Posts Tagged ‘wordpress’

Posted on May 27, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Presentation: Using WordPress to build your brand & telling your start-up story from @WordCampRaleigh #wcraleigh

This past weekend I had the chance to attend and speak at WordCamp Raleigh @WordCampRaleigh. I think this was my fourth or fifth time attending a WordCamp event and my third time speaking at one. I must say by far that WordCamp Raleigh was the best one yet. The event was organized by Steve Mortiboy @wpsmort, Michael Torbet @michaeltorbert and Craig Tuller @craigtuller, along with a great team of volunteers. During the 2 day camp I met some awesome WordPress developers and speakers such as Syed @wpbeginner, Lisa Sabin-Wilson @LisaSabinWIlson, Dave Moyer @DaveMoyer and more. Also I had a chance to catch up with a few friends who I normally don’t see unless we’re at SXSW or BlogWorld such as Patrick O’Keefe @ifroggy, Brandon Eley @Eley, Stephan Segraves @ssegraves and Aaron Brazell @technosailor. It was great seeing everyone!

One of the highlights of WordCamp Raleigh was watching and participating in the SitePoint Podcast hosted by @iFroggy and team. The podcast was live video streamed and you can watch it here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7124319

My topic for WordCamp Raleigh was “Using WordPress to build your brand and telling your start-up story” in which Lawrence Ingraham @LawPower, TriOut founder joined me discussing how we used WordPress and blogged the launch of TriOut. Below is the presentation and you can see the notes on SlideShare.

Here are a few more blog post about WordCamp Raleigh:
WordCamp Raleigh 2010 Pictures – Part 1
WordCamp Raleigh 2010 (Overview)
WordCamp Raleigh 2010

Thanks to WordCamp Raleigh @WordCampRaleigh for having me and planning a great event. See you next year!

Posted on May 7, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

4 new ways to integrate Twitter with your WordPress blog to increase vistor engagement

As many of you know tweeting a blog article or sharing a blog article among social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, friendfeed and GoogleBuzz are a great way to reach new visitors. But what if you want your readers to share a post without leaving your blog or just tweet a blog article and keep reading your other post. If so you may want to try a few of the options below. Here’s 4 new ways to integrate Twitter with your WordPress blog to increase vistor engagement.

1. Like it? Tweet it! plugin

“Like it? Tweet it!” is a jQuery-powered JavaScript widget that enables visitors to your website or blog to write a tweet about the site directly in a box displayed in the corner of the website, with a link to the site already embedded in the input field.

2.BackTweets Plugin: Display the best tweets that link to your posts (ok, not that new)

3. Blackbird Pie: Create a generate static HTML of tweets for your posts

4. Add Twitter Anywhere

Embed a Tweet Box on your site and help your users share what matters to them.

Happy blogging and tweeting!

Posted on November 20, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Friday Fix: 4 ways to add a Facebook Share button to your WordPress Blog

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a Friday Fix and in case you’re wondering what exactly is Friday Fix. Friday Fix are just short post on niche topics/plugins/presentations or you could call them short simple tips. Regardless today’s Friday Fix is about Facebook Share buttons and Facebook Share count buttons. I’m sure you have seen them on Mashable or TechCrunch and if you’re looking to make your blog a little more social, adding these buttons can help.
Here are four WordPress plugins that make it easy for your readers to share your post on Facebook.

1. fbShare.me: A sharecount button for Facebook* http://www.fbshare.me/

2. FB Share Button WordPress Plugin for Facebook Share : http://staynalive.com/articles/2009/10/26/introducing-the-fb-share-button-wordpress-plugin-for-facebook-share/

3. Add To Facebook Plugin – http://nothing.golddave.com/?page_id=108

4. Facebook Share (New) Button – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-share-new/ (looks just like #2)

Posted on November 15, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Blog Updates: Making your WordPress blog more Social

Usually on weekends I’m going through my email and trying to reach inbox zero before Monday morning but last night I decided SocialWayne.com needed a few updates. My primarily goals of updating SocialWayne.com was to make it faster, remove WordPress plugins I didn’t need and add social engagement. While adding a few social engagement features I may not have reached my goal of speeding up the load time but I’m hoping WP Super Cache will handle the rest. Either way, here’s what I done to SocialWayne.com to make it more social.

1. Wibiya toolbar


Wibiya enables blogs to integrate the most exciting services, applications and widgets of their choice into their blog through customized web-based toolbars.

2. Added Follow Me Plugin
A floating tab on the right that says Follow me that links to my Twitter profile.

3. Added/Changed Facebook Share Count Plugin

I had another Facebook Share Count plugin installed but I switched to the one created by Jess Stay

4. Updated: Easy ReTweet WordPress Plugin

I still have Topsy and Tweetmeme plugins installed and actived but I’m not displaying them.

5. Added Facebook Connect Comments

Sadly my blog theme doesn’t support Disqus therefore I’m using BackType and Facebook to for social comments.

6. Added ShareThis Plugin

I was using the Sexy Bookmarks Plugin but I can add google analytics to ShareThis therefore I’m making the switch.

7. Added Find Me On plugin

You know what to do.

8. Added Google Friend Connect Gadgets

If you look to your right on the sidebar you’ll see two new gadgets from Google Friend Connect. One always you to leave a comment about the blog or you could post topics that you would like for me to cover and the other is a poll widget. Speaking of the poll, if you have a moment, login and vote. I’m using the feedback for an upcoming blog post.

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There are a few more things I’ve done to SocialWayne.com and I’ll blog more about the Facebook Share plugins in the next few days. Let me know what you think about the changes and have a great week.

Posted on September 22, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

3 plugins to backup your WordPress blog. Love your database!

WordPress, the blogging platform we all know and love is used by almost everyone from main stream media such as CNN, MTV to universities such as Arkansas at Little Rock to celebrities such as Perez Hilton. WordPress is also used by leading tech blogs such as Mashable, TechCrunch and Gigaom . Installing a self-hosted version of WordPress.org is very simple and a lot of web hosting providers offer one click installs, but what about a backup? Most web hosting services offers daily backups of your files and I hope for your sake a daily back up of your sql / mysql WordPress database. But just in case they don’t here are three WordPress plugins to back up your WordPress database.

1. WP-DBManager
Pitch: Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database.

2. WordPress Automatic Online Backup
Pitch: You can prevent loss of data using an automated backup of your blog database. You create a free account on www.wordpressbackup.com (wpb), connect your blog with the wbp via a key.

3. WordPress Database Backup
Pitch: WordPress database backup creates backups of your core WordPress tables as well as other tables of your choice in the same database.

Bonus: Two of the plugins offer the ability to have your database emailed to you on a scheduled time. I recommend creating an alternative gmail or ymail email address and use one of the plugins to email you a backup of your database daily.

How are you backing up your self hosted WordPress blog?