Multisite is Perfect for….

Sites that want to branch out beyond just one web site. Some examples of sites we have deployed Multisite for include (but are not limited to):

• Blog Networks – sites that want to host a main site as a network hub, and invite their users to start a blog within the network. This type of implementation is typically geared toward a niche market and groups with similar interests, such as photography sites, bridal networks, tech blogging networks.
• Corporate sites/Multiple domains – many online businesses (both large and small) have multiple web properties for different divisions of their product lines and services. Using Multisite (with or without domain mapping) gives them the ability to run multiple sites under one roof.
• Internal Networks – sites don’t always have to be viewable by the general public and in this case, we’ve implemented the Multisite feature to give companies/schools/groups the ability to host multiple internal sites for communication, networking and organization.

One Installation – Multiple sites

Until the year 2011, if you wanted to run several different web sites on the WordPress platform, you were forced to depend on multiple installations of WordPress. For users who have a network of sites, or maintain several web sites of their won, this can be cumbersome. With WordPress Multisites, you now have the ability to host one or one hundred (or a thousand) sites with just one, single installation of WordPress. Probably the biggest, and most successful, example of a large WordPress Multisite network that showcases the largest Multisite nework currently in operation on the web today is the hosted service found at WordPress.com, which currently hosts over 350,000 blogs on its service, at the time of this writing.

The concept is pretty easy to understand:

1. We install WordPress on our client servers.
2. We fire the configuration that tells WordPress to include the Multisite feature.
3. We set up Multisite and optimally configure the Network for our clients use.

Our goal is to encourage autonomy and independence through education and training. When done, our clients understand the basic tenants of the Multisite feature enough to add sites to their network easily and quickly, with complete confidence. WordPress makes it easy – our education and training make it even easier.

Network of Sites

With WordPress Multisite installed – the primary domain that it gets installed on is considered the primary site, or blog. So, if we install WordPress on http://domain.com – the live site on http://domain.com operates just like a regular WordPress web site. We can create a new theme with its own features, just as we would with a regular WorddPres siste. Once Multisite is installed and set up, the process of adding new sites on a WordPress Multisite set up is relatively easy. With Multisite enabled, WordPress splits the typical Dashboad into two distinct parts:

• Site Admin Dashboard – the control center where users manage and maintain the primary site, or blog..
• Network Admin Dashboard – the control center where Adminstrators manage and maintain the network of sites created with the use of the Multisite feature.

Within the Network Admin menu, users have access to six different items that they use to configure, manage and maintain the new Network:

• Admin: Create new sites and new users in your network.
• Sites: View a list of the sites in your network, along with details about them that enables users to manage sites within their network.
• Users: See detailed info about current users in your network, , along with the ability to manage users within their network (including which sites they are subscribed to, profile information and login/password information)
• Themes: View all the Currently available themes to enable or disable them for use in your network.
• Options: Change settings and configure your network.
• Update: Upgrade all sites in your network with one click.

Upon set up, we need to make a decision on whether we’d like individual sites to utilize a subdomain or a subdirectory within the network. The difference is this:

• Subdomain – when new sites are created, the URL of the new sites looks like this: http://newsite.domain.com (where ‘newsite‘ is the name of the site added to the network).
• Subdirectory – when new sites are created, the URL of the new sites look like this: http://domain.com/newsite (where ‘newsite‘ is the name of the site added to the network).

There are different things to consider when deciding to use either the Subdomain or Subdirectory configuration for WordPress Multisite (such as web server configuraitons, domain mapping needs to name a few), and this is something I would strongly recommend discussing with your developer before proceeding with a WordPress Multisite installation.

Domain Mapping

Through the implementation of a small add-on for WordPress Multisite, users can configure specific domain names for sites within the Multisite network. With domain mapping in place, instead of the default subdomain (newsite.domain.com) or subdirectory (domain.com/newsite) domains, users can register domain names and use them within the Multisite Network and have individual domains (like yourdomain.com, mydomain.com) as the URL for each site within the network.

We assist our clients with the server side set up for the use of domain mapping, which does involve some special apache and DNS configurations – and once in place, not only can you host several sites within a WordPress Multisite environment, you can host multiple domains, as well!

SEO, Analytics, Sitemaps & Social Media

WordPress Multisite works much in the same way as regular (single-user) WordPress. We assist our clients with the Search Engine Optimization, Plugin recommendations (specific to their individual use case) and configuration, Sitemaps for Google and other major search engines and social media integration with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and more.

Convertiv Case Studies

Recently, we have successfully completed the implementation and deployment of several large scale sites utilizing the WordPress Multisite platform. Here are two sites that use the Multisite feature to meet their individual goals:

• Cheapflights.com – Cheapflights is a London-based company specializing in helping their customers find great deals on flights, hotels and travel. Cheapflights has several different properties around the world, each with a completely different focus for regional travel destinations. With domain names like news.cheapflights.com (USA), news.cheapflights.co.uk (UK) and more, the folks at Cheapflights wanted to use the same design for each of their regional blogs, as well as the same features – but each with different content that is regionally specific. We implemented the WordPress platform with Multisite features for them, with a custom design and custom features (specific to their needs) and they now can easily deploy additional sites for their different regions, all within one installation of the WordPress software.
• Bostinno.com – Bostinno is a tech-based news site located in Boston, MA (USA). We launched their site on WordPress with the Multisite features in place so they can grow their tech news reach into other regional areas such as New York City, Philadelphia and beyond! Initially, we launched their Boston initiative at bostinno.com – but as they prepare to launch their sites within other citiies in the United States, using the WordPress Multisite feature, they will be able to easily launch those sites, apply the custom design and development we already completed and start building regional web sites easily and successfully. Bostinno.com utilizes the domain mapping feature that will allow them to add their sites with their own specific domains (such as nycinno.com, phillyinno.com, etc).

1. Ask and Receive – People want to be heard. People like to be heard. Don’t just use your platforms to speak and sell your message, but start a conversation. Polls and blogs designed to promote conversation about what your followers want to see/more less of can be extremely valuable. You might also learn what the competition isn’t doing that can give you a step up.

2. Develop a Strategy with Clear Goals – Take what you’ve learned and develop a plan that gives the people what they want and helps you achieve your marketing goals. Let’s say through a Facebook poll you find that your fans want to be involved in processes. You also want to change the design of your site or provide better functionality to some of its features. According to your editorial calender, you’re due for a Facebook campaign. Why not host a contest in which fans get to submit design ideas/illustrations?

3. Put the Social in Social Media – This is a very simple practice that means you should share content that isn’t just your own and interact in other communities. Besides helping you become more in tune with your target audience, current audience, and others in your field, actively participating in other forums, groups, and blogs will keep you apprised of what strategies others are employing and can help foster ideas that work for you.

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You’ll be able to tell which of your videos receive the most views and how long people are viewing them. Traffic sources are broken into Views From YouTube, Views From Outside of YouTube, and Mobile Apps & Direct Traffic. If you use YouTube videos to help market your brand, tracking how often videos are shared and marked as a favorite comes in handy.

The new Commenting report reflects how many people are commenting on your videos and provides a cloud of the most used keywords. One really positive change is the ability to download specific reports versus all the data pulled.

If you’re not able to access the new YouTube Analytics yet, it should be available to everyone by tomorrow. There’s a great breakdown of the changes here. 

1. 1800-Flowers: They’ve recently launched an app inviting users to like their page and share what they’re thankful for this holiday season. A random winner will receive a prize. It’s a very simple campaign based around a simple design.

Something like this utilizes one of the tips we wrote about before: the entry bar is set extremely low. Users simply have to leave a comment to win a prize. This type of utilization also raises the brands insights numbers.

2. JC Penney – The department store chain has managed to integrate their mobile app with a Facebook app centered around mobile coupons. Users who have liked their page can provide their contact information to receive mobile alerts on their smartphones with coupons and deals.

In the fine print, it’s disclosed that users are agreeing to receive up to 8 mobile alerts per month as well sales info any time they are near a JC Penney location.

If your business is internet-based with no physical locations, this can still be useful to alert people to new content, sales, contests and promotions when they’re away from their computers, and then use the notifications to direct the user to your mobile site.

3. Harley-Davidson – Here’s a campaign that makes great use of a Facebook app. Harley-Davidson has invited fans to create a campaign ad for their brand. The H-D Fan Machine is a unique way to sell what the brand is about while encouraging fans to define it. Sounds complicated and counter intuitive, but it works. They’ve set the tone in their directions. “… always been about freedom, independence, and doing things differently…” So, while fans are encouraged to “flex their creative muscles,” they’ve also been given parameters. How will the fans define freedom, independence, and doing things differently? Other fans vote on the submissions and a pre-determined number of winners (not specified) are chosen. That detail is key in case there are a ton of great ideas or a golden one in a pile of stinkers.

Finally, this isn’t really making use of an app, but it seems to be an effective way to spread brand awareness. Kraft posted a simple graphic on their Facebook page and invited fans to share it. For every 1,000th share, they’d donate $200,000 to a charity (up to $1 million).

That’s it. Very simple. And, if you do the math, they only need 5,000 shares to hit their self-imposed cap. They’ve already gotten over 18,000 shares.

Maybe you don’t have the dough to do something on this scale, but you could certainly think of creative ways to get people to advertise your name/brand with a similar premise. Facebook now makes it easy to track how many times your posts/photos are shared and it involves very little effort on the fan’s part.

What are some creative usage of Facebook apps you’ve seen this year?

Instead, the common advice should be to consider Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and others communication tools. People cannot buy what they don’t know about. Having a Twitter account or Facebook page is as necessary when marketing yourself or brand as having a phone number. Use them to tell as many people as possible what you’re offering and to receive feedback.

Can these tools help you sell some? Of course, but your expectation can’t be to get rich by sending off a few dozen tweets. Knowing how to use Twitter and others effectively should be your primary focus: knowing the difference between self-promotion and spamming, launching effective campaigns, etc.

Also, understand why people are online and what they’re doing while they’re there. This will help you direct your efforts for maximum results. Again, those results may not be astronomical sales and they definitely won’t occur overnight.

So, what are your social media expectations? 

The latter is a big deal for companies utilizing the service to power conversation between themselves and their customers. With the Hootsuite integration, brands can easily monitor and filter conversations and topics. Additionally, with the other apps, you’ll be able to do the same searching for videos, photos, and other media content that you’re used to, but share/post it all from your Hootsuite dashboard.

The addition of other third party apps, including DISQUS, are coming soon. The new app integrations will eventually also be available to Hootsuite users without a paid account. It’s exciting to see where the Hootsuite platform is going and how these apps will help them get there.

Are you a Hootsuite Pro or Enterprise user? Have you tried out any of the new apps yet? Which other apps would you like to see Hootsuite use in the future?

1. Responsive – It struck me as I was writing this, watching highlights from last Sunday’s NFL games, that social marketing has something in common with being a professional football player. You have to be responsive, willing to absorb information. After a drive down the field, whether it yielded a score or not, players listen to instructions from coaches – sometimes delivered calmly, sometimes yells – on how to improve next time. They sit there soaking it all in and nodding. You should be just as willing to listen to what your customers, readers, and peers have to say. Which leads to…

2. Able to Take Criticism – Remember the yelling coaches? Well, opening yourself up to commentary guarantees that not all of it will be good. The world would be great if all messages were delivered exactly the way we wanted to hear them, but that’s not always the case. Understanding when criticism is warranted and learning how to use it to improve takes practice.

3. Voracious Reader – According to a 2010 NielsenWire report, Americans spend about a quarter of their time social networking. I don’t know about you, but I am in front of a laptop from 5am till about 10pm every day. And that time is all about reading and writing, but mostly reading. Social media types are constantly reading, absorbing reports, blogs, articles, analysis, etc. If you’re not big on reading, try setting aside certain points of the day – for short periods of time – where you vow to get your reading down. Example: 30 minutes in the morning for the latest news and 30 minutes in the afternoon for blogs.

4. Number Cruncher – From words to numbers, social marketing requires a firm grasp on figures and statistics – more importantly, determining what they mean and how you can use them to improve what you’re doing. At the very least, make yourself familiar with some tools that can help you obtain and analyze your numbers.

5. Customer-Oriented – Whether you’re providing a product or service, it’s all about the customer. Stay focused on how to reach the right people and engage them. The customer experience should remain your top priority when designing a site or developing an ad campaign.

6. Be Curious – Ask questions and surround yourself with people who have the answers (more on that in a bit) and are just as curious as you are. Is there someone in your field who is achieving great success? Dig deep and figure out what they’re doing that you can incorporate into your own practices.

7. Adaptable – I’ll admit that it’s hard for me to try something new when I feel like I’ve already got a system in place that works. And that can be fine sometimes, but we shouldn’t be afraid to investigate (curious) when a change might be better (responsive). Everything moves so quickly in social media and there’s always someone coming up with a more faster, concise way of doing things.

8. Builds Relationships – No man is an island, and all that. No matter how good you are, you’ll need help spreading the word. One voice on Twitter is amplified by the number of followers willing to RT its message. As an independent author I have developed a network of writers, graphic designers, beta readers, and editors who are a valuable source of support and information.

9. Willingness to Invest – Sure, the internet is full of free services, but knowing when to invest a little money (and more time) in yourself is key. There’s a reason why a lot of sites just starting off look the same – they’re using the same free themes. Investing money and thought into your online presence can be the difference between you standing out or fading into the crowd.

10. Tell a Story – Whether it’s what your brand stands for or progress and updates to keep your readers informed, everything we do online is sending a message. Communicating effectively sounds easy enough and it’s something we tell her kids in elementary school to help them write cohesive papers, but you’d be surprised how hard it is for some adults to deliver a clear message either by words or their marketing techniques. Developing and conveying your story makes for a more engaged audience.

What are some habits you’ve developed that work for you?

To say that today would be the understatement of the century.

Twitter has become more than just a social network. It is now a bona fide media entity influencing pop culture, politics, and business. Here are just a few ways Twitter has risen above a simple social network and inserted itself into public consciousness.

1. Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN – Five years ago, it was all about how many Myspace friends you had. Now, it’s all about how many people are following you on Twitter. The first person to actively, and shamelessly, woo followers was actor Ashton Kutcher. In 2009 he’d already amassed quite a following when he famously challenged CNN to see who could get to 1 million followers first. Ashton won. He said then, “I found it astonishing that one person can actually have as big of a voice online as what an entire media company can on Twitter.”

And that’s a really great way to put it. On Twitter, one voice is actually as loud as the number of followers it has, and the number of those people willing to retweet what you say. Everyday Joes with bad customer service experiences will put a company on blast, influencing opinions and, much to a company’s dismay, shopping habits.

2. Revolution – From Libyans in 2010 to Egyptians in 2011, social media played a large part in people in other countries ensuring that their government didn’t control information and perception. Twitter was at the forefront of this as rebels tweeted real time updates, photos and videos.

3. The Politics of Twitter – Presidential candidates have twitter accounts, Representatives choose to tweet over attending a presidential address, and Twitter has even played a part in the end of a political career.

4. Marketing – MC Hammer – yes, I said MC Hammer – appeared on Oprah over a year ago and talked about how he’d long ago embraced social media and worked closely with many internet startups. He explained to the Queen of All Media how she could reach millions of people for free to promote whatever she wanted. He told her that by using Twitter she’d have instant access to people she already knew would be interested in what she was advertising. She seemed amazed. In that time, I’ve watched closely as Oprah has fully embraced Twitter and used it to push her new network, OWN, often tweeting TwitPics to prove that it’s really her behind the posts. She uses Twitter to interact with viewers during live broadcasts. For someone who has said many times that the iPad is her favorite invention ever, I had to wonder, “Girl, what took you so long?!”

5. Twitter TV – Networks have even jumped on the Twitter bandwagon by posting their shows’ Twitter handle along the bottom of the screen during programming, and encouraging viewers to follow along with their tweets while they watch. Some shows have offered up sneak peeks at episodes to people who follow them on Twitter.

Sure, Twitter is still used as a traditional social network, but it’s clear that their influence has expanded on what social means. It has become more than just a vehicle for people to share what they’re doing and where they’re eating. Twitter has connected the world, making it a much smaller place.

You may laugh, and admit it: you laughed, but this has been a pretty common feeling about Google +, Google’s latest attempt at social networking. When it was new and exclusive (invitation only), many were anxious to check out what the fuss was about. The early adopters were tech-minded folk who got giddy over such things and my stream was filled with links to articles on how to understand and operate Google+ and cute Photoshopped images depicting the Google+ icon owning Facebook’s and Twitter’s icons.

It was the new toy on the market and most people who’d yet to figure out how to keep their online professional and social lives separate on Facebook were happy to have a fresh, quieter place to interact. But your biggest draw can’t be, “We’re not Facebook.” That’s not to say there weren’t some key differences and improvements. Google + hangouts (instant video chat) is a lot of fun and the Sparks feature allows you to list keywords of your interests and then aggregates a daily dose of articles around those keywords. And let’s not forget the Circles. Adding people to specific circles and then choosing which circle of friends’ posts showed up in your stream was huge. Not that Facebook didn’t allow you to view/share information by specific lists, but there was something so very satisfying in dropping your friends’ faces into those little bubbles. Hey, sometimes it’s the small stuff.

Lately, though, Google+ has become something of a ghost town. I share (+1) posts that I find interesting when the option is available, and I advertise my own blogs, articles, announcements there when I remember. Your content is no good if you’re not willing to share it wherever people are listening/reading. But it wasn’t my first vehicle of choice to either share or receive information.

Last week, businesses that use Google Apps (office suites that include Gmail, Google Calendar and Documents) were finally able to link them with their Google + profiles. Suddenly, the above Google+ features seem a lot more useful. For instance:

Circles – Users can develop circles based around members of the same team on a project, management, clients, etc.

Hangouts – Meetings can be held without anyone leaving their office and they can incorporate telecommuters with ease.

Maybe Google+ isn’t meant to be the next Facebook. Maybe it should, and can, be more.

How do you use Google+? What changes would you like to see, if any? Have you linked your Google+ and Google Apps?