP struck out over the actual price. The checkout procedure is very nicely laid out in a step by step method which should help conversions and minimise confusion, a common problem on e-commerce sites.

The plugin is way lighter than its rival wp-ecommerce, is pretty much bug free as far as I can see and  is compatible with recent versions of wordpress including the current 2.8.5.

This is about the best e-commerce plugin currently available for wordpress and the price won’t break the bank.

Demos, Documentation and Support available HERE.

Get it now on the Tribulant site.

Leon.

About Leitrim Website

I’d like to announce a new web project of mine called “About Leitrim” which is a site that pulls in news and info from around the county of Leitrim and collates and organizes it all in one place. The site is basically an RSS aggregator and pulls in any Leitrim related RSS feeds and organizes them into categories for easy viewing.

The Latest Leitrim News, Sport, Property for Sale and Rent, Job Vacancies, Arts, Tourism and Local Services are all covered with additional sources being added all the time.

I hope it will help in promoting the county and attracting Business, Tourism and Relocations.

Check out the site at www.AboutLeitrim.ie

Follow About Leitrim on Twitter – www.Twitter.com/AboutLeitrim

Join our IGOpeople group – www.IGOpeople.com/g/706-about-leitrim

Blogs Get Noticed!

I got a call from a journalist from the Sunday Times last week in relation to an article she was writing on IVF and Infertility in Ireland. She wanted a male orientated view and must have googled same (as journalists are known to do as part of their research!). Luckily enough I was one of the few men talking about infertility and men on my blog so I come up fairly high for related searches.

What I had written on my blog was obviously interesting and relevant enough for her to call me and do an impromptu interview for the feature. The article went out on Sunday the 27th and covered a full page with a huge photo of myself, my partner and our baby! And had she included a link back to the blog articles in question, it would have brought a lot of exposure to my site for nothing!

The moral of the story is that if you continue to supply your blog with interesting and relevant content you will get noticed and become a valuable resource for others.

Read the Times article here.

Track Your Visitors

I’ve come across a few websites recently for one reason or another and couldn’t find any trace of a stat tracker code (some people might be relying on their host’s stat package). I would have thought most web designers if not their clients would include something like Google Analytics by default in every site they build. Especially considering its quick and free!?

I make a point of installing this code in all my sites at no cost and I’ve well over 100 clients sites added to my personal analytics account now. I have setup automated monthly emails to clients with a PDF attachment showing a quick breakdown of their visitor statistics. I have added some clients as users of my own account so they can login and view more detailed stats.

I believe for me its a valuable add on service and one that more and more clients are asking for and impressed by when you bother to do it.

Twitter Pervasiveness

I was at Bizcamp in Dublin last Saturday and was interested in the fact that almost anyone I talked with mentioned Twitter in some shape or form. My co-passengers on the journey to and from the event Tweeted our travel progress and the one talk I went to that was specifically related to Twitter was full and was given by a girl (Claire Boyles) obviously very enthusiastic about it!  The day served as confirmation for me if I needed any that Twitter is now the biggest thing since bread slicing.

I was only in the door and filling out my name tag when I noticed others putting their Twitter username on their badges so I done it myself and shortly afterwards I got recognised by someone who is following me! I spent most of the day looking at people’s name tags to see if I knew them from Twitter and anyone I did know and managed to get to talk to, the ice was broken simply by having Twitter in common.

I also got recognised a few more times which is always a nice ego trip and of course once conversation starts it could lead anywhere so the value of Twitter is obvious. Other people without Twitter name tags kinda got ignored (sorry!) but this only serves to enforce the fact that if you’re in business you need to be on Twitter and part of the “stream”.

@reverbstudios

Custom Web Site and WordPress Theme Design

After a year or 2 of installing WordPress for clients and using initially free, now commercial themes, I’ve now acquired the ability (after extensive messing around!) to design customised layouts and themes for this content management system. Using ready made templates will still be much more efficient and cheaper to the client of course but for people who require highly customised web design while keeping an easy to use CMS, and can afford it, I can now design a look and feel based on full design specs provided by the client.

Prices dependent on specs.

Who and What to Follow on Twitter

Its all about Twitter these days with loads of users and business using it increasingly to brand themselves. For me, there’s 2 main ways to use it, to gain useful info and to market your own business. I want to talk about the first here and who best to follow to get great info and tips absolutely FREE! Continue reading Who and What to Follow on Twitter

Import your RSS Feed or Blog to Facebook Linkedin etc..

I’ve recently mentored a few clients in how best to use Social Networking sites to promote their own business or website and I couldn’t help feeling by the end of each session that the client felt a little overwhelmed by either the amount of sites that needed to be updated or the perceived level of technical expertise and amount of time required to get things moving on each site. I’d like to try simplify things here.

Continue reading Import your RSS Feed or Blog to Facebook Linkedin etc..

New Site Design for Reverb Studios

I’m sad to say goodbye to my iPhone styled site which has lasted longer than a lot of other versions I’ve had in recent times. However every site needs a face lift every now and then as content becomes old or you find new ways of expressing yourself or new technology becomes available. My old site was a little slow to load and had a little too much going on content and link wise so I decided it was time to freshen things up and simplify a bit. Continue reading New Site Design for Reverb Studios