interactiveAmy.com » Conference Recaps

What I Learned at WordCamp 2010

Amy — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:24:15 +0000

Last year’s WordCamp was my introduction to WordPress, and one year later I feel like I’ve come a long way but still have so much to learn. Two days, two conference tracks, and 15 pages of typed notes later - here is a high level overview of key takeaways I learned at WordCamp Chicago, held June 5-6, 2010 at the Holiday Inn Merchandise Mart.

I’d classify myself as a WordPress “advanced beginner,” and I am a user, not a developer, so I stuck to the User Track and attended sessions on: Using WordPress and Buddy Press for Education, Creating Custom Menus with WordPress 3.0, a WordPress User Experience, session, but for me the meat and potatoes came in the afternoon of Day One.

I was blown away by Amanda Blum’s session entitled “Sitemap to Success” and Scott Stawarz’s session on how to Maximize the All in One SEO Plugin. So let’s start there.

Every website is selling something. Is that clear on your site?

Many business cater to multiple audiences, and your website should have a clear call to action for each user group. After you’ve done the initial leg work of defining what you do and who you serve; address each one specifically and determine what constitutes a success point on your website? Make sure you create a path to buy!

Amanda suggests starting with the following four questions:

Why do I want crap?
Why do I want *your* crap?
What is your process to give me crap?
Give me crap.

Everything should be a call to action! On every page what are your options to buy and/or contact for more information. Remove the roadblocks, website design should be supporting content, not the other way around.

That said, Scott Stawarzs’ presented a great session on a popular WordPRess Plugin, called All In One SEO Pack (AIOSEO for short). Since the bread and butter of a website is its content, ask yourself: What key words do you want to rank for??

Creating great content is the best way to be Search Engine Optimized, so regardless of what tools you are using for SEO begin by identifying the keywords you audience will use to find your site. Then write fantastic content and tell a story! SEO is an important part of the process of improving the volume and quality of search results, and only after you’ve created compelling copy, will the All In One SEO Pack be your blog’s best friend!

Scott offered the following practical next actions steps, which I will use as a guide going forward:

Spend 80% of your time on creating new content
Spend 20% of your time on SEO
Spend 100% of your time helping others
Follow Google SEO Guidelines

So you’ve created a sitemap and a plan to get people to take action, you’ve optimized your site for the search engine, but have you backed your site up?

Data losses are very common, 66% of internet users have suffered from serious data loss. Are you prepared?

A perfect way to end this post is with another very important takeaway I had from WordCamp. Chris Jean offered a comprehensive session on Backing Up and Upgrading WordPress – and you guessed it… I can not stress enough how important it is for you to back up your site, both the files and the database. Make sure you have a strategy to back up your site, before you need it! After you’ve selected your back up tools, create a schedule, and stick to it, oh yeah…and test the back up too!

Chris suggests the following schedule of how how often you should back up your website:

do a full back up at least once a week
do a database backup if possible once a day
do a full back up before a WordPress core or major plugin upgrade

Did you also attend WordCamp, what takeaways did you leave with? Please share the learning!

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TweetCamp Chicago: Recap

Amy — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:41:14 +0000

TweetCamp Chicago has come and gone, but the community is still chirping! You can see an archive of all TweetCamp Chicago tweets in the TwapperKeeper, re-read all tweets tagged with the#TCChi hashtag. Be forewarned – there are over 1,100 tweets!

I am always especially impressed by those who sacrifice a Saturday to learn, network and share with their community, so it’s no surprise that I had a fantastic time spending the day with other social media enthusiasts. Birds of a feather stick together – and the irony is not lost on this tweeter!

Many thanks to Cathy Taylor for catching my 20 second TweetCamp spotlight!

The day began with slight chaos as the crowd of over 100 (!) learned what an “unconference” was – with 3-4 breakout sessions going on at once, I couldn’t be everywhere, but I happy to share the info I collected with you! There was tremendous demand for Twitter 101 sessions, which was music to my ears! Newbies are joining everyday, and we welcome all of you!

And speaking of music… Leah Jones kicked off the morning with a session on Twitter for Musicans – A tool for Artists. Panel featured Leah and two of her success stories @MattRyd and Tom from @cobaltandthehgs. Leah shared great tips for artists, musicians and everyday tweeters alike: Make it about your fans, not just you! Share links to videos, reviews, music and have conversations about anything important to you!

Next up was Barbara Talisman speaking about social media best practices for Non Profits. I loved the learning about how to execute a Tweet-a-Thon and the best takeaway was Barbara’s Social Media Policy, which she is graciously sharing with everyone!

Chaz Witkowski from Weber Shandwick led a session on BIG Brand Tweeting, from an agency perspective. Five essential components of a branded twitter account include: staying true to the Brand’s identity, two-way engagement, cross-pollination across social channels, relationship development and a pioneer mentality!

Lunch time! Ramon DeLeon is the Pizza guy to know in Chicago! Thank you Ramon for feeding our bellies while we fed our brains! Ramon also was a panelist discussing how social media has shaped his Domino’s business.

There are so many twitter applications available, and the Red Recruiter, Michael Long reiterated that you don’t have to use them all, just stick with the ones that are best for you. After kicking off his session with one of my favorite You Tube videos, Where the Hell is Matt (2008) to show the power of social media, Michael introduced me to a new tool, Twubs. Twubs are Twitter groups built around content aggregated from #hashtags, very useful tool to connect and share with people of similar interests.

Keynote was delivered by Scott Smith, the Editor and Director of Content at Playboy.com! Did you know that Hef was the first to leak Marge Simposon on the cover of Playboy back in August!? Well, the issue is on the stands now – see for yourself what all of the buzz is about!

Garrett Popcorn‘s Director of Social Media, Alecia Dantico took the stage with Keidra Chaney to discuss work life balance as it relates to social media. Guess what… there is no such thing! Popcorn is an inherently social activity and social media is an excellent platform to surprise and delight fans! Garrett Popcorn replies to each and every twitter mention, and averages over 80 tweets per day. Don’t miss Garrett’s Michigan Avenue Grand Re-Opening on Thursday 10/15. Free popcorn samples to those in line between 10 am – 12 Noon, Yum!

Lastly, I closed out the day with a breakout session on How to Use Social Media in your Job search. If you have any question on how to tap into your social network please contact me for more information!

Thank you to sponsors: The Association for Women Journalists, Columbia College Journalism Department, Domino’s Pizza/Ramon DeLeon, OfficePort, Rackspace, Rohdesign and NeedGraphics and organizers Maura Hernadez and Keidra Chaney!

Were you at TweetCamp or following along online? Please share other takeaways with those who couldn’t be there!

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TweetCamp Chicago – An Unconference

Amy — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:02:11 +0000

What the heck is an unconference you ask? It’s as organic as social media. Today I am attending TweetCamp Chicago at Columbia College sponsored by the Association of Women Journalists. Spontaneous break out sessions are defined by the group.

This morning I came as an attendee, most excited to meet my tweeps in person and take our relationship offline. Added benefits include great speakers and content, and I am soaking in a tremendous amount of info!

For example – who knows what a dongle is? Apparently I have been living under a rock – its the power cord adapter that allows the Mac to connect!

What is a Dongle?!

My community knew the answer!

As an unconference allows for spontaneity, I will now be presenting a session on Using Social Media in your Job Search. Join me at 3:00 and come back for more TweetCamp highlights later.

Also follow along and join the conversation, #TCChi.

And if you are here… please come say Hi! That’s why I’m here. To meet you!

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Cool Twitter Conference Chicago

Amy — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:22:40 +0000

Yesterday I had the pleasure of presenting at Chicago’s Cool Twitter Conference, on the subject of using twitter for Customer Service.

Amy Ravit Korin on the speaker circuit!

The subject of my presentation was “Customized Customer Service – How Domino’s Delivered More Than Pizza.” Through telling the story of how Ramon De Leon, owner of 6 Chicago Domino’s franchises was able to turn a complaint into a happy customer, I illustrated examples of best practices of using twitter to deliver outstanding customer service.

If you missed my presentation, you can hear a radio interview of me speaking on the same subject, my story was featured in an in-depth interview on The Bigg Success Show!

Have you been on the receiving end of outstanding customer service? So often people only complain when on the other side – take a minute to share how someone (person or company) was able to help you with a question, concern or customer service issue through twitter.

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Windy City Social Marketing Summit Recap

Amy — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:23:00 +0000

I have so much to say about this great conference, so I will be breaking up into multiple posts to share some great takeaways and examples of attractive interactive campaigns!

The Marketing Masters summit was held at Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel, and it was a packed house – over 200 professionals interested in learning how to tap into social media to generate awareness for their businesses.

The line up included:

Get Stirred Up’s David Roth and Rick Bacher on creating branded consumer experiences that generate marketing buzz, lessons from Cereality and their agency work

E-mail Makeovers – Reagan Taylor, NCR eCommerce Consultant discussing how to develop emails that increase response and customer engagement

Brad Keown from Facebook showed how to use Facebook fan pages to promote your business

Avery Cohen, Metrist Partners – Top 10 Tips for Improving Your Natural Search Rankings

And then the panel – How Great Companies use Facebook and Twitter to promote their business
Moderator: Liz Strauss
Panelists: Ginny Morrison, Lane Hospitality; Charlie Festa, Threadless & Kelly Olexa, Ford Fiesta “Agent”

My personal highlight from the event included the Cereality presentation, it was food for thought in ways than one! I also loved Ginny Morrison’s High Peaks Resort Success story and I will be sharing details in my next post!

Stay tuned for highlights from Windy City Social’s Marketing summit!

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