This question came to me courtesy of my profile on Formspring:
“Which CMS platform do you most often recommend people build their sites on?”
To which I replied:
“Hello! I’m a bad, bad Formspring user. Just noticed this question now. Aren’t I supposed to be notified whenever there’s a new question?
If one were to think of WordPress as a CMS, then I’d say that WordPress it is THE content management system that I mostly recommend.
I was once involved in a project that ran on another CMS called ExpressEngine. It was very challenging to make any modifications without hiring some expert – and pricey – professional help. Maybe others have had better luck with it, but that incident definitely left me with a sour taste in my mouth about Express Engine.”
Is there a CMS that YOU prefer?
I’ve been in a blogging slumber for months, but some recent experiences with Klout and Twitalyzer, combined with Veronica Heringer’s own good post about Klout, caused me to put my fingers to the keyboard.
Veronica expanded on her thoughts regarding, well, how much clout one should give to Klout’s numbers as a measure of our individual influence on Twitter.
Here’s my take on it: services like Klout and Twitalyzer can be a good accessory in helping marketers to identify potential influencers in a specific realm, but at the end of the day, there’s no substitute for common sense and actually reading an account’s Twitter stream to detect if that person’s (or company’s) updates are valuable.
Why do I say this? Because, yesterday I noticed that a specific Twitter user who, in my books is a spammer (with the best of intentions), ranked very well on Klout. Other than this individual’s malpractices on Twitter, I don’t have anything against this person. What makes it even more difficult to swallow it is that we have met before. I enjoyed our interactions, and would have sincerely thought that this person would think twice before sending me a Direct Message that was clearly promotional, about a topic that I have no interest in.
That Twitter stream – once personal and engaging – is now littered with links upon links that regurgitate headlines, in a fashion that is only employed by less-than-reputable accounts.
As I was saying… as a marketer, I might think that this account is a key influencer in my geographical area were I to solely rely on Twitalyzer and Klout. But, as my parents used to tell me as a kid, “Diga-me com quem andas, que eu te direi quem és”. Meaning, “Tell me who you walk with, and I’ll tell you who you are”. Regardless of their score, I’d sure as hell not want to associate myself, nor my clients, with that Twitter user.
Thoughts?
On Thursday, May 27th, Tris Hussey, Kemp Edmonds and myself are speaking at Social Media Club Vancouver’s event “Social Media 101: Strategy, Business Intelligence & Metrics“.
The format will be slightly different from today’s presentation at Third Tuesday. Each talk is shorter (20 minutes each, with 10 minutes for Q&A). I’ll be speaking about integrating social media with the rest of your online marketing efforts. Tris Hussey will talk about harvesting Business Intelligence with social media, while Kemp Edmonds’ topic is metrics. If I may say so myself, that’s a darn good panel!
Yes, it’s $15. Why? Because the event starts at 6:00 pm and is scheduled to go all the way to 9:00 pm. And we don’t want you to starve, so we’ll feed you. We also need to cover the cost of the venue – so the cost of the ticket also goes towards that. We don’t keep a cent from it.
Stephen Hui, Technology Editor of The Georgia Straight, thought highly enough of Social Media Club Vancouver to write a blog post about this event. So, to use one of my favourite expressions… Don’t be bashful. Register now.
In a couple of hours, I’ll be presenting at Third Tuesday on Social Media Metrics. It’s a huge honour, given that greats like Tod Maffin and Julien Smith have also talked at past events.
If you’ve arrived here after my talk, I’d love to know:
What’s the one social media metrics question that you’d like to have answered, but were afraid to ask?
I’ll go through your questions and will chose a few to answer to.
Thanks for popping by – and for joining me at Third Tuesday!
There’s much debate about the impact of social media on companies’ revenue. However, no case study or research report hits the message home as much as “real life”, empirical examples. Today, I’ll tell you the story of how Bluehost got itself a new customer (and more revenue) through the power of social media, backed by excellent customer service:
My client, In Order To Succeed, has been having a less-than-stellar time with their current host (HostMDS). During the better part of the last week, it has been a saga where their email service doesn’t work and the site has been down. Their current host is based on the East Coast, and their phone technical support has forgotten that clients in the PST zone may need their help from time to time. That’s why I’m not linking to their site – because it is “out of order”. But I digress.
As their advisor on these matters, I had no choice but to decide to move their site (and email service) to a new host. The question was: which host should we choose? Enter social media.
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