Archive for Social Media Strategies

Tutorial: Email Marketing with AWeber

Have you wanted to create an email subscription process that compliments the look and feel of your WordPress site?  Look no further than AWeber, a monthly service based on the number of your subscribers.

With AWeber, you can:

  • create a branded email list for each of your categories, or just one.
  • create custom branded subscription forms to place on your site
  • create custom branded autoresponders and follow-up emails
  • create custom branded e-newsletters
  • create custom branded blog broadcasts (your feed pulled into a custom email template to match the look and feel of your site)

As far as I am aware, AWeber is the only premium email marketing service that seamlessly integrates with your WordPress blog (your RSS feed) to automatically generate a branded email for your subscribers. AWeber calls this a “blog broadcast” and it can save business owners a lot of time with email marketing because once the blog broadcast is setup, all you have to do is publish your WordPress post and your latest information goes out through your RSS feed into the branded email to your subscribers. Well worth the money when you consider the time savings here!

Another benefit of paying for AWeber is the customer service available by phone or live chat. If you are having any technical issues, just give the kind folks at AWeber a call and they will guide you along! Here are some videos that demonstrate the value of using AWeber for your email marketing campaigns:

Send Your First Email Newsletter Today – AWeber Communications

This tutorial is part of a series of e-courses created by Cat Scholz to empower you with using the self-hosted version of WordPress to achieve your internet marketing goals. Get more information and/or sign up:

Checkout Level 1 (free)
Checkout Level 2 (on sale)
Checkout Level 3 (on sale)

How to add audio to your Facebook Page (video tutorial)


Facebook has stopped allowing you to stream your SoundCloud music. But you can still stream a SoundCloud player on Twitter!

1. Upload your file to SoundCloud.

2. Make sure the sharing is set to “public.”.

3. Copy the link and paste it in the”status” area as a tweet on Twitter.

4. Optional: add a description in the text field above the link and a short link back to your site.

5. Click “Post” to publish.

Your audio will now stream live on Twitter!

Learn about using the self-hosted version of WordPress to achieve your internet marketing goals with Cat Scholz. Get more information and/or sign up with these handy links:

Checkout Level 1 (free)
Checkout Level 2 (on sale)
Checkout Level 3 (on sale)

Add a Facebook Like Box to your WordPress website or blog

facebook like boxNow that Facebook is spreading out across websites all over the internet, you, too can join in on the connectivity by a Facebook Like Box to your WordPress self-hosted website or blog. Here’s how:

  1. Install Jetpack
  2. Activate Extra Sidebar Widgets under Appearance–> Widgets
  3. Slide a Facebook Like Box widget into your sidebar or other widgetized area

It’s that easy!

This tutorial is part of a series of e-courses created by Cat Scholz to empower you with using the self-hosted version of WordPress to achieve your internet marketing goals. Get more information and/or sign up:

Checkout Level 1 (free)
Checkout Level 2 (on sale)
Checkout Level 3 (on sale)

Why use WordPress (self-hosted)?

There are many great reasons to use a self-hosted version of WordPress for developing your website and blog.  Here are my top 10:

  1. Google loves WordPress (and blogs in general) because search engines favor sites that have regularly created fresh content.  See my post on SEO.
  2. WordPress is interactive.  Visitors can comment on pages and posts.  You can create a community around your business with your site.
  3. You can organize content with categories and visitors can view or subscribe to the categories they want to.
  4. You can automatically sync your content to social websites such as Facebook with the RSS feed.
  5. WordPress sites can be translatable into many languages.
  6. WordPress sites are easy to update (far easier than reglular html or Joomla).
  7. Multiple authors and editors can contribute to writing content and posting photos or video (you can DELEGATE!)
  8. You can add PayPal buttons or a shopping cart to monetize your site (you can MAKE MONEY!)
  9. You can embed video from YouTube easily (YouTube is second to Google as a search engine now!)
  10. WordPress is open-source and is constantly evolving (it’s always getting better!)
  11. OK one more: WordPress is easy to learn!

There are more advanced reasons that concern templates, tags and permalinks, but the 10 reasons listed above should satisfy most folks who need a fast and easy way to get their business website up and running.

Here is a screenshot of what WordPress looks like from the back-end:

Live in Nevada County and want to learn more about WordPress in person?  Come to my free class.

What is Web Weaving?

“Web Weavingâ„¢” is a term that describes a process of blending skill sets for the purposes of comprehensive internet marketing strategy.  A Web Weaverâ„¢ may use some or all of the following skills to market a product, service or business online:

  • WordPress
  • Search Engine Marketing/Optimization
  • Podcasting with audio and video
  • Social Media: YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and more

Need to delegate internet marketing to someone else or just don’t have the time to do it?  Hire a Web Weaver™!

Catherine Scholz synthesizes the best internet marketing tools available: WordPress, SEO, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, podcasting to iTunes and more.

She also trains other Web Weaversâ„¢ how to use these tools to jump start their internet marketing strategy.

Hire Catherine to be your Web Weaverâ„¢ (monthly retainers start at $144/month), or sign up a member of your staff to learn how to become a Web Weaverâ„¢ for your business.

Sync your blog with your Facebook Page with Networked Blogs

Picture 10

Winter has arrived in the Sierra Foothills and being snowed/iced-in at my place has fostered a wonderful sense of stillness.  Between winter-wonderland walks, I have been working on my new music album and this valuable blog post on how to sync your blog with your Facebook Page.

Networked Blogs is an application developed for Facebook that pulls your RSS Feed from your blog on a regular basis, then posts a thumbnail image (if you’ve included one in your post) and an excerpt from your blog onto your Facebook Page Wall for all of your fans to see in their News Feed.  With this application, you can also follow other blogs on Facebook and invite people to follow yours.  It’s a great way to share your content with your Facebook fans and to drive traffic back to your website/blog. Read More →

Add a Facebook fan box to your WordPress site

Hi there –

Here is a short video that teaches you how to add a Facebook fan box to your WordPress site.  You can watch the video on my website (and folks with Mac’s Mail program may even be able to watch it in their email!) and you can also subscribe to my YouTube Channel.

How is your WordPress website/blog coming along? Would love to hear from you.

Here to help you make your finest dreams come true,

-Catherine

Free Facebook tip: shorten your URL

facebook

Facebook Pages are an important piece of your overall social media marketing strategy.  With a Facebook page, you can publish your blog content to Facebook members who have subscribed to your page by becoming a fan.

If you don’t yet have a Facebook Page for your business, I suggest you make one yourself or hire someone to help you make one.  And once you have more than 25 FB fans, you can shorten your Facebook Page url.

Improving the world one post at a time,

-Catherine

The problem with using Feedburner for email marketing

Picture 4

Your WordPress site (or blog) comes with an RSS Feed.  Google’s free Feedburner service takes that feed and converts it to a universal format.  With Feedburner, you can also activate useful tools including a free email subscription form which allows visitors to subscribe to your feed.

The one major drawback with using Feedburner for email marketing is that you cannot edit the email template (which means you can’t add any custom branding besides your photo).  Here is a screenshot of what my most recent Feedburner email looks like:

feedburner_news

Don’t yet have a budget for a premium email marketing service?  I can help you create a custom branded e-newsletter using your WordPress blog (this is what I do with my e-newsletter). Here is what my e-newsletter currently looks like:

e-news

See the difference?  Once the process is set up, you can focus on writing your blog post and then your content will go out by email to your list.  You can save some serious money by going this route instead of hiring someone to custom design your e-newsletter every time you want to publish! Want to get started?

Here to help you make your finest dreams come true,

Catherine

P.S. I can also set up your blog to publish excerpts to Facebook, Twitter, and other social websites with my social media package.  Another great way to maximize your online presence!

Twitter has a new widget

Picture 10

Twitter recently updated their widgets so you can customize the colors to match your site.  To get the code for your Twitter widget, log into Twitter.com, go to “Settings” and underneath the “More Info URL” field, click on the link that says, “You can also add Twitter to your site here.”  From there, you can choose if you want a widget for your website, Facebook, or MySpace and what colors you would like to use in your widget.

Have fun with it!

Catherine