With all the social networks that are out there these days, it’s so common to get into conversations and have someone ask you, “Hey, are you on (insert the name of specific network here)?”

More often than none, you want to say that you are, following that up with an easy way for that person you just met at some great networking event to remember how to find you on that specific website. Be it Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn, there are multiple sites that all have different ways for you to be found on their service. It could be a search based on a name or email address, but how could you simplify this process that makes it easy for this person to find you?

These following is going to get quite technical, so if you’re uncomfortable with the following directions or just don’t like dealing with the settings on your web server or getting into code in general, don’t let this overwhelm you. Look over the idea and consider using this with your web presence. After that, consider finding someone with the skills to get this implemented.

Just as an example, I’m going to use Twitter. To find anyone on their service, you can usually find someone by typing in the following URL into any web browser:
twitter.com/mybrand

It’s fairly easy to tell someone that URL, but there is actually a way to make your website’s domain name, what you should also consider as your brand, do a lot of the work for you. Using what is known as URL redirection, you can use a simple, one line of code to use your brand to promote your presence on a particular social network. This is where we get a little more technical.

In my example here, I’m using some simple code in the htaccess on my website’s server. It should be said that you need to be very careful when editing this particular file on any website because altering it incorrectly can cause problems with the overall function of your domain. Of course, not all web servers are the same, so consult your host if you are not sure where or how you can implement this yourself.

Redirect /twitter http://twitter.com/mybrand

Once you have added that to the bottom of your htaccess, test it out by going to:
mybrand.com/twitter

Once you have this working, you should be able to go to that URL and have it automatically send anyone who visits that address to your account on Twitter so they can find you easily, efficiently, and, ultimately, follow your Twitter stream.

This also cuts down on any confusion because what if your brand’s name is hard to spell or there is another account on Twitter that has an account such as “twitter.com/my_brand” or “twitter.com/mybrands”? Having this redirect in place will save someone time and any confusion over who is who on any social network.

A live example of this would be the Flickr group that we just started. Since Rebecca and I both have our own accounts on there, we decided to create a pool of photos of all things related to sixty4media.

Here’s the actual address to the sixty4media Flickr Group:
http://flickr.com/groups/sixty4media/

To simplify things, I’ve used this trick to create:
sixty4media.com/flickr

When anyone clicks on that URL or types it into any web browser, they will be directed to the appropriate page on Flickr to see our photo group there. I’ve even gone a step further and added another line to compensate for any misspellings in the event that someone tries to type in “sixty4media.com/flicker“. It’s really up to you as to how specific you want to get.

This concept was something I caught wind about via a Twitter post by John Chow, and it made a lot of sense to me as soon as I saw it.

My instant thought was how much it would make sense to be able to hand someone your business card at an event. Since your website is usually on the card with all the rest of your contact information, telling that person how to find you on Facebook or LinkedIn is easier because all you have to do is point out your website on the card and tell them it’s “slash, (enter name of social network here).”

The following is cross-posted from Miss604.com

I have the fortunate opportunity to participate in two upcoming conferences, both of which are geared for entrepreneurial women.

The first is the Enterprising Moms Network Conference on June 13th at the River Rock. It will run 11:00am until 5:00pm and sixty4media will have a swag table setup as well. My talk will be at 3:15pm and will be about social media basics specifically used for business. Other speakers that day include travel guru Claire Newell, Rita Kim of the Business Development Back of Canada, Fiona Walsh and many more. The Enterprising Moms Network is a community of business-minded working mothers who meetup regularly for workshops and events. Chapters span from Prince George, to White Rock, and down through Seattle. Proceeds from the conference on June 13th will go to Ronald McDonald House.

My next speaking engagement will be at the Chicks Who Click. It has been held in Kansas City, San Jose, Dallas, Raleigh, and now in Vancouver on June 27th at the Listel Hotel on Robson. Megan Cole, Monica Hamburg, Victoria Revay, Maura Rodgers, Erica Hargreave and Gillian Shaw are all my esteemed co-presenters throughout the day. I’ll be on a panel with Gillian and Erica talking about privacy and transparency online. There will be a tweetup the night before and you can follow all Chicks Who Click updates on the conference blog or Twitter by searching the tag: #CWC09.

After all the planes, trains, and automobiles, we have made it to and from San Francisco. WordCampSF 2009 was very much a success, and the event was a great chance to hear about all things WordPress, organized by the company that heads the core development of the platform, Automattic.

Photo by Rebecca Bollwitt

Photo by John Bollwitt

Photo by Rebecca Bollwitt

Photo by Rebecca Bollwitt

Photo by John Bollwitt

Photo by Rebecca Bollwitt

See more of our coverage on johnbollwitt.com and miss604.com that are tagged with wordcampsf.

Many thanks to the organizers, volunteers, and sponsors who helped to make WordCampSF 2009 a success. Already looking forward to the next one!

Fisheye shot of WordCampSF Welcome (Photo by John Biehler)

We’re spending today at WordCampSF 2009. We hope to learn and share a lot of knowledge about all things WordPress, and you can following along Rebecca’s blog post that she is updating throughout the day.

If you’re here, stop us and say hello!

In just a few short hours we’ll be heading down to San Francisco along with our friend Duane Storey to attend this year’s WordCamp conference. The event takes place Saturday and the lineup includes everyone from Chris Pirillo and Cali Lewis to Matt Cutts and WordPress’ founder, Matt Mullenweg of Automattic.

John and I have been asked to do a shift at the Genius Bar so if you’re there bright and early, you can ask me all your WordPress questions from 9:15am until 10:00am. We’ll be blogging while we’re down there and hopefully making some connections, meeting new people, and brushing up on our WordPress skills so that we can deliver the absolute best sites and tools for our clients.

I heard this story on the radio this morning, and it got me thinking. Why are there not more city services, such as those run by a city hall in any township, using more elements of social media?

One local politician wants the Vancouver Park Board to get in on the act.

A motion going before the Board Monday night will ask members to look at not only posting audio of their meetings on-line but also to explore providing citizens with regular updates via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. [...]

“I think that with all this social media that we have there is just so much that we can do. The more we can bring people in, the more we’ll know about what people want and the better job we can do.”

Blyth says the web is a good way to keep people informed about issues covered in upcoming meetings, as well as little known Park Board events. [news1130]

Now before you start rolling your eyes at the notion of another pusher of the Facebook and Twitter bandwagon, you need to start considering the ramifications of what these free and easy tools of direct contact really are.

Let me say those keywords again. Free and easy. Direct contact.

These terms should be enough for those organizations and committees to perk up a little bit if you have ever heard or said the notion of things getting done in local government but the public doesn’t get involved. Perhaps they judge interest on who shows up at those meetings in which anyone can attend.

Even better, how many times have you heard of something being decided by a city council to only have it be exactly the opposite of what the majority of the public wanted to have happen? Usually that happens because the public was unaware of it even being a matter of discussion because, and let’s be completely honest, reading those city council minutes are not the top priority of every single person that they affect.

So, to give you some basic idea of what your local government could be doing, here are some tips that I brainstormed this morning. Consider them starting points because you can really push things much further depending on how far you want to take these concepts.

Facebook: I’ll start here because there are some brilliant ways to use this service. Most importantly, starting Groups and then using it to announce and invite members to Events are great. It gets added to their profile and they can see when, where, and who is going to be there. And since you don’t need one person to moderate the group, you can utilize your whole organization to interact with the community online and in person. In fact, you never know if your members will start having meetups, outside of official meetings.

Twitter: Say what you will, but Twitter has a reach that is tough to beat. Announce scheduled meetings, send out updates, remind followers of scheduled events, take feedback from your followers, make live updates of what is going on at meetings or events, send out links to your agendas and minutes as soon as they are published to your website, etc. The possibilities are really endless.

UStream: In the past month, I’ve seen more and more high schools using UStream’s free, live video streaming service to show basketball games as they happen. So why can’t more local governments being using the same technology to “webcast” city council meetings or school board meetings? You don’t need a local cable access channel to do it. All it takes is an Internet connection, a laptop with decent audio input, and a webcam. It might not be the ideal setup, but you can embed that video into your organization’s website where anyone can watch and listen from home. You’ll also want to send out an update on Twitter to let everyone know that the video stream is live and that the meeting is about to start.

YouTube: President Barack Obama is using YouTube to do his weekly address to the nation, so why can’t your local mayor do the same thing? Get a video camera, edit, upload, and release it. Embed that to your city’s website and keep the people informed on a regular basis all the while giving your mayor a face and a voice rather than just a name. Twitter that as well when the new video is posted.

Podcasting: More often than none, official, city meetings usually have a PA system in the rooms they are held in. Get something you can record audio with and find out how you can get a feed off of the system in the room so you can record it, and then you can post every recording as an episode of the official podcast of your local city council. Even if you have some device you can stick in the middle of the room that can capture all of the conversations in an audible enough manner, that’s perfect, too. It might take some work to edit and publish every episode, but the more you do this, the more archives you’ll create over time. Oh, and be sure to post an update on Twitter that the latest podcast episode is up as well as a link directly to it.

Blogs: Text is always going to be the saving grace of any official organization, and creating content that is search-able is key. If you have a new resident to a community, what better way is there to get to know a community than to have an official blog from the office of the mayor with his weekly/bi-weekly/monthly video addresses, thoughts on events going on in or around the area, progress reports on his or her city plan, or announcements of great community events that you should go check out because the mayor will be there as well? I think the new person in town might have to subscribe to the RSS feed of the mayor’s blog because it seems like a good way to stay informed about this new city they are now living in.

On top of that, the more text based content you have, the better your search engine optimization (SEO) goes up when some one tries to search for something on Google about your community. Wouldn’t it be best if some of the first search results that come up are those coming directly from the folks running the city? That would seem very important to people involved in local tourism and chamber of commerces. Of course, Twitter any and all updates to the blog or website so your followers are reminded to check it out.

By no means are all of these thoughts complete or are they everything that one could do when taking social media into consideration for a governmental organization that run cities large or small. The fact is, the tools are there and within easy grasp of using, and it’s not out of the question to get going on some of these concepts within a matter of days, on little to no budget. The results might surprise you as suddenly a public service actually opens itself up to the public it is meant to serve.

If you have additional ideas or even examples of cities doing concepts like this, feel free to share them in the comments below.

Expanding on my Twitter for Business post from last fall, I was giving the opportunity to speak for the IABC’s local chapter this afternoon. It was great to meet so many professionals who have their company’s best-interest in mind, including many who are on Twitter but are still unsure who to use it. My talk was a general overview of this tool and how you can get your company started — using Twitter for communications, networking, customer service, and even support.

There’s much more to be said but I feel this is a good starting point for a business – find the tools, create a complete profile, update, engage, take conversions offline, and be part of the discussion about your company or product that is more than likely already taking place online.

There were many questions at today’s talk and should you have any regarding this online version, please feel free to leave a comment.

As of this afternoon, sixty4media has been listed on Automattic’s official list of WordPress consultants. What this means is that the creators of WordPress themselves thought us worthy to list in their directory of WordPress shops, which is pretty great.

I’ve also been getting numerous emails asking what exactly it is that sixty4media does, what services we offer and how we can help put a social media strategy together for individuals and businesses. Here’s a quick list of our offerings and should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

WordPress

Social Media Consulting

Last September I ran around the Lower Mainland, from Surrey to North Vancouver, blogging as I went and producing videos as a part of National Digital Media Day.

On September 25th digital media producers and enthusiasts will get together for 24 hours of collaboration and celebration of the medium. An annual day to raise the profile of the digital media industry and celebrate the dynamic work taking place in this sector. In Canada, a massive cross-country event that will include gatherings, lobbying, education and celebrations. In other countries, linked in celebrations and demo camps. [Miss604, tag NDMD08]

It was an effort to raise awareness of the new media sector and how important it is, especially for those in our town which has been dubbed Canada’s new startup capital.

Yesterday as a part of the budget announcements, the Canada New Media Fund got a boost.

[From the CBC] The Conservative government announced $438.6 million in spending to arts and culture over the next two years in the budget handed down Tuesday.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty barely mentioned the arts in a speech that lavished money on tax cuts and infrastructure spending.

However, background documents say the government plans:

$100 million in spending over two years on arts, music and comedy festivals.

$60 million over two years for infrastructure spending that could help in repairing theatres, museums and other cultural buildings.

$28.6 million over two years to the Canada New Media Fund, which creates interactive digital content.

$20 million over two years for a national arts training program.

$30 million for Canadian magazines and community newspapers.

$200 million for the Canadian Television Fund (CTF).

The story was picked up in the Vancouver Sun, which quotes various members of the new media community is Vancouver, from Kris Krug at Raincity Studios to Tris Hussey from Media2O, and Irwin Oostindie.

“In general, I think it is great to see the government embracing and supporting the creative technology industry,” said Kris Krug, president of Vancouver’s Raincity Studios (raincitystudios.com). “I think that having the government put actual money and programs behind it will help nurture growth that is taking place already. They are just trying to put resources behind places that are seeing organic growth anyway. This is definitely not a bailout.”
…
Rebecca Bollwitt, who co-founded the startup sixty4media (sixty4media.com), a social media and WordPress web design company, said Vancouver’s new media could benefit from public-sector dollars. “It’s fantastic,” she said. “On the National Digital Media Day held last September, that was the goal — not to fall off the map. Money is always a good thing and even just being on the radar is a good thing.

I count this as a victory but hopefully it’s just the first of many for the industry that has such potential in Vancouver.

Over the last few months of 2008 Profectio.com began a campaign to find the most influential individuals in Canada. They had an open nomination process for several weeks, following by weeks of voting. Their final tally was based on various metrics (see below) and sixty4media’s own, Rebecca Bollwitt, was on the list.

Rebecca Bollwitt ranked #4 in the country for the “Most Influential Women in Social Media” and the exciting news kept coming as we found out that a good friend of sixty4media, Darren Barefoot was also up there on the list of men.

“It’s always nice to be recognized by your peers and see your hard work pay off,” said Bollwitt. “If even in the form of a link on a website, or a friendly hat tip. I am listed among many amazing individuals that continue to share and create such excellent content, as well as those who have personally helped me grow over the years — it’s an honor.”

John and I have been attending Canada’s largest blogging conference, Northern Voice, since 2007 and each year we’ve contributed liveblogs, podcasts, and been speakers in our own sessions or on the panel.

John speaking at Northern Voice. Credit: John Biehler

This year, I will be on two panels with some amazing individuals.

Who are you? Defining yourself in the online world
Panelists: Jenn Lowther, Rebecca Bollwitt [sixty4media and Miss604], Linda Bustos, and Nadia Nascimento

The panel will discuss the various social networking sites that can be utilized to build your brand online, and identify advantages and pitfalls of these sites, their usage, and their relationship to one another. During the discussion, they will provide context for the growing significance of social networking for personal brands, as we discuss the paths each of us took in order to build our personal online reputations.

Dealing with angry comments, Trolls, Spammers, and Sock Puppets
Panelists: David Eaves, Rebecca Bollwitt

The entire Northern Voice schedule can be found here along with information about the amazing keynotes including Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr.

The conference is sold out on both Friday, February 20th and Saturday February 21st, however plenty of conversations will be happening on Twitter and I will be liveblogging several of the sessions.

This past weekend sixty4media co-hosted WordCamp Whistler alongside Brave New Code. We had originally planned for 50 people and we ended up getting over 100 attendees joining us for the weekend for a day of talks about WordPress and online publishing.

Keynote Lorrelle Van Fossen (aka Lorelle on WordPress)
Dave Olson (Topic, Are you Worthy?)
John Biehler (Topic, How To Sex Up Your Blog With Photos And Video)
Dale Mugford (Topic, WordPress On The Go)
Andy Peatling (Topic, BuddyPress)
Quentin Mulhurt (Topic, WordPress and Search Engine Optimization)
Morten Rand-Hendriksen (Topic, Using WordPress In Alternate Configurations)
Tris Hussey (Topic, Using WordPress as a Generic Content Management system (CMS))

We were very please with the location and the accommodations, while the attendance, input, insights, and presentations exceeded expectations. We definitely look forward to doing this again next year.

You can read the live notes on the WordCamp Whistler website that John setup and I also have a few day blogs up on Miss604.com.

Announced on Friday of last week, WordCamp Whistler is happening on January 24, 2009 at the Fairmont Hotel in Whistler B.C. Registration is open for attendees as well as speaker submissions on topics relating to all things WordPress.

If you ever wanted to find a room full of people that are passionate about what WordPress is, things it can do, and tips on pushing it above and beyond your expectations, events like this are a great place to start learning. Sign on up and plan for a weekend in one of the most beautiful areas of British Columbia, not to mention a 2010 Winter Olympics venue. Skiing and snowboarding skills are not required, but you’re welcome to mix some fun on the slopes into your planning of the weekend.

Please visit wordcampwhistler.com for the most up to date details.

I wrote this recently on my personal site although it’s the prefect content for our business site as well.

Over the last few weeks my company, sixty4media, has themed, coded, and tweaked quite a few WordPress sites (and even more over the years before we even had the company). I am often asked what I use to code or theme so here are some of the basic tools that make my life a whole lot easier.

MAMP
MAMP allows you to run a mini WordPress web server from your computer so that you can theme sites locally, without having them published online or on a development site.

FTP
You need a good FTP application for uploading files and images on the fly. I’m using Cyberduck right now but I’ve had many suggestions for more productive tools (and I can’t for the life of me remember the one that Tod recommended).

Smultron
For Mac OS X and Leopard
A great text editor (used for PHP files) that works nicely with Cyberduck by selecting it as your file editor under preferences. It colour-codes nicely and is very simple to use.

CSS Edit
MacRabbit – CSS Edit (for Macs only)
All in one CSS editing tool. Allows you to eyedrop colours, shows your properties in a sidebar, knows where to place brackets etc. and even auto-completes some elements. In the sidebar it also displays colours on anything that has a background colour ie. if your footer is blue, it will show up blue in the sidebar list.

WordPress Codex
This last one isn’t downloadable, the codex is an online resource for all issues, questions, and reference materials in the WordPress realm.

John is usually on top of all the latest applications and is even a beta tester for some upgraded versions of the software listed above. He’s great at staying on the cutting edge and then passing the knowledge on to me so I’m sure my staple apps will probably change soon, but for now – they’re great basics.

Last month I wrote about using Twitter for Business and it was the most popular post we’ve had on sixty4media to date.

Tech Crunch just released some Twitter stats and the proof is in the numbers: Twitter is here, now, and it’ll be staying for quite some time.

Twitter is having its hockey stick moment in terms of its growth just shooting up. Last week it may have delivered its billionth Tweet, at least nominally. And it looks like it is approaching escape velocity. If it doesn’t break up from all the pressure and is able to keep its service up and running more or less, it could soon—gasp!—break into the mainstream. [TechCrunch]

When I was first on Facebook some people laughed, “Why would you need to do that? Who wants to know all that?” and since they’ve recorded 15.8 billion page views in 2007 [TechCrunch]. Twitter was next. It is the latest platform (even though it’s been around since 2006) to start slowly and build momentum – just like the Tech Crunch article says, this could now be going mainstream – and it can definitely be used for Business.

The popularity of social networking is skyrocketing and it’s encouraging to see Twitter taking off. However, even though it is a microblogging platform, there is still such a stigma attached to blogging in general. I’m waiting for the day someone can say “I’m a blogger” and not be immediately pictured sitting in their parents’ basement in their pajamas writing a diary blog entry about their cat.

All of these social media sites are tools that can help you and your business reach the world, or your own specific local audience. Websites these days can have the full functions of a blog but not necessarily be just a blog. They become content management systems that can integrate blogs, pages, Facebook and Twitter updates. It’s for this reason that all of these technologies (together) are so beneficial. It’s where your audience is, so it’s where you need to be.

Earlier this week Chris Briekss of 6S Marketing launched his list of “Top Twitterers In Vancouver” and within a few hours I was chatting with Gillian Shaw of The Vancouver Sun. As a result, the list was published in yesterday’s paper and sixty4media got a nice shout out.

TOP TWITTERERS IN VANCOUVER
1. http://twitter.com/miss604 — Rebecca Bollwit is a Vancouver blogger and specialist in new media and senior partner in sixty4media.com
2. http://twitter.com/buzzbishop
3. http://twitter.com/hummingbird604
4. http://twitter.com/todmaffin
5. http://twitter.com/techvibes
6. http://twitter.com/dbarefoot
7. http://twitter.com/kk
8. http://twitter.com/wilhelmus
9. http://twitter.com/ColleenCoplick
10. http://twitter.com/tyfn … (Read the rest in the Vancouver Sun)

Rebecca Bollwitt, Miss604 on Twitter, senior partner at 64Media.com sixty4media.com and Twitter veteran, is also on the Top 20 list. “It started out for me just being personal update, like your Facebook status but not on Facebook,” Bollwitt said. “For me personally, it turned into more of a marketing tool for my company… …Once I got on I just started seeing who other people were following and seeing who was adding who. It creates this huge global chain of information-sharing.

It’s always fun to see your company name in the “Business” section of the largest paper in the city. If you’d like to add sixty4media on Twitter you can find us @sixty4media.

Today I’ll be speaking at the Making a Scene Conference on Granville Island. This annual event provides presentations, workshops, and panels about the professional theatre industry. I was asked to sit on a panel, “The New Face of Marketing”, to hopefully address questions about blogger outreach and online marketing.

Making a Scene runs from November 13th until the 16th, passes start at around $75.00.

As a blogger (on my personal site) who is sometimes approached by other businesses, PR firms or marketers, the one thing that makes me click “delete” on an email almost instantly is the opening phrase, “Dear Sir or Madam”. Aside from using the correct pronouns you don’t want to sound like a press release, a robot or a faceless entity when dealing with bloggers and the same goes for running your own business blog.

Last April I attended Open Web Vancouver and sat in on two amazing keynotes, one of which was by Tim Bray. I have since used some of his quotes in presentations and have seen his sentiments echoed across the social media sphere since they are simple, accurate, and they make the most sense.

On the topic of writing your content, here are a few suggestions:

Be human: Don’t have an eleven step editorial process ie. if you’ve ever been in an organization that needs to put out a press release. You may have experienced that it could take 2 weeks for 2 page release and “then you end up with something no human being would have ever written…. or now would want to read.”[From Miss604 Live Blog]

Think about the text you put on your site. Write long, then cut short. If you have 100 words you can fit into a screen without scrolling, write 150. Then, slash back to 75 and see if you’ve got the right message. “Say what you have to say with the fewest possible words.” [Crawford Kilian at the IMC]

Aside from writing in a readable and comfortable tone for your audience you also need to put a face to your blog. This doesn’t mean hundreds of self portraits from your webcam, it just means that people, clients, and customers respond better to names. “Admin” or “Company Name” as an author on your site may not be as well received as “Betty”, “Jim”, or “Sue from Marketing”.

Example: Carnival Cruise Lines

The final tip is to not dupe your audience. If you are an official blog of ABC Company, please state that in your sidebar or on your about page ie. “This is the official blog of ABC Company”. That way it lets readers know you are a reliable resource, and you are accountable for your content. Disclosure is everything.

For many reasons, some companies may be apprehensive about sharing too much or being too transparent in the online realm and that is a valid concern. However, having a reliable, strong, and open community within your business blogging space can still be achieved if you are calm and professional. Write in a readable tone, disclose your objectives, address readers as people (have authors that are “real” people), and start conversations with your audience.

Most importantly, read other blogs (especially if they are in the same industry as you). You can see what others are doing right, have discussions, and make real and lasting connections.

It never hurts to say it too many times because we realize that not everyone pays attention to the information streams like we do. Check your WordPress installation and make sure that you are running the latest version, 2.6.3. This latest update was announced over a week ago, so we’re doing our best to help extend the news in case you missed it.

This update is very important to the security of any install of WordPress that you are running. You can read more details about it here.

After several successful WordCamps in Vancouver, Kulpreet got the wheels in motion for the next event, coming this winter. Last night on Twitter something magical also happened – the idea of having the event in Whistler was hatched and so planning for WordCamp Whistler is now underway.

Read Duane’s blog post for a preview, view the Facebook event, and feel free to sign up on the wiki. More details to come in over the next little while. sixty4media will once again be involved as an organizer as well as presenting.

WordPress is an open source blog publishing application powering millions of blogs worldwide.