Install the Lab

To install this you want to click on the little gear in the upper right hand corner on gmail.  Then click Settings.  If you’ve never seen your settings, this may look a little daunting, but rest assured, we will walk you through it.  Look for the “Labs” tab and click on it.  For me, it’s the eighth tab.  Once your Labs tab shows up, look for the search box.  In the search box, type the word “pop.”  There will only be one result and that’s the one you want.  Select enable and then “Save Changes” at the bottom left of the page.  You can then go back to your Inbox.  Now to import that email, select the “refresh” icon right above your inbox (not the word, the actual inbox).  You should then see your “More” icon move over to the right a little and the words “Fetching Mail…” will appear.  Google will even alert you, once the fetching is finished, with a note at the top of the page.

Transfereing

Click on Blogger

First thing you want to do is login to your self-hosted wordpress site.  Go to the left side bar and click on Tools > Import.  A window will then pop up that looks similar to the image on the left. Click on “Blogger.” For those of you that have an old Blogspot and don’t know yet.  Google Bought out Blogspot and put it into it’s blogging platform, Blogger.  Even if it hasn’t been one you used for several years, it will still be imported.  I imported my old blogspot blog just recently and it imported information that was written back in 2006.  Getting back to the import, once you’ve selected Blogger, a window will popup that will prompt you to install the plugin.  Go ahead and install the plugin.  Once installed, you will be prompted to activate the plugin and run the importer.  Select that link.  You will then be taken to a page that explains authorization.  You have to authorize Google to let WordPress have access to your blogger account.  You will then need to sign into your Google account to grant access.  Once you have done that, it will bring you back to wordpress with a screen that looks similar to this one.

Blogger Import

This shows you how many posts it can import as well as comments. You can see I didn’t use this blogging account very much.  Needless to say, it imports them just the same.  Once you see this screen, click on the “The Magic Button” or “Import” button on the right hand side.  Once that button is selected, it will import your articles and show you with a neat sliding effect.  If it imports them correctly you will see a screen similar to this one that shows that all your articles and comments have been imported.

Imported Articles

Now, all you need to do is select which authors you want the posts to go to, select “Set Authors.”  It will then promped you with a table to select which blogs you want to go with author.  If there was just one author on your Blogger account, then it should be fairly easy to select which posts or articles you want to go with which author.  If there is more than one author on your Blogger account, you will need to select each set of posts with the author you want them to go to.  There is even an easy link to create an author in WordPress right in the page.  Once you have selected the appropriate authors, click “Save Changes.”

**If, for whatever reason, you decide to change your mind and you don’t want your Blogger or Blogspot account on your self-hosted WordPress site, there is an option throughout the importing that allows you to clear your account information.  Rest assured, it won’t delete any of your posts.  It deletes the saved Blogger posts, that the plugin just imported, off of the WordPress database.  So it won’t mess of either blog.

Possible Errors

The only error I discovered when trying to import my blog is that I was pre-signed into the wrong google account when trying to authorize.  It was then throwing me an error saying that WordPress couldn’t access my account and then needed me to clear the account information.  Don’t worry, WordPress walks you through this, like they walk you through everything.  There is an easy button right under their error that will automatically clear the information for you.  You won’t loose any info doing this, it will just clear out the Google account information it has already stored in it’s cache.

WordPress.com to WordPress.org

Tumblr.com to WordPress.org

Transferring

Wordpress Import Options

To start off, go ahead and login to your self-hosted wordpress site.  Go to your lefthand side bar and click on Tools > Import.  This is an extremely simple  migration.  Wordpress has created different plugins to migrate over your third-party hosted blogs.  When you arrive to the page it will look similar to the image on the left.  This is a list of plugins that WordPress has created that give the user the ability to import different blog platforms.  Since we are focusing on Tumblr, you will want to select that option.  The option to import Tumblr is new to version 3.3.1, so if you don’t see it, it’s because you are running a different version.  If that’s the case, you will want to update your WordPress version first (please make sure you know what you are doing before starting this, it can really mess up your site).  If you think you are up to the task, Tad Deushunt makes a great video that walks you though this process.  You can find that video here. If you don’t feel like you want to update your site then you can alway go with Christina Warren’s way of migrating your site.  If you do see the Tumblr option on the import page, select that option.  You will then be prompted to install the plugin.  Once you have installed the plugin, activate the plugin and run the importer.  Wordpress will then prompt you to enter your Tumblr account information for importing.  Once you have entered in your

Select an Author

Tumblr account information, select Connect to Tumblr.  You will then be prompted with an author selection page.  It basically says that Tumblr doesn’t contain author information and you need to select which author you want to give these posts to.  So before hitting that “Import this Blog” button, you will want to make sure to select that author you want all these posts to go under.  Once you have selected the author, go ahead and hit that “Import the Blog” button.  Once you hit that button, the page will what it looks like refresh, but if you look close, the button has changed from “Import this Blog” to “In progress.”  The Tumblr blog will transfer in the background, so it’s okay to leave the page and come back later to check on the status.  You can now rest easy, your Tumblr blog has now been transfered.

Possible Errors

For some reason, when installing the plugin, sometimes it hangs up and creates an error.  Don’t worry if this happens, just go back to the Tools > Import page and select Tumblr again.  It created an error for me the first time, but it ended up working the second time around.

WordPress.com to WordPress.org

Blogger.com / Blogspot.com to WordPress.org

Well I am writing today to give you 3 ways to define social media as a business 2 business tool, 3 reasons why social media is important for business to business markets, and 3 action items with examples for business 2 business companies.

3 Ways to Define Social Media as a Business 2 Business Tool

Social Media – Definition 1: A Handshake

Gatekeepers and decision-makers at companies that are trying to decide if they should work with you may check out your social media presence. Are you savvy? Are you big enough, efficient enough, organized enough to have social? Is your presence sharp? Do you look legitimate and professional? Do you have know-how? Stand out from the crowd.

Social Media – Definition 2: An Essential Communication Channel

The proliferation of communication tools, which includes social media, means that each persona at a potential customer business may have their own pet channels, their own preferences. Do they email, answer their phone, prefer to meet in person? Or do they respond well on Facebook because their family is active there? Do they get notifications from LinkedIn or Twitter? Will notices go through because social is somewhat new to the potential client? Do they just prefer it?

Social Media – Definition 3: 1 of 3 Dimensions of Integrated Marketing

Social integrates with, supports, and improves performance on your site and search. What if 25% more people could find your site through social, would it be worth it? If backlinks from social pushed your name higher than your competitors in search results, it might pay for itself!

3 Reasons Why Social Media is Important for Business to Business Markets

Most Businesses Already Use Social Media Today

Some have stated that social accounts are as pivotal as email! Many top business-2-business firms in professional services industries see more results online that by phone and in-person combined! Read the stats. Chances are your competitors at least have social accounts, and it can be a testament to how full-service or on-the-ball you are comparatively (just like a great building front can win business for you before they even walk in).

B2B Selling Is About Being Social And Networking

Even though your target is a company, ultimately b2b sales happens with people, and you meet people through networking. In fact, networking with the right people is usually the biggest tool of business to business sales. Thus the tools for connecting to people still apply.

The Price Is Right And The Tools Are Powerful

Even though you are business to business, you are checking out social media because you have heard how great the results are. Since most the tools are free, traditional marketing and advertising methods cannot even compare. Even if you think social is half as effective for b2b, it may still be a better result for the same amount of money!

3 Social Media Action Items with Examples for Business 2 Business Companies

Set Up Major Social Network Profiles

The first step is easy. Set up profiles everywhere for your company. Use your brand and logo, and provide basic info so they can contact you. Not your social on your website. At least your potential clients won’t doubt your credibility and reputation for being way behind.

Offer Industry Knowledge and Expertise

In day-to-day operation of your business-2-business company, you will notice many ideas, points you’d like to make, themes in the industry, advice you seem to give every customer and client. Turn these nuggets into Tweets, Posts, and Discussions, and you will be miles ahead of the competition. You will be proving your skill and savvy in your industry, and already providing potential clients with info. Besides, if you don’t share info, the competitors will.

Empower Your Entire Staff

While sometimes getting social seems like a big task for your marketing department, spread the work! Give everyone in the company account, and train them on the best ways to use it, and see what floats. Some of your employees might surprise you, and their own networks of contacts can be tapped using technology. Read more about how to spread the wealth and responsibility of social.

The way that I like to choose the correct face is by thinking of it as an illustration. If I were to illustrate what I am working on, what would the feel of the illustration be? Would it be modern, or classic? Would it be detailed, or simple? Would I draw it by hand, or create it digitally? The purpose of an illustration is to help communicate through content AND style. Typography shares this purpose and means of delivery.

The other day I was reading the back of a cereal box. The design was trying to show the healthy lifestyle that incorporates eating right and exercise. The photography and layout were great, but the typography ruined the feel they were going for. The designer had not researched the faces he/she used, and put on a face that was created for the cover of an edgy and rebellious magazine in the 1960′s. The typeface exploded  in popularity and is commonly misused today.

Some people might stop me here and mention the difficulty of recognizing different type styles for non-typographers. However the internet has made this process so much easier for everyone. Websites like typophile.com are a great place to learn about prospective typefaces. A simple Google search can tell you everything you need to know about what face works in what environment. If all else fails, then this genius infographic by Julian Hansen can always come in handy as well.

While many traditional marketing concerns still certainly come into play, use of social media must acknowledge at least a bit of the individual. Below is a list of some of the technical ways this can be done on Twitter, including in a shared, corporately-owned account. After laying this ground work, I will also talk a bit about balancing the personal and professional.

• Individual Business Accounts – While 2 personal accounts with 1000 followers each doesn’t look as good as one account with 2000, this is the best method for allowing personality to show through. Most people are much more likely to follow a specific person. However, some may ask “where is the one, official account?”
• Corporate Account, Representative Tweeter – By announcing who manages any given account, you make it clear that the personality coming through is a specific person, not the official, sanitized, controlled company brand. You can still interact and be personable, while consolidating all traffic on one account. The problem then becomes “why (and how) does just this one individual represent the whole company?”
• Corporate Account, Personal Voice – Very similar to the representative tweeter, you can develop some “guidelines” for anyone who would tweet, explaining how to convey the “company personality”. While this keeps your action all on one account, shows some personality, and yet remains a professional “brand”, it makes extremely difficult to develop and maintain a unified voice, message, and consistency, and suffers a bit in personability.  Read more about this technique.
  
• Shared Account, Signed Tweets – Some accounts have a few people that use them, but the account itself still serves one unified purpose and goal. In This case, the tweeters can sign some or all of the account’s tweets, to let followers know who tweeted. While followers aren’t super concerned who tweeted, by signing you at least admit it is a real person, and again highlight that this isn’t the carefully-controlled brand but more personal and conversational individuals. Some public figures sign tweets they actually craft.
• Personal Accounts, State Workplace - This technique will help me transition to our final discussion of how to balance the personal and professional. Research shows that the companies with the most stellar and effective social media presences are the companies who do the following the best:

1. Hire sharp people who can understand, develop, innovate, and manage social media presences for the company without heavy-handed corporate training and control.
2. Develop a work place where people understand the brand, the company’s value to customers, their place in society, and the “personality” or character of the company.
3. Better yet, team members don’t just understand the brand’s meaning, but truly embrace and value it.
4. Finally, organizations that don’t limit, but rather empower their member’s use of social see the greatest success. Given goals and basic training, or better yet, access to great tools or even innovative platforms, employees and stakeholders might just surprise you with what they can do!

 
How do you balance personal and professional on Twitter? Tweet to @NickAtPro119
or use #PersonalProfessional.

Exporting

Left Sidebar

Before I begin, wordpress.com is a blogging platform in which wordpress hosts your content and you have a domain like www.yourname.wordpress.com.  Wordpress.org is that same content managment system that you install on your server.  With wordpress.org, you pay for the hosting and you have a domain name like www.yourname.com.  To start off, you will want to login to your wordpress.com account and go to your administration panel.  On the left sidebar, click on Tools >> Export.  When the page loads, you will have the option to choose what to export.  If you just want your posts, pages, feedback or all content.  It goes on to explain that is you export all content, it includes all of your posts, pages, comments, custom fields, terms, navigation menus and custom posts.  If there are more than one users on this blog, you will also have the choice to export a single authors content or all authors.  When you use the wordpress.com export tool, your posts, pages, comments, custom fields, terms, navigation menus and custom posts are all placed in a wordpress extended rss file (WXR). WordPress basically takes an XML RSS file and adds a couple extra fields to make is specific for their platform.  Once you are finished making your choices, click on the “Download Export File” and the file will start to download to your computer.  You’ve now done half to work!

Importing

Plugin needed to Import

I am currently running WordPress version 3.3, so this guide will mirror that platform.  WordPress usually does a pretty good job of not changing anything huge, so if you have an earlier version (or later) it should be pretty close to the following instructions.  You will now want to login to your self hosted (wordpress.org) account.  Once your on the dashboard, go to the left sidebar and click on Tools >> Import.  You will then see a list of  other blogging platforms (or systems).  You will want to choose WordPress.  As soon as you choose WordPress, a window will open that prompts you to install a plugin.  Go ahead and click  the “Install Now” button in the upper right hand corner.  Your system will then go through the normal plugin installation and will stop at the activate prompt (if everything was install correctly).  You want to go ahead and activate the plugin.  This will activate the plugin and also start the importer.  You will then want to click “Choose File” and select your wordpress.com file you just recently exported. Once you have selected the file, click “Upload file and import.”  WordPress will then upload your file and unpack all the data the file contains.  Once the WXR file is uploaded and unpacked, your wordpress.org site should now contain all the posts, pages, comments, custom fields, terms, navigation menus and custom posts.

Possible Error:

Some webhosts limit the maximum file size of an upload in their PHP.int file to 2MB and sometimes smaller.  I have no idea why they do this, but it can sometimes be a problem when trying to upload your blog.  It does take a pretty sizable blog to hit the 2MB size, but it does happen.  If you happen to have a WXR file that is larger than 2MB, this first thing I would recommend is contact your webhost and asking them to increase the size.  If they refuse, you can always ask them to upload the file for you.  If they still refuse, you can upload your own custom PHP.int file and/or .htaccess file that will [sometimes] overwrite the existing.  For some servers, this is a system-wide setting and therefor can’t be changed.  If you are a novice, I would recommend you not doing this, because you can mess some things up.  If that’s the case, I would just continue to plead to your webhost.  There may alway be the possibility of stepping up your hosting one level.  You may have to pay more per month, but you can then upload your file and then later downgrade. If you feel comfortable enough to try to edit your PHP.int and/or .htaccess file, you will want to add the following lines to your PHP.int file:

upload_max_filesize = 10M;
post_max_size = 20M;

And the following lines to your .htaccess file:

php_value upload_max_filesize 10M
php_value post_max_size 20M

If this works, then you know your webhost doesn’t have the limit of 2MB as a system-wide setting.  If it doesn’t work, then sadly, it means you need to continue pleading with your webhost.

Tumblr.com to WordPress.org
Blogger.com / Blogspot.com to WordPress.org

• generating more leads, especially quality ones
• aiding salespeople in their personal networks
• giving sales and support people information and a presentation to show

While web marketing can certainly yield immediate leads generation, it has the additional benefit of brand marketing. Even before someone becomes a lead, imagine if these happened:

• Your potential (and current) clients recognize your brand name immediately
• Your potential (and current) clients see you as an option when it is time to make a decision (they know what you do)
• Your potential (and current) clients see you as an authority and quality option
• Your potential (and current) clients refer to your online presence often
• Your potential (and current) clients show your brand and resources to others

Finally, one last effect of web marketing, especially well-integrated marketing (if that tickles your fancy, try this on integration of marketing as well), comes from the growing body of evidence which suggests that the more different channels by which someone hears about you (word of mouth PLUS online PLUS tv PLUS social media, etc.), the more likely they are to buy, the more highly they think of you, and the better they remember your brand. Phone calls and sales contacts are only one of these channels, but sometimes it takes a marketing-oriented informational blog or social media campaign to push them over the edge. Similary, a growing percent (I last read 80%) of people will check you out online before ever doing business with you. Let them like what they find.

Listening to your Customers

– Businesses often make decisions in a vacuum. When you started your Facebook page, did you know why a Facebook page was the best option for your time and effort? This is why we have a richly developed “listening” process, where you gain information and do deep research BEFORE making decisions or acting.

Imagine you wanted to open a coffee shop. You would start by finding a location, making sure there was a lot of visibility and foot traffic, you would find out about zoning and parking, and make sure the land didn’t have a swamp on it. You would find out if people in the area liked coffee and could afford it. You would connect with people who know coffee, people who know real estate, and people who know small local business. The same is true about web communication: you must do research, gather information, and connect with the right people before you make decisions and act.

Understand/Plan

– Businesses often make the first decision but no plan to keep it going. When you started your Facebook page, did you think about how you would continue to power your Facebook presence, how it would reach your goals, and how you would know if you were succeeding? This is why the “understand/plan” part of the process is so important; you make decisions, but also prepare the way for success, growth, and eventualities.

In our coffee shop example, after you have gathered information, you are much better prepared to make plans that will succeed. You when then put together a budget and plan to get investment, buy the land, plan the building, setup all of your hiring, payroll budget, suppliers, prices, and eventual profit. Knowing the area and the right people are what make this all possible. Having thought it all through, you can be confident that you are on the right path toward profit and success. The better you have planned, the better you can handle adversity and move toward success.

Speak and Engage

– Businesses often skip straight to doing, before researching and planning. Was your first attempt at that Facebook page successful, or did you find yourself making costly mistakes, or worse, putting in effort with no result? We wait to deliver until we have understood and avoided pitfalls, and named and seized opportunities for success.

For your coffee shop, once you have your business plan in place, your funding in place, and the land prepared, then you can finally build the building and serve the coffee. It doesn’t even make sense to just walk out to the street corner and say you are selling coffee. You must first listen and plan, so you know how to build, sell, and engage.

The three largest search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing) have worked together to create a more in-depth SEO. This more in-depth SEO is called schema (schema.org). It was created so you can really narrow down what your site is actually about. The best way to describe this is to show an example. <h1>Willy Wonka</h1> tells the browser to display the text string “Willy Wonka” in a heading 1 format. However, the HTML tag doesn’t give any information about what that text string means—”Willy Wonka” could refer to the hugely successful 1971 movie, or it could refer to a candy company with the same name—and this can make it more difficult for search engines to intelligently display relevant content to a user.
Schema  provides a way to tell the search engines which Willy Wonka you actually mean. Here is a short example of schema using microdata in the HTML tags.

<div>
<h1>Willy Wonka</h1>
<span>Director: Mel Stuart (born August 16, 1928)</span>
<span>Science fiction</span>
<a href="../movies/willy-wonka-trailer.html">Trailer</a>
</div>

First you need to specify that the HTML is about an item. To do this, you need to add the itemscope element to the <div> tag.

<div itemscope>
<h1>Willy Wonka</h1>
<span>Director: Mel Stuart (born August 16, 1928)</span>
<span>Science fiction</span>
<a href="../movies/willy-wonka-trailer.html">Trailer</a>
</div>

Next, you will specify the itemtype. You do this by adding the itemtype attribute right after the itemscope element.


<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Movie">
<h1>Willy Wonka</h1>
<span>Director: Mel Stuart (born August 16, 1928)</span>
<span>Science fiction</span>
<a href="../movies/willy-wonka-trailer.html">Trailer</a>
</div>

This will specify that the item contained in the <div> is in fact a Movie, as defined in the schema.org type hierarchy. The item type does have to be provided as a URL, in this case http://schema.org/Movie.

There are many more attributes you can add to the info within the <div> tags. The following example shows just how far you can take it.


<div itemscope itemtype ="http://schema.org/Movie">
<h1 itemprop="name">Willy Wonka</h1>
<span>Director: <span itemprop="director">Mel Stuart</span> (born August 16, 1928)</span>
<span itemprop="genre">Science fiction</span>
<a href="../movies/willy-wonka-trailer.html" itemprop="trailer">Trailer</a>
</div>

Sometimes values within an item can be another item with its own set of properties. For example, we can specify that the director of the movie is an item of type Person and the Person has the properties name and birth date. To specify that the value of a property is another item, you begin a new itemscope immediately after the corresponding itemprop.

Schema not only benefits your site by telling the search engines what you site is about, but will also add keywords to your site where others can not. So if your looking to get the upper hand on your competition, make sure to add microdata to your site.