Resource Blog

The Social Media Cheat Sheet

Posted by on 2:19 pm in Social Media Metrics, Social Media Networks | 11 comments

Here’s something to hang over the desk – reminding you of all the wonderful Social Media opportunities you might be missing! Published by Overdrive Interactive.

Take a look!

WordPress Image Galleries – Test #2 NextGEN Gallery

Posted by on 8:47 pm in Apps & Tools, WordPress Plugins | 1 comment

Ok… Let’s try the “tried and true” NextGEN Gallery.
Again, there is a nice set of tools and settings to play with located on the left column WordPress Nav Bar.
And a new button has been added in my Post Editor screen. Click the button – choose my gallery… And now we take a look….


Hhmmm. Looks like I need to play around w/ the settings. That seemed uninspiring to me…

WordPress Image Galleries – Test #1 FIAGallery

Posted by on 8:30 pm in Apps & Tools, WordPress Plugins | 9 comments

I’m testing various WordPress Image Galleries to assess various features and usability.
This first is FIAGallery. Its a free plugin with different “skins” and options for displaying your gallery in a pop-up window (I think…).
Let’s see how it works:
After I installed the plugin I now have a new icon in my post editor window to “Add Flash Album Gallery.” I’m going to click it and see what happens:


that was easy. I got a window that asked me to select the album…
YIKES! the first Skin I chose had a large BUY NOW banner on it.  I didn’t realize that the skins were so costly! So I went back to their site and downloaded several more basic free skins. The SlideShow Skin that is currently showing is FREE!

Two of my images did not upload properly at first (but that could be my connection timing out). But it was easy to go back to my gallery and add more images.  I think I like this plugin!

Social Media Metrics & Analytics – UCI Extension Review

Posted by on 4:23 am in Higher Learning, Social Media Metrics | 0 comments

I just finished up a very intense six-week course through UCI this week. It was amazing.  If you’ve taken online classes in the past, you might find them to be “lonely” and robot-like. Is there really an instructor?  Is he/she reviewing all my work. Is anyone there?


I was so pleasantly surprised with this class. The instructor, Daniel Lemin, owner/director of Social Studio, is highly educated in Social Media, and just a darn nice guy. While the reading load was CRAZY, the coursework was intriguing, enlightening, and the webinars were great for absorbing more concepts or getting specific questions answered.

I’ve walked away with a very clear understanding of advanced metrics and insights that one can use to track social media performance. This is a highly evolving and intriguing area of marketing, and one that I am fully passionate about.

Anyway, I completed the class with a 98% overall, so I’d say that all that hard work was well worth it!

What’s my next adventure?

Is HootSuite & TwentyFeet a Winning Combination?

Posted by on 5:32 am in Apps & Tools, Social Media Metrics, Social Media Networks | 1 comment

The answer is: I don’t know yet.

I like being able to post to several social networks at one time on HootSuite.

I like being able to see my bit.ly analytics in the same app as my Google Analytics.

Some people say: Is it worth it to pay? All this stuff is free!  Well, yeah, but you then spend half your day floating around to different websites trying to see snapshots of your metrics. But where it really gets “worth it” is if you manage other social profiles besides your personal accounts.  Immediate aggregated access to all your stats. No logging in – logging out of each account.

These services are really affordable. I say its worth it to spend $10 to save two hours. After all, my time is worth is worth more than that…. How about yours?