Edit: I’ve put together a public Twitter list that includes all 99 accounts.
If you’re not on Twitter it’s time to get with the program.
In 140-character bursts of information, Twitter provides quick headlines, links to stories and the wittiest zingers going around.
I’ve created a list of the top 99 English-language Twitter accounts I recommend following for all the latest news and views about WordPress and the people in every time zone working with our favorite 10-year-old.
Since back in the day I’ve had a keen interest in the WordPress Planet, sure sometimes it’s been a bit snarky, but at the end of the day I am genuinely interested in good WP news coming through the pipes into my various dashboards.
And of course, from a business perspective I could hardly be more interested… man I’d love to have WPMU.org in there, since the early days it’s been the holy grail of ‘writing about WordPress’ publishing.
There are over 350 WordPress plugins tagged “Share” in the WordPress plugin directory. But most of them, let’s be honest, fall short, with the exception of a handful of excellent winners.
I’d say there are three facets to social integration: Engagement, Self Promotion, and Viral Value. Whilst you can force none of these, there are definitely great tools out there to make it as easy as possible for you and your readers to make noise about your site on social networks.
Without further ado, I present to you the mighty five of WordPress social integration.
In the years I’ve been working with WordPress and Social Media, I’ve seen applications come and go for managing all your Social Media streams from a single dashboard. Some of these have been pretty decent applications, but I’ve not seen too many of them survive. But, so far, I’ve not seen a system that curates all your Social Media streams into a single application for the world to see. Also, I’ve not seen anything that will bring this into your WordPress website in a presentable manner.
Until RebelMouse
What Is RebelMouse
In the words of the developers themselves:
For bloggers, social sharing of your posts is almost always a good thing. A social share of your site brings in visitors who see the link, improves the Google juice of your website, and can expose your website to new audiences who might not visit it otherwise.
All of which are to the good. But for the blogger who is trying to generate enough revenue from their website to cover expenses (whatever those might be), high volumes of traffic and social engagement are only half the battle. You also need revenue in the form of ad clicks.
If you lack exposure on social media networks, you’re losing out on 100s of millions of potential customers. ShareThis is a tool that allows your users to easily share your posts and pages to the major social media networks.
Step 1: Install the Plugin
ShareThis is extremely easy to work with. Just click Plugins -> Add New and Search for ShareThis. Install and activate.
Step 2: Configure the Plugin
From Settings -> ShareThis change the settings for the social media networks that you want to share with. It is strongly recommended you include the following networks:
Facebook
Twitter
Google+
Pinterest
LinkedIn
The ubiquitous sidebar.
It is a staple of the blogosphere. Assuming that you are reading this post on WPMU (and not in an RSS reader), the tiniest of glances to your right will reveal our sidebar, complete with various widgets and graphics.
Sidebars are perhaps so popular for their flexibility. You can put just about anything in a sidebar — the world is your oyster. The problem is that far too many blogs abuse this freedom too willingly and end up with a mile-long monstrosity nestled alongside their content.
Last month I got all warm and fuzzy about the social media sharing app Buffer.
And with good reason — in my humble opinion, it is the best of its kind. Not only does it offer awesome functionality, but it is constantly being developed and improved upon. And the guys at Buffer love WordPress. They purchased the popular social sharing plugin Digg Digg and have been updating it regularly ever since.
But they’re not the only ones at it. A chap called Tim Carr has gone to the trouble of developing a free WordPress plugin that goes a long way towards integrating Buffer with WordPress.
In order to make money online, you need to convert visitors to customers. If you do not know where you are succeeding and failing at transforming non-paying visitors into paying customers, your business has no hopes of reaching its full potential and profitability.
Here’s a quick guide to three must-have WordPress plugins that help you convert your visitors into paying customers.
First up is a tool designed to help you test new themes. A/B Theme Testing allows you to simultaneously run multiple themes. Best of all, with tracking tools, you can tell which one of your themes converts best into paying customers.
You’ve put in a lot of effort on your site. Your WordPress posts are ready to be visited by the visitors in the wilds. Your content is perfect for your target audience.
Why, then, aren’t you getting traffic?
We’ve all been there, and it is frustrating. Everyone wants to succeed, but sometimes, making the pieces all fall together is difficult. Fortunately, there is a way to increase traffic to your site, and it is surprisingly simple.
Understanding where your traffic is coming from is important. Getting your content to go viral is a must if you want your WordPress site to succeed.
