EyeSee

I presented at the OCRI, Zone5ive event today and I focused on must have social media tools to engage your customers.  As I was preparing for this presentation I needed to figure out a starting point as customer engagement is as vague as being “green”. So I took a look at the websites of companies that typically attended these events to find a starting point.

To explain where I came from I used the analogy of social media being the invitation to the house party and the house being the company website. I went further to stress that if the house either did not exist nor was structurally strong then the party would fail.

So my starting point was reinforcing the house and creating the invitations.

Details are in the following presentation.

My goal was to let the people in the room leave with information that they could use to implement these basic social media tools into their websites and social media marketing mix.

The room was fairly silent with not a lot of questions however I did notice a fair bit of note taking. I guess it’s a very different dynamic from the interactive workshops that I am used to giving.

So if you were at the presentation today and have had time to digest this do you have any further questions? If you do, then drop me a line via this post and we can take it from there. Remember there is not such thing as a stupid question. Also there are other people out there that have the same questions in mind.

Summer is here, although it’s hard to believe due to all the rainy cold days we have been having lately. It’s also the time when most people take their vacations and the office is generally quite and things slow down a little.

So if you are looking for some excitement how about some personal development on the social media front. We have just launched our Social Media Summer Series.

Three great topics to inspire and enlighten you to embark on a social media adventure.

Twitter demystified – July 14th 9:30am-noon

There has been a lot of hype around Twitter lately and most people sign up and don’t know what to do after that. They quickly loose interest. Twitter is a microblog and if used effectively can be very effective communication tool.

Flickr & YouTube – a key to the success of a Social Media Campaign – July 21st 9:30am-noon

Flickr is a photo sharing site and what has this got to do with anything? Images are interesting and entertaining so what better way to get your message across using an image.

YouTube is a video sharing site and too can be used very effectively from a business perspective. There are many ways and it’s not just about amateur videos but professional ones as well.

Blog and website design using Wordpress – Aug. 18th 9:30am-noon

Blogs are getting increasingly popular today. Wordpress is a free open source content management tool that can be used both as a Blog and to design a website as well.

So why is social media becoming so popular these days? People do spend a fair bit of their time online whether it’s for work, their own personal use or entertainment. As a business it’s very important to have a presence in these places or be part of these communities and connect with them in a meaningful way.

It’s not about spamming them or telling them about your product or service. It’s about establishing a connection with them.

These seminars have been designed to show you the how to as well as the different ways these tools can be used.

Registration

Twitter demystified – July 14th 9:30am-noon

Flickr & YouTube – a key to the success of a Social Media Campaign – July 21st 9:30am-noon

Blog and website design using Wordpress – Aug. 18th 9:30am-noon

So take advantage of this great learning opportunity and sign up for these sessions. See you there.

If you are like me and looked at all the templates out there but can’t seem to find anything that would work for you it’s time to think, customization.

There are many ways to go about it but the simplest is to start with the default Wordpress template.

This template let’s you customize the header color.  If you want more then start adding widgets to take care of the little extras that you would like on the side bar etc.

Now I am getting pickier, I want the Blog to have the same header as the rest of the corporate website with a little twist on the color.  To achieve this I got the help from Rick the integration expert.

Pretty cool, huh.  This is a work in progress but just wanted to give you an update on the latest in the changes of the UI for EyeSee.

Thanks to Jamie I now know where to find the API key. So here’s the scoop.

If your Blog is hosted off your personal or company website …

Create an account in wordpress.com not org. Use the account option on the Blog.

You will receive an activation email

Login into wordpress.com

Look for My Account

Edit profile

Voila, here is the API key

Back in the admin panel of your Blog (the one hosted on your site)

Plugins activate akismet

Akismet configuration

Add your key here to the box

update key

Bye, bye spam.

I have had a number of people point out to me that my wordpress “previous” link does not work nor the archive feature. So if you have this problem, here is the solution…..

Add the following to the .htaccess file

# BEGIN WordPress

I had an amazing conversation with Brandan Sera-Shriar during lunch here at WordCamp Toronto. He is involved in a lot of very interesting projects and is also a teacher at a College!!!

Building plug-ins in Wordpress is very easy and does not need a lot of programming knowledge. A great way to get started is to take a plug-in and copy and paste the code and develop a new one.

There is a limit to what a plug-in can do and will want to customize it to whatever you want. Look is just as important as functionality in a successful plug-in.

HTML/CSS, PHP and MySQL skills are great to have

Check out the source of the plug-ins and make small changes. See what the effect is. If the plug-in is from a good source then it will be well documented. This is the best way to learn. Do this on your local host so that you don’t crash your site.

Design a basic template that you can use overall when designing multiple plug-ins.

He does not release his plug-ins to the community however if you do want them he will make it available to you

Plug-in 101

• Create a folder in the /wp-content/plugins/pluginname/
• Give the plug-in a name.
• Describe, authors. This is standard stuff.
• Comments section
• Add code for option menu
• Setup the Options Page
• Register the activation and deactivation hooks
• Function
• Save as a php file

Side bar info…

Breadcrumb

Can have one database for multiple sites with different look and feel.

Wordpress plug-in competition is coming up for 2009.

Here’s what people were doing during the break.

More discussions

Sacha posing

Plug-in side discussion

Just playing around

Mathiew

Rannie and I in a shoot off

The afternoon at WordCamp Toronto, started off with Mark McKay talking about video blogging.

He showed us some examples of videos on You Tube. Happy Hour is his own show. Dear Toronto has their own style of videos.

He will be on MTV on Thursday at 6pm with his view on the election.

How to make a better video blog?

• Think before you speak
• Plan out what you want to do or say
• Video about 2 minutes
• Compress video before uploading

Saw the 61second video posted on Michael Geist, Boing boing

Learnt about video microblogging, 12 seconds

Lot’s of software out there and use whatever you have available to you. Vegas, Premier and Avid.

Take note of the lighting in the room

Video sharing great on Wordpress, Delicious, Facebook, MySpace, Mdialogu, TubeMogul,
Talked about Viral Videos by entering contests. Have no plans to make money of the videos and just wanted to get noticed.

Mark has a green screen in his basement and now paints a wall green where he lives. Today it takes the form of a green fabric and has good lighting. DVgarage is a great plugin.

Convergence of a video blog and TV station. Each video blog is a show. Try to keep it to all one idea. Video blog is the internets version of a TV show.
Give it away and let people watch it.

No cheeseburgers

Gotta have the ketchup

Yummie, dessert

Here are some more pictures from WordCamp Toronto.

Hole in chair

Thirsty again

Accessories

more accessories

Tweeting

Let’s trade moo cards