I’m sitting in Starbucks waiting for my flat tire to be fixed so I brought my daughter’s new iPad to kill some time. Why not see how well the iPad works for blogging?
First I had to buy some wifi time at Starbucks since they’re free wifi doesn’t start until next week. No big deal because I’m traveling next week so I should be able to use the wifi elsewhere.
The keyboard is a little awkward with the iPad flat on the table. The docking station and keyboard should help when it arrives. There are a few quirks with Safari and Wordpress that i’m working through but nothing too major. I usually blog using Firefox so I’m not sure if its a Safari issue or an iPad issue. I’m sure there are some apps that will help Wordpress bloggers using iPads (let me know your favorite apps for blogging or start developing some!)
Overall blogging from the iPad is pretty easy but there are limitations. But it sure beats lugging my laptop around! I guess this is one more justification for me to get an iPad (i’ve been self-justifying excuses why I need an iPad!). Overall blogging from the iPad gets a C+ rating. The external keyboard would make it an B.
Here are some more questions from the Sitecore 5 Ingredients of Social Media for Your Website Webinar.
Q: How can we use facebook for a non-profit company, what are your recommedations of what kind of info we should display on facebook?
A: There are hundreds of Facebook Groups and Fan Pages for non-profits. I would start by searching Facebook for Non-Profits on Facebook and check out the Fan Page that has almost 300,000 members. There is a lot of great information that will get you started.
Q: How do you ensure that the content people put on your website is in good taste?
A: Unfortunately you can’t control what people post in forums and on your social media pages so you have to have someone delete inappropriate content. By inappropriate content I mean spam or offensive material. You should not delete negative comments about your product or service. Address those comments in a reply and contact the person offline to resolve their complaints. Most of the time when you respond to them in a timely fashion they will be satisfied and will post a positive reply on your website.
Many content management systems have modules that will detect and not publish spam and offensive material. Wordpress uses a plugin called Akismet that blocks spam comments.
You should also use social media monitoring tools like Trackur or Radian6 so you will be instantly notified when inappropriate comments or complaints are posted. Responding quickly is the key to heading off an online disaster.
Q: How do you use Facebook for business? I use it personally.
A: Keep your business and personal Facebook pages separate unless you are a consultant or professional service provider and your name is your brand name. Look at the Facebook pages of the companies we talked about in the webinar and see how they’re using Facebook. Also search for any major brand name and see how they’re using Facebook.
Q: Is it better to have your blog as a different url than your company website?
A: This is an ongoing debate with many SEO experts. Some say its better to have your blog and website on the same URL because you’ll have more focused content on one domain name. Others say it’s better to have the blog on a different URL and on a different webhost so you can generate a lot of links between the two sites.
Personally I’ve tried it both ways and I think it’s best to keep the blog and website on one URL. It’s hard to maintain two different web properties unless you have staff to keep the content fresh on both sites. Google likes to see a lot of related content on one URL so it will help your search rankings by combining them.
Q: What is the best free social media monitoring tool out there? What is the best very low cost one?
A: If you’re on a low budget you can set up Google Alerts to monitor specific keywords you are targeting. Every time Google finds those keywords you will receive an email (or a daily digest so you’re not overwhelmed by emails). You can use tools like TweetDeck which is a free program that lets you monitor Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
You can also search Google for “free social media monitoring tools” to see what’s out there. I recommend using a paid service because “you get what you pay for” and Trackur seems to be the best low priced tool I’ve seen.
In case you missed our webinar here are links to the webinar recording, podcast and slides.
http://mediacontent.sitecore.net/5IngredientsSocialMedia/5IngredientsSocialMedia.html
http://mediacontent.sitecore.net/5IngredientsSocialMedia/5IngredientsSocialMedia.mp3
http://www.slideshare.net/sitecore/5-key-ingredients-of-social-media-for-your-website
Ted
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I’ve set up at least 50 Joomla websites in the past 3 years and at least as many Wordpress blogs. Both platforms have very strong, active communities that are constantly improving the products based on community feedback.
For small sites Wordpress has become a viable solution which I wouldn’t have said a year ago. Many new plugins and tool have appeared in the past year that make it easier to build a website instead of just a blog.
Joomla has matured and the release of the 1.5 platform last year solved many of the problems with the original version. They rebuilt Joomla from the ground up instead of patching the previous versions. Search friendly URL’s are now built into Joomla and my Joomla sites appear highly ranked in Google with little effort. Adding SEO plugins to Wordpress also makes it fairly easy to rank high in the search engines.
I still prefer Joomla for larger sites because I haven’t found a good menu plugin for Wordpress that lets me create menus with many levels that looks clean. . Joomla lets me create multiple menus located at the top, on the side and at the bottom of the website. I haven’t been able to create multiple menus in Wordpress without custom programming. 
I like the way Joomla lets me move content around in different module positions and I can define the module positions in the template. Wordpress is limited how you can display content. Widgets must appear in sidebars and it’s not as flexible as Joomla. I know you can create custom themes for Wordpress but it’s always the main column and 1 or 2 sidebars. I’m sure Wordpress will continue to evolve and become more flexible.
Wordpress was designed to be a blog system and evolved into a content management system. Joomla started as a content management system and continues to grow. Both systems have easy to use Admin interfaces but Joomla has a lot more features so it looks harder to use than it is. It’s like Microsoft Word. You have 1000 features and you use 10 of them most of the time.
To sum it up, I like both platforms and I’ll continue to develop sites in both platforms based on the client’s needs.
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Here’s a list of my favorite Wordpress plugins? What are your favorites? Please add them in the Comments section and I’ll compile a list for everyone to share.
All in One SEO Pack – Great SEO plugin that helps you get better search engine rankings
NextGEN Gallery – easy to use gallery plugin
Sociable – social bookmarking plugin that display social media plugins after each post. Use this or ShareThis
ShareThis – Social bookmarking tool that pops up instead of displaying the social media icons on your blog
Google Analytics for WordPress – let’s you monitor your blog traffic and gives you detailed visitor information
Google XML Sitemaps – automatically creates updated sitemaps
WP Security Scan – Shows you security vulnerabilities on your blog
DISQUS Comment System – connects your blog comments to your community page at www.disqus.com. Also allows video comments on your blog.
Suckerfish Dropdown Menu – easy to use menu system for your blog
Twitter Tools – Connects your blog to Twitter
Sphere Related Content – Let’s you instantly find related content based on the keywords in your post
TinyMCE Advanced – advanced editor for the dashboard
My Page Order – Let’s you easily reorder Page order
My Link Order – Let’s you easily reorder Link order
Category Order – Let’s you easily reorder Categories
Image Widget – Let’s you easily display widgets in the sidebar
What Would Seth Godin Do – Prompts people to subscribe to your blog
Wordpress Automatic upgrade – Upgrades your Wordpress software to the latest version using an easy to use wizard
Add your favorites in the Comments and I’ll compile a list for everyone.
If you like this post please bookmark it below by clicking on Share This. Watch this video to see how to use social bookmarking.
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What are your favorite Wordpress plugins? There are hundreds of free Wordpress plugins and most people don’t take advantage of them to enhance their blog. Some plugins improve the appearance of the blog. Other plugins improve your search rankings. What’s great about Open Source software is that new, free plugins appear almost daily on the internet.
It’s important to make sure you only use plugins from reputable sources. Some plugins are written by amateur programmers and can crash your blog. Other plugins can have malicious code that can download spyware onto your computer. I always read the reviews of each plugin to make sure it’s reliable before I install it. One of my favorite plugin creators is Joost de Valk at www.yoast.com
Yoost recently released his top 11 Wordpress plugins on his blog at http://yoast.com/top-wordpress-plugins/ This is a great list of “must have” Wordpress Plugins.
What are your favorite Wordpress plugins? Please add your favorites as a Comment to this post and I’ll compile a list for everyone.
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