A last-minute change in my weekend plans is allowing me to go to WordCamp Boulder 2010, and I can’t believe how excited I am. I’m sure my Facebook friends and family think I’ve completely lost it after seeing me post not once, but twice about this this afternoon. (And now this blog . . . that makes three times!)

Every time I say “WordCamp” I picture myself packing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my backpack with my sharpened no. 2 pencils and a notebook. It just sounds all so geeky.

I joined a local WordPress MeetUp networking group in April. One of my friends there challenged me to take the leap from wordpress.com to the much more flexible and interesting wordpress.org and see what I could do with it. Since then I’ve spent 140 solid hours sitting at this computer working on my websites (or do I call them blogs because it’s done on WordPress?). I guess I AM kinda’ geeky.

My first crack at a website was using a GoDaddy template about this time last year. Though I’ve migrated away from that, I have to say that I’m glad that’s where I started. Their support team is incredible, and much of my foundational learning happened with them on the other end of the phone.

The GoDaddy website didn’t offer a free blog feature, so that’s when I started experimenting with wordpress.com and created Part of the Plan. That was a good second step. By the time I got to wordpress.org, and started working on the site for 3D Communications, I could see no difference in the processes; just more power and options.

Now, each time I learn something new about wordpress.org – and that happens hourly – I realize that I’m barely scratching the surface. And I honestly don’t want to get into the business of building websites. It’s work!

My real line of work is social media management. But as a social media manager, I understand the importance of a good website in the overall digital strategy. I won’t hesitate to recommend WordPress to anyone who wants to try their hand at building their own site. Yes, it’s a lot of work. But it’s also really fun work. I guess that’s why I’m so excited about getting to spend a day at “camp.”

I’d love to hear how others discovered WordPress, and how it fits into your own website-building experience. Or, if you’ve managed to live without WordPress, how? (Comment button is located at the top of this blog.)

3D Communications

Anyone who has a website or blog knows the importance of driving traffic to it. But how do you know how much traffic you’re getting and where it’s coming from?

I received a bit of advice through my Twitter feed this morning from social media maven, Guy Kawasaki. He provided four steps to track your social networking success . The first step very emphatically reminded me of the importance of Google Analytics. I was aware of this tool, but haven’t spent the time to learn how to use it. Today was the day.

I spent about 10 minutes reading and following simple instructions for getting started with Google Analytics and another 9 minutes watching a YouTube video about how to use the analytics reports. I’m feeling pretty smart for getting it figured out, but pretty dumb for waiting so long to do this!

The 10 minutes of reading included actually installing the tool on each of the six pages of my website. Honestly, it was a matter of copying & pasting code into the five Java Script blocks that were clearly marked and easily accessible on my website’s dashboard. According to something I read, it takes about 24 hours for the analytics tool to start capturing data. But, for some reason, data for my site was available immediately. After viewing the above-mentioned video about the reports and then reviewing my reports, I realize I need to look very differently at my whole strategy for my online presence.

Things I need to do to my website:

• Consider it an ultimate destination, and therefore, develop a plan for making it
  1. a valuable source of information,
  2. interactive,
  3. a place for creating connections (through a “call to action”)
• Include links to it in my social sites and activities
• Set goals related to keyword searches, page views, and time spent on my site that can be measured (a function of Google Analytics) so I know if I’m making the desired progress.

I still have much to learn, but by following the above steps I will be learning in a very productive way. Considering how much I value both “learning” and “productivity,” I’m pretty happy with this plan.

If you’d like to help me, please click on the link to my website so that I have some traffic to analyze. And, while you’re there, if you see something that needs to be improved, I’d love to hear from you. Suggestions, ideas, anything at all will be much appreciated!

I have been keeping a journal and a blog to document my progress since the day I set up my Facebook profile (May 2009). Although I had been on LinkedIn for several years, I didn’t get serious about using social media until last year.

Now I’m asking other business owners about their experience with and interest in using social media to enhance their various operating strategies:  communications, marketing, customer relations, etc.  There seems to be general recognition of seven irrefutable characteristics that invoke across-the-board reaction to social media, and mark the stages of acceptance.

1. Curiosity – and the need to do what everyone else is doing.
2. Abundance – like an all-you-can-eat buffet that’s not only free, but you can come back as often as you want and stay for as long as you like.
3. Novelty – With new features, functions and platforms being introduced daily, the novelty never wears out.
4. Frustration – With the overwhelming amount of information and options, with the challenges of learning how to use the tools, and with the amount of time it’s sucking from your life.
5. Fear – You can’t afford to devote this kind of time and energy to something that’s seemingly providing no real return.  But, you can’t afford NOT to because traditional methods of mass communication are becoming even more expensive, and less effective (aka the groundswell approach-avoidance syndrome).
6. Rationale – Social media offers powerful business tools that can save you time and money, and maybe even help you make money.  But a haphazard approach to social media won’t work any better than a haphazard approach to any business strategy. You get serious about putting together a strategy and committing to it.
7. Realization – With the strategy in place (and once it is, you wonder why you didn’t do this sooner), you feel the weight of the earlier stages of this learning curve begin to ease.

Your curiosity is satisfied.  You’ve come to understand that there’s always going to be something new around the next bend.  You’re comfortable within the social media space, and you have a system for staying current with whatever is relevant to your needs.

The abundance will also be there.  But now, that’s a good thing.  It doesn’t have to be distracting or confusing.  It simply means you will have as many options as you could possibly want.

The novelty is refreshing.  It means that social media tools are being advanced and (hopefully) improved.  But you know now that ironically, novelty is nothing new.  It’ll be there for you whenever you need a dose of it.

Frustration levels are diminished by the sheer fact that your level of competency is increased as a function of your experience with the learning curve.  This doesn’t mean that you won’t still get frustrated along the way, but you’ll know where to go to get help you need, and you probably won’t need help as often as you used to.

The fear has turned to love.

The rationale that led you to developing a strategy will be the most important lesson learned.  As your experience with social media as a business tool evolves, you will always come back to the realization that every new step should be strategically aligned with your business objectives.

Related Reading
7 Questions to Help Businesses Get Ready for Social Media

Architecting a Social Web Marketing and PR Strategy