Danny Brown

podcaster - author - creator

Insights

Help a PR Pro Out Toronto ? Job Listings #happo #happoTO

Today sees a very cool event called Help a PR Pro Out, or HAPPO. Initiated by Arik Hanson and Valerie Simon, its aim is simple – to connect PR jobseekers with agencies and businesses with PR positions available.

I’m honoured to be part of the “team” that’s bringing HAPPO to Toronto, along with PR guy supreme Dave Fleet, of Thornley Fallis. Below you’ll find some current job listings in the Toronto and GTA area – please retweet on Twitter (there’s a dedicated #happo and #happoTO hashtag), share on Facebook and anywhere else you can (especially if you’re in the Toronto and GTA area), and let’s help connect everyone together!

– Note: If you’re an agency or PR company, or have a PR position open at your business, I have details of some great people for you – please feel free to email me for more information, or leave your details in the comments below. Same if you’re a jobseeker – feel free to leave your details in the comments and let’s see if we can help.

Thanks!

Listings (so far):

 

An Invite to Pimp Your Blog

Mr BlingSo this week’s been really quiet on here, due to a particularly busy project over at Maritz Canada. Now that project has at least resorted to more normal activity levels, I’ll be jumping back in here and reverting back to normal frequency.

First up will be the continuation and conclusion of the 7 Days to Turn Your Blog Into a Social Media Hub series, and this will be followed by some thoughts I’ve been having around operational social media and marketing differently. So, thanks for your patience during this recent quiet spell – really appreciate it.

But before all that, I’d like to ask you a favour – share your blog.

Leave the URL and a little info about it in the comments section (don’t worry if it doesn’t appear immediately – I use a filter for multiple links, but I will publish any filtered as soon as possible).

You kindly come here to read and maybe share a post or two with your community; now I’d like to do the same. The comments are yours to share your blog with us. And while you’re there, make sure you check out some of the blogs left there – you might just find some great new reads.

Thanks for being you, guys.

Creative Commons License photo credit: nicora

Quality Assurance

You have a new product. You need to test it before it goes public. You hire an agency to carry out a focus group for you. You pay people to tell you what, essentially, you want to hear (many focus group participants won’t be completely honest since they want repeat invitations).

You’ve just spent five figures to find out just a tiny bit more than you knew before about your product.

Now. You have a new product. You need to test it before it goes public. You give it to your sales people; your marketing people; your customer service people. You know – the ones who have to live with its real value from the front line.

Who do you think will offer the real feedback?

 

Universal

Ideas begin with one person, but the best ones are chewed over by many before being released to the public.

There’s a reason for this. Personal bias and parental protection often makes us myopic about letting go, and this can make us miss the bigger picture. Afterward, we realize our good idea became great because of universal viewpoints.

Something to keep in mind the next time you’re about to tell someone they’re too junior to offer an input into your business masterplan.

7 Days to Turn Your Blog Into a Social Media Hub – Day 4: WordPress

This is the fourth part of a seven part mini-series looking at how and why to turn your blog into a social media hub. You?ll be able to find the complete series?here.

So far we’ve looked at prepping the networks you’re going to be using for your hub, and what features you might want to consider. By now, you should have a pretty strong idea on what your hub is going to look like, so all we need to do now is find a home for it.

For that, the best option is setting yourself up with a self-hosted WordPress blog.

While there’s nothing wrong per se with free blogging options like Blogger or WordPress (the .com version; self-hosted WordPress is on the .org domain), they severely limit how much interaction you have with them from a user perspective. Designs are limited as well, and add-ons aren’t supported, and to make a truly effective social media hub on your blog, you need fluidity to design.

The worst thing about free blogging options is that you’re also placing all your content into the hands of a third-party. If Blogger, WordPress or any other free blogging platforms change their Terms and Conditions, you could find yourself without a blog. With a self-hosted option, all the control lies in your hands. While there are other options like TypePad and Squarespace, I just prefer WordPress for its ease-of-use and community support.

Going Self-Hosted

Just in case you aren’t already using self-hosted WordPress, here’s a quick guide to getting set up :

  • Choose a domain name and a web host to host your blog. Bluehost is perfect for this, since it offers packages that set up the domain and hosting as an all-in-one package. There are several others, so Google “web host” and find the one right for you.
  • Once you have your account, you’ll be taken to an area called C-panel. This is simply the Admin dashboard for all the backroom stuff associated with your site. Once in there, its simply a matter of using Fantastico to set up your WordPress account, as shown by my friend John Haydon’s video.

Planting the Seeds

The reasons for using a self-hosted WordPress blog are numerous, but the main two (at least as far as a social media hub is concerned) are design and add-on flexibility. Since the hub is going to be both your home-base and outpost, you need a platform that can handle your needs – WordPress is perfect for this.

The look and feel of your hub will define how useful it is to your visitors. The less cluttered the look, the more effective the hub can be, although some folks prefer a more information-led design. This is where WordPress and a premium theme comes into play (a theme is just a pre-designed look or framework for your blog) -? you can choose a template, page, sub-pages, sub-domain or any number of design options to present your hub.

There are benefits to each option:

  • A page holds everything in one area, although it could get cluttered.
  • Sub-pages allow you to set up different niche hubs (more on that tomorrow).
  • Sub-domains offer a completely separate hub altogether, but still tied to your blog’s main domain.
  • Templates allow a different look and feel from your blog design, and help give that unique hub feel.

What you choose will mostly be determined by how many resources you populate your hub with. How you populate these resources is up to you; again, the great thing with self-hosted WordPress is that the flexibility of design is limitless, thanks to plug-ins.

Social Media Plug-Ins for Your Hub

ubuntu_open_mindWordPress is an open-source community, which means that there is a whole community of developers making really cool applications (or plug-ins) every day. These are released to the WordPress userbase (almost always free of charge) and you can then use them on your blog to help turn it into anything you like.

Some of the best ones for a social media hub (and ones that I’ll show you examples of in the design post coming next in the series) include:

  • Enthropia’s Lifestream. One of the ways to show what you’re up to on different networks is Lifestreaming, and Enthropia’s plug-in for WordPress is one of the simplest. This is perfect for those that don’t want a full-on social media hub.
  • Twitter Tools. Offers great integration between Twitter and your blog and vice versa, including tweet archives, posts, admin options and more.
  • Smart YouTube. Ideal for video bloggers, this gives you a larger set of options than just video embedding – playlists, RSS feed support and iPhone compatibility being just a few.
  • FotoBook. While there are plug-ins and widgets to integrate your blog with Facebook, one of the coolest to do this in reverse is FotoBook. This imports all your pictures from Facebook and enhances the personal aspect of your social media hub.

These are just some plug-ins that, along with your design and the existing applications from the various social networks, will make up your social media hub. The great thing with WordPress is that, no matter what you’re looking to do via your hub, you can probably find a plug-in for it. Just go to WordPress Extend and start searching – that’s where the treasure is to shape your hub, your way.

Takeaway: Make a list of how many features you’d like on your blog. Decide if you want to go for a single page, sub-pages, sub-domain and how intensive or lite you wish your hub to be. Sketch some ideas for layout, since tomorrow we?ll look at the various options available, with examples of each to a successful hub. To make sure you receive the latest from?7 Days to Turn Your Blog Into a Social Media Hub, feel free to either?subscribe by RSS feed or?email subscription.

Creative Commons License photo credit: pexatar

Note: This blog no longer runs on the Headway framework. Instead, it’s a custom WordPress design by Lisa Kalandjian of SceneStealer Graphics.