Today I played with infogr.am. This free service will create infographics for you that you can post on pinterest, twitter, facebook, or embed onto your website.  It does have a paid version, that I’m sure you can do a lot more with, but since I’m just playing around here, I’m just using the free version. I found out about this from Julia Campbell at her Tech Day Camp presentation on Pinterest, and decided to use all the interesting facebook statistic that Tammy Jacobsen used in her facebook for the business professional.

I have to admit it took me 15 minutes or so to figure out how to start using it, but once I started it became pretty intuitive.  The whole graphic probably took me 10 minutes to make because I was just copying and pasting data, and I didn’t spend any time trying to make it very fancy or pretty.  Overall it seems like it could be a great tool.

Here is the complete infographic:

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If you are blogging, finding great photos for your post can take a lot of time. If I have a lot of time, I have a lot of fun looking for great images. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of time very often.

I’m playing with Wordle to create a word cloud for this post. It was really easy to use – after updating my computer with the latest version of java… Wordle lets you add several words into a field and it will create a word cloud for you. So I was trying to think of all the cool words to use to create a word cloud for PodCamp and I noticed a second field to add a URL and it would pull select words for me.  I just pasted in the URL for Podcamp Western Mass, and wa-la, it created this cool word cloud for me!  You have several options to edit the image afterwords, but I just used what came up.

Now just to get in into my post.  Wordle gives you an embed code to add the image into your post and that will do the trick in most cases. Unfortunately most themes we use on WordPress give you an option to add a featured image and embed codes don’t work. So I did a screen capture, put the image into photoshop and adjusted the image to the size I typically use.  Overall the process was pretty simple and I think can save me a ton of time on future posts.

Here is the wordle image using the embed code and a video from the session:

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This clips talks a lot about advertising on facebook pages. Even though Kelly hasn’t used advertising herself, several audience members had and talk about what they did and the results they got.  Kelly walked everyone through the process so we could see exactly how to do it ourselves.

Facebook advertising and promotion is relatively inexpensive.  You can limit the amount you spend to as little as $5 per day. One option – to increase you likes will guarantee you a minimum number of new likes for your business page. No one in the group had tried it so we don’t know how well it actually works. The ads can show up in different areas on the page. Either you can place an ad that shows up on the right side of the page, or you can do a sponsored story.  Ads on the right side of the page didn’t seem really effective, sponsored story worked much better because they show up in your feed.

Facebook terminology was clarified. There are friends, fans & members. Basically friends are for your personal page, fans for your business page, and members are for group pages.  This terminology was really helpful as a way to think about your audience. The help pages on facebook have a lot of tutorials to help you out.

We took a look at facebook analytics and what they mean. Kelly really looks at the trends and makes decisions based on them.

Kelly showed how to take other facebook articles and add them to your feed.  She added a post from the PodCamp Western Mass group page to her page.  It’s really simple to do. This followed with a discussion on what it appropriate and not.

The last thing covered was linking your facebook page with other social media platforms like twitter. Kelly doesn’t do that but did show everyone how to.

You can learn more from Kelly at The Red-Headed Diva.com.

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Mychal started this section by stating that he uses social media to create excitement, he showed a clip of a young (little) girl getting excited about a train arriving. He always sets realistic goals, the first question is are the goals achievable.  He talked about Groupon asking him to set up a deal in 10 cities.  After asking a few questions, they settled on 5. On social media he doesn’t want to put something out and have a whole bunch of people engage that he can’t keep up with.

He warns about getting caught up in “likes” on facebook, likes can be bought.  Engagement is much more important.  He shows that his facebook page has 700 or so likes, but reaches over 2000. He recommended Joe Girard’s book “How to sell anything to anybody. You get people to engage by creating excitement.  Pay attention to what people to talk about and deliver content that is relevant to them.

What works offline should work online. Mychals’ customers love to take pictures with him when he delivers stinky cakes and they share it with their friends.  If you create unique experiences people will share them. Many of his customers post their pictures with him on his facebook page.  Social Media is about connecting with people, not selling.

Mychal has two books, “Launch and Stand Out” and “Going Viral Unlocked”

You can find out more about Mychal at:

http://www.stinkycakes.com/

The post Stinky Cakes – Mychal Connelly – PodCamp Western Mass appeared first on The Toolbox, Inc.

There is a really good discussion on how the feeds work and interact with other peoples pages. Also brought up was promotions on facebook. Although facebook discourages promotions, people do them and they can be very effective.

There was also a brief discussion on the analytics that facebook provides.

You can learn more from Kelly at The Red-Headed Diva.com

Watch the video below:

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We have 2 great WordPress Workshops for you to choose from!

WordPress Beginners Workshop

WordPress is a state-of-the-art web publishing platform, developed by hundreds of community volunteers and used by over 25 million people. Best of all, WordPress is free! With thousands of themes and plug-ins available on the web, anyone can launch a feature-rich website in minutes. First, you will learn the fundamentals of how WordPress works, how to get it up and running, and how to start publishing content immediately. Then we will explore the Administrator’s Dashboard, including how to organize your content and configure certain features & behaviors of your site. Finally, you will learn how to install themes and plug-ins to alter the appearance of your site and add additional functionality for improved social integration, search engine optimization, and backup/security. (Note: We will be working with the self-hosted version of WordPress at http://wordpress.org, not the hosted service at http://wordpress.com.

Sign-up for the Beginners Workshop

WordPress Intermediate Workshop

Do you already have a self-hosted WordPress site? Do you know the basics, but want to harness the power of WordPress? Do you want to step up your skills, find out the capabilities of WordPress. Then this is the workshop for you.

You will learn:

• Plugins: how to select and test
• Review of some basic and advanced plugings
• Themes, how to choose and properly edit themes
• Theme evaluation
• SEO – on-site preparation and how to
• Security – how to protect your site from Spam, robot attacks
• Backup and Recovery – updates, how to implement your own process

This class assumes you know the in’s and out’s of navigating the WordPress Dashboard as an administrator, and have a self hosted site (not WordPress.com)

Sign-up for the Intermediate Workshop

Our Workshop Presenters:

Kurt Eng is a co-organizer of the Boston WordPress Meetup and Founding Organizer of WordCamp Boston. Kurt has been very active in podcasting and video, publishing free content to enable others to learn. Kurt focuses on people beginning WordPress and blogging, empowering them with the knowledge and enthusiasm to get started from installation to themes to writing.

Jon Bishop is a Web Developer, Public Speaker and Internet Marketing Specialist from Boston, MA. I specialize in the understanding and developing of up and coming web technologies. As a social-networking analyst, my expertise with online social patterns and the usage of interactive communication technologies allows me to provide value when discussing strategies with customers.

I’ve been developing websites since 1999 and developed an early fascination with interactive technologies like Flash and JavaScript. Over the years I have acquired in depth knowledge working with a variety of assorted web, mobile and software specific languages. A lot of my work is with WordPress where I maintain several plugins in the WordPress repository. In an effort to educate and enable others with WordPress, I help run the local WordPress meetup and speak at conferences and meetups.

The post WordPress 1/2 Day Workshops appeared first on The Toolbox, Inc.

Stephen refers to the 3 pillars of blogging, content,conversation and community.  Before starting to blog you need to decide what you are going to blog about and what audience (community) you want to reach and have a conversation with.  He did a great job explaining this with concrete examples of his personal blogging experiences.

The post Blogging 101 – Stephen Sherlock appeared first on The Toolbox, Inc.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

6:00 PM – Gillette Stadium, Foxboro

$35 including soccer game

May 8th 6p networking 8p Game

[Register Here]

Use Promo code: GILLETTE

You must Register with the New England Revolution…

Questions: Sean Marshall, New England Revolution 508-384-4363 or email:

smarshall@revolutionsoccer.net

The post New England Revolution Networking appeared first on The Toolbox, Inc.

Join us for the premiere event of Water Cooler Baseball!

Baseball is THE national sport of the U.S. and our very own Fenway Park is the oldest stadium in history still in use.

While you may already know that three stikes make an out and four balls cause a walk, you will also learn what a “can of corn”, a “balk”, and a force out are.

Additionally, you will learn how to read baseball stats and steal 1st base.

Did you know that each baseball game has a possibility of 12, 386, 344 different plays?

It’s hard to believe with the snow outside, but the clocks have”sprung forward” and now it’s time to hear the crack of the bat.

This is your chance to get in early. 

We picked an amazing location – RIGHT under the Green Monster at the Bleacher Bar.

Help us help Pete!

We will also be honoring and fundraising for Pete Frates, a former Boston College baseball captain from Beverly, Ma., who was diagnosed with ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, just last year.

Join us to fight for Pete and celebrate baseball!

If you can’t make it, but would still like to donate to The Pete Frates Fund, please visit Pete’s webpage, http://petefrates.com, to make a donation.

More details soon! Look forward to seeing you there!

Best ~ Diane Darling

Co-founder of Water Cooler Sports

Author of The Networking Survival Guide and Networking for Career Success

The post Water Cooler Baseball at the Bleacher Bar! – Helping Pete Frates appeared first on The Toolbox, Inc.

South Shore Young Professionals: Mentor Panel on How to Network

_____________________

EarlyBird Discount available through Feb.1

***Register directly with SSYP***

General admission is $35 ($40 after 2/1)

Event Schedule

5:30 pm  - Doors Open

6:00 – 6:15 pm  - Opening Remarks

6:15 – 7:15 pm  - Panel Discussion

7:15 – 7:30 pm  - Questions & Closing Remarks

7:30 – 9:00pm – Refreshments &  Networking with Represented Groups

First thing anyone will tell you about how to succeed in business is that you have to network. But do you know how? Do you really? Are you any good at it? Are you just scared to attempt it?

We are very excited to announce our 2nd Mentor Panel event. This event will feature a discussion panel on all facets of modern networking, and feature an open session of networking after where you can meet many of the other networking groups on the South Shore.

Panelists

• Diane Darling, Water Cooler Football, Networking Specialist
• Jeff Cutler, Community Manager, Speaker, Journalist
• Jacqueline Collins, Partnering for Performance, Business Coach

The discussion will be moderated by John Cass, author “Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging”, co-host Agility Marketing Podcast, Founding Fellow for the Society of New Communications Research, and Online Marketing Services Manager at Boston Logic Technology Partners.

Endorsed by:

• Cape Cod Community College
• Bentley University
• Quincy College
• Eastern Nazarene College

Download Our Informational Flyer for more information >

Register before February1, and save $5 off your admission.

General admission is $35 ($40 after 2/1) and the member price is $30 ($35 after 2/1).

Register Now with SSYP

The post South Shore Young Professionals: How to Network Feb 26th appeared first on The Toolbox, Inc.