tools & techniques

Using HelloTxt to Update Your Social Networks

June 27, 2008

The other day I posted seven social networking sites for wineries to use to share their content. Even with this somewhat short list, there is work involved to keep them updated. And with Twitter continuing to show serious growing pains, some are exploring other micro-blogging services like Pownce and Plurk. But as you add these new services your time commitment to monitor and maintain them expands. Genevieve from Iridesse Winery asked me via Pownce if there was a way to integrate the maintenance of these [...]

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Build A Website With WordPress, Part 2

June 25, 2008

When I left off on my first post about building a website with WordPress, I had just installed and slightly configured the software. The next consideration is what features you will need which are extended using plug-ins. WordPress ships with two plug-ins, the must-have SPAM filtering solution Akismet and the frivolous Hello Dolly (which posts random lyrics from that song to your administrative interface). There are thousands of others to choose from at the directory kept by the WordPress developers but which are right for [...]

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Choosing Social Sites

June 24, 2008

During my seminars in Napa and Sonoma last April I covered a number of social sites but really didn’t make recommendations on which of these wineries should choose for their online activities. In setting up a couple of new clients recently I’ve looked at the long list of sites I’ve used and pared it down to what I think is the right number for wineries to start with: Blog – I like the capabilities of WordPress and install this on client servers as the cornerstone [...]

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Twitter and Wine Marketing

June 19, 2008

A post over at Mike Duffy’s Winery Website Report blog reminded me to post about the popular Twitter micro-blogging-messaging service and how it relates to wine marketing. For some wine bloggers, Twitter remains somewhat of an enigma; super popular with tech bloggers, the service has spawned a growing wine community over the past year or so. Some use it as a chat room, while others post tasting notes or share links. But I think Twitter has a lot more potential for a winery to exploit [...]

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Build A Website With WordPress, Part 1

June 17, 2008

WordPress has been the standard-bearer in blogging software for some time but over the past year this open source content management system (CMS) has really come into it’s own as a viable tool to build full websites. This site, for example, is totally built using this free software and I am recommending it’s use increasingly for client work. So I thought it was time for a series of posts on how to use WordPress as the basis for your website. The point of view I [...]

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How To Measure Social Media Activities

June 12, 2008

It doesn’t take long before the topic of measurement comes up in my conversations with winery owners and general managers about social media. Since I’m a believer that anything worth doing should be measured, I thought I would offer up some ideas about how to measure the impact of blogs, podcasts and social networking campaigns. Since social media is online, website engagement metrics are the first place to start. For example, you can set objectives and measure number of visitors, time spent on site, bounce [...]

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