Ometz Workshop – Corporate Social Media Strategy

Written by CT Moore on . Posted in Social Media.

Yesterday, I delivered a workshop at Agence Ometz on Corporate Social Media Strategy. The first part of the course consisted in a presentation where we explored 3 business applications of social media: (1) online reputation management & blended search optimization, (2) social media for SEO, and (3) enterprise social media API integration, such as Facebook Connect. Here are the slides from that part of the workshop.

Corporate Social Media Strategy

View more presentations from CT Moore.

Also, here are some links to some additional reading that explores some of these topics more in depth:

If you have any questions about any of this, please feel free to contact me or leave a comment below.

Wordcamp Montreal

Written by CT Moore on . Posted in SEO.

Today, I’m delivering a presentation at Wordcamp Montreal called Optimizing WordPress for Search and Social. The goal of this presentation is to explore how you can optimize WordPress blogs for both Search and Social Media.

After this session, audience members should (1) have a firm grasp on the fundamentals of onsite SEO, (2) understand the advantages of Facebook Connect, and (3) know what themes and plugins can help them implement these SEO and social features. Below is the slideshow, as well as all the link to the various WordPress themes and plugins that I will discuss.

View more presentations from CT Moore.

SEO Themes & Plugins for WordPress

Thesis Theme — I personally use this theme to power my personal blog. Although it is not free, it offers many user-friendly SEO and web design options, and might be the best $87 I’ve ever spent online.

Genesis Theme — I haven’t yet tried out this theme, but it’s used by Chris Brogan. Not only do I trust Chris, but he used to use Thesis, too, so if Genesis is good enough for Chris, it’s probably good enough for me, too. It also goes for only $60.

All in One SEO Pack — If you don’t want to spend a few bucks on a comprehensive SEO theme for WordPress, this plugin will get you 3/4 of the way there. I haven’t used it in a while, so I can’t remember everything that it does and doesn’t do, but it will help you craft optimized page title and meta descriptions.

MembersWing Plugin — This plugin will help you implement First-Click-Free so that Google can index your restricted content. I haven’t tested it, but there’s a free and a paid version, so you should be able to test it out before forking over any dough.

Facebook Connect Plugins for WordPress

And here are some plugins that you might want to try to integrate Facebook Connect with WordPress.

  • Simple Facebook Connect — I’ve actually tested this one. It offers pretty much everything you could want out of Facebook Connect, but doesn’t always play well with every theme.
  • Faux Facebook Connect — allows Facebook users to comment on a WordPress blog.
  • Gigya Socializer — helps increase your site registration and engagement by using a number of social ID APIs, including Facebook Connect, MySpaceID, Twitter and OpenID.

There are a bunch more, but they haven’t been tested with WordPress above 2.9. However, you might also want to check out this list of 12 Facebook Plugins for Bloggers.

Update

I also “live blogged” two of the other great sessions from Wordcamp Montreal. Of course, I couldn’t type quite fast enough to catch everything that was said, but you can still get a pretty good sense of the main take-aways.

25 Most Popular Twitter Clients

Written by CT Moore on . Posted in Social Media.

Last night during my workshop, I promised attendees that I’d post a list of Twitter clients that they might want to check out. Simply put, a Twitter client is a program/applications that you install on your desktop, laptop, or phone so that you can use Twitter more effectively.

Although Twitter has a web-based interface, it isn’t really optimized for handling your stream in real time. A decent Twitter client, however, offers you a way to easily keep tabs on (1) everyone you follow, (2) @replies and ReTweets, (3) direct messages, (4) hashtag streams, and (5) any lists you might create.

Here’s a list of the 25 most popular Twitter clients as per all Twitter accounts tracked by @twitstat today, on June 15th, 2010. The complete list features 325 Twitter clients, but I figured that that was too many for anyone to digest.

Oh, and personally, I prefer TweetDeck.

Rank Client % of users Tweets/user
1 (1) web 18.18 % 3.56
2 (2) TweetDeck 10.14 % 5.25
3 (3) Twitter for iPhone 8.22 % 3.58
4 (4) foursquare 5.65 % 1.96
5 (5) twitterfeed 4.58 % 11.00
6 (6) HootSuite 4.38 % 4.28
7 (7) Seesmic 2.98 % 3.84
8 (8) Echofon 2.78 % 5.50
9 (9) TweetDeck 2.20 % 4.98
10 (10) TweetMeme 2.00 % 1.76
11 (12) API 1.84 % 14.19
12 (13) Google 1.58 % 3.65
13 (14) bitly 1.56 % 4.53
14 (11) Twitpic 1.42 % 2.08
15 (16) UberTwitter 1.31 % 3.95
16 (15) Twitterrific 1.27 % 3.37
17 (18) FriendFeed 1.27 % 8.75
18 (17) txt 1.07 % 2.25
19 (20) Facebook 1.07 % 2.79
20 (21) Mobypicture 1.04 % 2.06
21 (25) twidroid 0.84 % 3.95
22 (23) Ping.fm 0.80 % 3.08
23 (27) Twittelator 0.78 % 5.06
24 (19) Posterous 0.76 % 1.79
25 (28) Ping.fm 0.69 % 2.87

Social Media Marketing Slideshow

Written by CT Moore on . Posted in Social Media.

This presentation was given at Agence Ometz on June 15, 2010. The session covered how to set up and get more out of your presence on LinkedIn, Facebook and/or Twitter accounts.

There was also a workshop component where the audience got hands on experience using social media tools to grow their professional network, expand business opportunities, and advance their career.

The topics and themese included:

  • Reputation Management: using social media to manage your online brand/reputation.
  • Professional Profiles: codes of conduct for maintaining a professional online presence.
  • Business Development: social networking to find business leads & career opportunities.
  • Features & Functions: 1 hour tutorial on maximizing the networking potential of your different online profiles.

View more presentations from CT Moore.

Twitter Cheat Sheet

Written by CT Moore on . Posted in Social Media.

This is a quick cheat sheet I’ve put together for the Social Media Marketing Workshop at Ometz tonight. All the content has been sourced from the Webopedia Twitter Dictionary (where you can get many more definitions of Twitter terminology).

You can also download this cheat sheet as a PDF if you like.

@reply: The @reply means a Twitter update (a tweet) that is directed to another user in reply to their update. An @reply will be saved in the user’s “Replies” tab. Replies are sent either by clicking the ‘reply’ icon next to an update or typing @ username message (e.g., @user I saw that movie too).

direct message (DM): Short for direct message, it is the function of the Twitter service that enables you to send a private message (direct message) to a person you are following

Hash tag: A hash tag or hashtag is a way of organizing your updates for Twitter search engines. Users prefix a message with a community-driven hash tag to enable others to discover relevant posts. One commonly used hash tag on Twitter is #followfriday where users network by providing the names of their favorite people to follow on Twitter.

Retweet: Abbreviated as RT, retweet is used on Twitter to show you are tweeting something that was posted by another user. The format is RT @username where username is the Twitter name of the person you are retweeting.

Tweet: Describes a Twitter update. A tweet is basically whatever you type into the Web box to answer that question, using 140 characters or less. People tweet personal messages, random thoughts, post links, or anything else that fits in the character requirements.