Join the @Invite_Bunny at the Flamingo Road Easter Services!

Don’t live near any of our physical campuses? Check out our Internet Campus at www.frclive.tv!

Internet Campus Service Times (All Times are Eastern Standard):

April 2nd – 6:30 pm and 8:00 pm

April 3rd – 5:00 pm and 7:00 pm

April 4th - 9:00 am, 11:00 am, 1:00 pm, 3:00 pm, 5:00 pm

January 1st, 2010.

That is the day I decided it was time to change my life for the better, for the healthier. I had always had some extra pounds on me, but I never truly realized how much extra I had. I stepped on the scale for the first time in months, and weighed in at 232.1 lbs. That number shocked me.

I had always been able to get away with the extra weight, because I am around 5′10. I called myself “big-boned” but I knew I was lying. I knew it was time for a change, and this time, I was serious about it. I knew that I was starting college in around 7 months, and I didn’t want to start it with an unhealthy amount of weight on. Diabetes, Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, and a lot of other things are very prevalent in my family, so I didn’t want to hinder my potential in life, because of poor lifestyle decisions that I had made. That day, I decided that I wanted to be at around 175 lbs. by my high-school graduation. Not only to look good in my dress, but more than that, I wanted to be healthy. Truly healthy.

March 17, 2010.

We had Circus Day at school, and I only have one pair of shorts that matched with the shirt we had to wear. I pulled it out for the first time in three months and it was HUGE on me. When I mean huge, I mean I had to button my belt to the fifth loop!

Weight Lost (Fat): 25 lbs.

Weight Gained (Muscle): 6.5 lbs.

Pant Sizes Dropped: 3

Top Sizes Dropped: 1-2

Still have around 25-30 lbs. to lose in the next few months, and I am going to continue working hard at it!

“Our prejudices arise from the fear of things we do not understand. If my generation has a single goal, it must be to promote education – education that advances us not only technologically, but also intuitively and emotionally. In today’s fast-paced world, advancing has to mean more than scientific discovery; it is our responsibility to force ourselves beyond our comfort zones and become knowledgeable about the people around us.”

-Jessica Arden Ettinger (Starbucks customer and student at the University of Virginia)

*Found the quote  on a Starbucks cup.

Wait! It’s not what it sounds like, trust me! This past weekend, I decided to give my site a little face-lift, and as a result, I perused through the WP plugin site. I stumbled upon this new plugin called, “SexyBookmarks.” Now, I’m not going to lie. When I first saw the name of the plugin, I had no idea what to expect. However, it has quickly turned into one of my favorite WordPress plugins! I am on many social media sites, and most of the people who read my blog, are too. “SexyBookmarks” functionality and flow is probably the best out of any plugins that try to accomplish the same purpose. It allows you to put a list of several social networking sites on top of every post, which in turn allows the reader to share the post with his or her social network on any of the several sites listed! The best part, is that it takes just one click, for the reader to share the post. We all know, that people may want to share your post with others, however, you want to make it as simple as possible because if it takes multiple steps, chances are the reader will not end up sharing it. It also allows you to add a background image to hover over the site options, so that you can add a seamlessly little bit of personality to your blog.

Here’s the link to the plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sexybookmarks/

This past weekend, I attended WordCamp Miami. It was the first time I had ever attended a WordCamp, but I can tell you that it won’t be the last time I attend one! I really don’t have anything negative to say about the experience. The sessions were great, the people were friendly, and the amount of information that was spewed was unmatched to anything that I’ve ever seen before. I actually chose to stay on the Social Media Track the entire day, because I felt like that was what applied most to what I do and plan to do in the future. It was a great choice, and I’ve already been able to implement several things that I learned this past weekend. If you ever have the chance to ever make it to a WordCamp, I would HIGHLY recommend that you check it out. You won’t regret, I know I didn’t!

*P.S. If you weren’t able to make it to WordCamp, here are the links to all of my notes from WordCamp Miami:

- Jim Turner’s (From Daddy Blogger to Business Blogger)

- Gary Bacon’s (The Legal Side of Blogging)

- Jess Jurick’s (Finding Your Blogging Voice)

- Brian Breslin’s (How to Make Your Blog Social)

- Angie Moncada’s (Writing For a Professional Blog)

- Tammy Hart’s (Wordpress and Working With Clients)

- Lisa D. Spark’s (The Power of Email Marketing)

- Jim Gilbert’s (Engaging and Driving Traffic With Blogs)

Word Camp Miami – ( @GilbertDirect )

- Business Site: http://gilbertdirectmarketing.wordpress.com/

- Slideshow Presentation Link: http://www.slideshare.net/jimdirect

- Two case studies to present

• Consumer: The Fresh Diet
• B2B- The Gilbert Direct Marketing Blog

The 3 Immutable Laws of Social Media Marketing

• Brand + Time = Revenue
• Brand + Channels = Revenue
• Brand + Time + Channels = Advocates

1. New Multichannel marketing model for the 21st century

- Strategy Engagement Circle

• Blog content. FaceBook. Twitter. Email. Website. Youtube. Book marking sites. Blog content.
• Link back content to your blog

- Put a human face to a nameless faceless entity

- Run contests. Great involvement and incentive.

• They reinforce how you feel about your brand
• We live in the age of peer to peer sales
• People love to buy, but hate to be sold
• Social media allows customers to find you
• Contest Examples

1. Tell us your worst diet ever (win a free week)
2. Tell us your favorite meal
3. Tell us why you chose the Fresh Diet

- Track results with bit.ly

- Make sure RSS, blog updates via email, and newsletter sign-ups are prominent.

- Goals of Blog:

• Build credibility
• Build a following
• Generate clients
• Become a better writer (I’m a frustrated writer. I’ve got that great american novel in me somewhere.)

- Still host on Wordpress.com, because it’s easier! He said, ” I have no clue about Wordpress.org. MYSQL (pronounced: my sequel)? I didn’t even know I had an orginal?!” // Line of the day.

- Online Address Book: Plaxo

- Get on Linkedin

• Post new blog post to “News” section. It drove large amounts of traffic to the blog, and only takes about 25 minutes.

- Join direct graphic groups, but also join complimentary groups. It’ll help diversify the pool of potential clients!

Word Camp Miami – ( @LisaDSparks )

- Business Site: www.constantcontact.com

- It takes relationships to build a business

- Advantages of Email Marketing for WP Bloggers

• Develop stronger relationship with your readers
• Emailing monthly digest of top spots
• Measure results of email campaigns (easily)

- Stronger handle on amount of “readers” outside of RSS

- Control communications outside of Feedburner auto-email of posts

- Craft promotions/messages to followers/subscribers

- Create powerful connections and income streams

- Example: www.preemopc.com

- Constant Contact Plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/constant-contact-signup-form-widget/

- Form Generator: www.seodenver.com/constant-contact-forms-generator

- Thought: Create a monthly digest of your posts. Instead of emailing every time you post. It’s more targeted, and more likely to get more comments.

- Email Marketing helps you find FANS within the MASSES:

• 7 Touches before sale occurs
• Use email to continue upsell process
• Retain happy customers for life with your personality. SHARE!

- Email Marketing is:

• Delivering professional email communications to a group of people.

- Boulder Arts and Crafts Gallery

• Problem: Needed to clear out excess inventory
• Solution: Sent 25 % off discount email to list of 1600
• Result: Got $4000 within 10 hours.

- Duck Tours

• Problem: Grow interest in the tours year round
• Solution: Send targeted campaigns to groups such as schools, religious, and community organizations
• Result: 153% increase in revenue over a three year period

- How Tracking Works

• Email. ESP. Tracking Code. Interaction.

- Don’t email too often, you WILL be marked as spam.

- Provide incentives for people giving you their email address.

- New Plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/constant-contact-api/

- Keep a content folder to keep everything organized.

- List of Article/Content Resources

• www.copyblogger.com
• www.ezinearticles.com
• www.bluepenguindevelopment.com

Word Camp Miami – ( @TammyHart )

- Cool Site: http://pasteinteractive.com/

- Personal Site: www.tammyhartdesigns.com

- Slideshow Presentation Link: http://www.slideshare.net/tammyhart/word-press-working-with-clients

- Sales Pitch

• How do I sell WordPress to my clients?
• Wordpress is much cheaper and easier, than writing code from scratch.
• What do they Need?

1. Low cost
2. Content Management
3. Good support
4. Room for Growth
5. Customizability
6. Do it yourself maintenance
7. Media tools
8. Keep in touch with audience
9. Scalability

• What Would WordPress Do?

1. It’s free!
2. Easy to use admin interface
3. Unmatched community
4. Add content now and later
5. Thousands of themes and plug-ins
6. Easy as writing an email
7. Built in tools and plugins
8. Multiple subscription options
9. Caching helps! (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/)

- Ford, Wall Street Journal, People, CNN, and Mozilla all use WordPress.

- Design and Function

• How do we decide what their website will look like and do?
• Don’t be scared to say no, or make demands to a client. Set rules and guidelines.
• Where Do You Start?

1. Ask Questions
2. Budget
3. Timeline Examples and Models
4. Current Design Resources
5. Start them with a list of functions
6. Don’t be afraid to suggest a better way
7. Make sure they will have all the essentials

• What Can Wordpress Do?

1. Customize a ready theme
2. Start from Scratch

• All Your essentials

1. Static content
2. Blog/News
3. Thousands of Widgets
4. Contact Forms
5. Social Media Integration
6. Subscription Integration ( Suma Plugin )
7. Flutter ( Example : http://www.pasadenasymphony-pops.org/ )

- Freedom of Speech: http://www.march18.org/

- WordPress Hosting: http://page.ly/

- Content

• Get started off right

1. Develop a site map first
2. Set and enforce deadlines
3. When your’e designing, they should be writing

• Use the right tools

1. Set up their Wordpress site before designing
2. Jumpchart ( www. jumpchart.com ) (Get 3 free months with code: tammy )
3. Use plugins to manage pages
4. pageMash > Page Management
5. My Page Order

- Walkthrough

• Few Steps:

1. De-clutter the dashboard
2. Set up their multiple user accounts for them
3. Install the essential plugins for them
4. Do a live walkthrough
5. Advise them of upgrades
6. Offer a list of resources

• Remember:

1. WordPress is easy!
2. Give support after launch!

Word Camp Miami – ( @AngieMoncada )

- Business Site: http://addventures.com/

- Personal Site: http://thevirtualwatercooler.wordpress.com/

- Make sure that your online presence and your real presence is the same thing

- It’s not about how great you are, it’s about what you believe.

- Inform. Inspire. Recruit. Retain.

- How do you do it?

- Step 1: Listen to What People Are Saying

- Step 2: Figure Out What You Have to Contribute

• What’s your passion. What do you bring to the table?
• Make your blog slightly personal, but not too personal. Still keep it professional.
• People will buy stuff from people that they know and trust.
• In order to establish credibility, you need to maintain a little bit of professionalism.

-Step 3: Find People Who Can Do It

• Build a team! You can’t do it alone. You’re going to run out of things to say, or write about, but have a team that can come along side you to help, or even inspire.
• Have a guest blogger once in a while, or maybe interview someone.

- Step 4: Craft a Plan and Process to Get It Done

• You can plan all you like, but you need to actually get it done.
• You usually want to do everything, but then life happens, and takes that away.
• Be honest with yourself, and be honest with your time schedule. Create a plan that suites your life, and stick to it. Be realistic, you’re probably not going to post everyday, because us techies are all over the place doing different things. We’re not the most organized.
• Instead of giving something up for Lent, she decided to do something. She is going to actually blog, every single day, for 40 days.
• Have an accountability partner, if you think life is going to get in the way.

- Step 5: Do It.

- Step 6: Keep Doing It In New Ways

- Step 7: Listen. Respond. Repeat

- Spend one day at the park and take an hour, to write 100 things to talk about on your blog. What perspective do you have, that others don’t? What are 100 things that YOU have to say?

- Keep your blog fresh. Keep it evolving.

- It’s not about you. It’s about them. You’re not writing a blog for yourself, your’e writing a blog to connect with people. It’s about THEM.

- Look back at your blog, a year ago, and see how far you’ve come. You’ll see the evolution of yourself over the past year.

- Keep a couple of editorial calendars, to organize your thoughts and blog.

Word Camp Miami – (@BrianBreslin )

- Personal Site: www.brianbreslin.com

- Founder of REFRESH: Miami

- What does it mean to be social?

• To communicate with other people.
• How do you integrate your social graph (social networks).
• Connect your site to social networks
• Make your blog as sociable as you!

- Social Networks? Build up or build on.

• Build on top of existing social networks. Less friction, already have the following.
• Integrate Facebook Connect (http://www.sociable.es/facebook-connect/)
• Use BuddyPress if you want to build up.
• However, there is some friction involved when using BuddyPress, because people are not going to want to sign up for another social site. Just leverage Facebook, if you have it.

- Putting the social in your social media

• Bookmarking Sites (Delicious, Digg, Reddit)
• Social browsing sites (StumbleUpon)

- Turning your blog viral

• If you simply use your site, you spread it.
• Make reading your blog infectious
• Think of viral, as the flu. You don’t intentionally go out and give your friends the flu. Simply by breathing, and being you, you spread the content.
• Turn your readers into your promoters.

- Best Practices

• Understand the culture of social networks. Don’t force your culture into sites or communities where they don’t belong. Be relevant, it’ll have a higher rate of return. Don’t just blast your content to every site. Be intentional. Be specific.
• Treat the community with respect.
• Don’t think of your blog as a destination site. Most people visit an average of 12 sites a day. To get in that rotation of 12 sites, is freakin hard! You’re going to have to go through social media marketing, not just simply by blogging. Most of the visitors to your blog will stumble onto your blog by Digg or similar sites.
• Engage your community wherever THEY want to.

- Things to Avoid

• Spamming? Seriously. Stop it.
• Treating it as a one way outbound communication. Social media/marketing is a two way street. It’s an open conversation, that’s why there are Trackbacks in Wordpress.
• Diving in without testing things out first.

- Simplifying social

• Plugins to Integrate

1. Sharethis
2. Sociable
3. Disqus

- Role of SEO in Social Blogging

• Prepare your content for consumption
• Prepare your content for distribution
• Best SEO Plug-In

- The future of the social blog

• Distributed social networks (DISO)
• Identity Providers (OpenID)
• Activity hubs (activity.streams)

- Useful tips

• Set up a list of goals (more traffic, audience, engagement)
• Focus on your efforts on your niche (where do they hang out)
• It’s all about the content

- Q and A

• Ning is a great way to create your own social site. However, if you build off NING, you hand over all of your info about your users to NING. If you want to move from NING, you’re screwed. All of the info is theirs.
• Also, NING has 3 million users, but the average NING network has 9 people. It might just be easier to leverage Facebook.