Good morning dearies!

I just got a super question from Stephanie about plugins. She was asking about plugins that can integrate our sites with our Social Media. And, there are other questions–I will dig into those next time. I thought you would want to peek at my answer. You will LOVE these new plugins. Let’s dig in…

Hello,

I’m finally getting to the point where I’m working on social media. I know these have been discussed before and I could probably find these, but I’m tired and I’m hoping someone will take pity on me and simply point me directly to the sources.

A while back, there was a discussion on a plug-in called Facebook Connect. When I search, I see several that are similar. Can someone give me the precise name and maybe the author so I know I have the right one? (Is there anything I should know about installation/use?) Do the comments go from blog to FB or from FB to blog? I couldn’t quite figure that out.

Also, how do I get the share buttons on my site? I am on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but have never added the share buttons because I wasn’t really active in those yet. I think I’m ready to take the plunge. Where do you find the various icons to use? I’ve seen some really nice ones, and others that are not so nice.

One last question. What is the best way to integrate all your social media? I seem to remember there is a single plug-in, but I’m not sure if that is still current or if something newer and better has come out?

Thanks,
Stephanie

Good morning dearie!!

I am soooo sorry that it took me so long to get to this email. I have had a very busy week. I worked ALL DAY on email yesterday and had to just go to bed without finishing everything again—ugh! I am SO sorry to not jump in on this discussion. Of course, I LOVE all of the super ideas that everyone has shared. You guys just ROCK!  (I am talking about our private Coaching Clients Discussion Group–if you are not a member, join any coaching group or personal study course and you can connect with us!)

Of course, I didn’t want to miss sharing on this topic.  I just wanted to drop a line an share some of my favorite plugins and other apps that I have been using to make things easier for me to manage my “SOCIAL LIFE” online.

First, plugins! I haven’t been HUGELY supportive on a lot of plugins because it is sooo easy for them to get out of date or to be hacked. DO watch them. Make sure that you pick plugins that are going to be serviced by their developers. Of course, if you ever have any problem, just uninstall and delete their files. It is easy, peasy to get rid of them.  Now, for some of my NEW favs….

DISQUS…Oh! I LIKE THIS ONE! (Beth, this may be one that you may want to add to your site—for helping people comment but not making the comments wide-open for spam.) Disqus manages your comments. I love that people can log in with a multiple of options—from their social networks to even Disqus. The neat thing, they have an option to share their comment on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. I LOVE IT! The best part is that it also enables DISCUSSION on your site. A visitor can comment on another visitor’s comment. I LOVE THAT! Why not hop over to http://www.TheBizMentor.com and join the conversation! (Give me some blog love!!)

SEXY BOOKMARKS…OH! I LOVE THIS! I have swapped it out for SHARE THIS. NOW, it DOES need to work on updated WordPress. Also, watch some of your old plugins. I forget which ones I had to disable—but they were ages old. I love, love, love this plug in). I have installed it on a bunch of my sites so far. It enables visitors to share your posts and pages (which I disabled on sites that have product download pages with my shopping cart—don’t want those shared!! ) on just about any social network imaginable. AND, I mean IMAGINABLE! I love that it also keeps stats on how many times your site has been shared. That is sweet too!

SOCIAL PROFILES WIDGET…this is nice! This plugin offers a widget in your list of widgets that gives a quick listing of where your site visitors can find you on the social networks. It has buttons on your sidebar that lead them to all of your social networks. You can even choose the style of your button. You can see this in action on almost all of my sites. Peek at http://www.TheBizMentor.com on the sidebar under FOLLOW ME ONLINE. Aren’t they cute? All you do is install the plugin, then look for it listed under your widgets, then drag/drop on your sidebar. Set up is as easy as adding all of the links to your social networks. I LOVE THIS ONE!

WordPress eStore…You guys know how much I LOVE WP eStore. Kimberly first shared it with me. NOW, I swear by it. I have developed 4 eStores—plus 2 more for my clients. It is a ROCKING plug in. Instead of getting off on my tangent about how much I LOVE IT, read more about it here: http://thebizmentor.com/my-big-find-easy-estores

CONTACT FORM 7… I LOVE this one too! I am using it currently for my site contact forms AND even for surveys and my ASK CINDY pages. It is easy to set up AND easy for my site visitors to use. Harold is getting A LOT of internet contacts from this plug in on his site. Look at it at: http://playmasters.info/?page_id=13

PRETTY LINK….OK! This is another plugin that I am currently installing on EVERY SITE! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this one! You guys are going to BUZZ over this one! This one enables you to take those long, long urls and shorten to bitty links or links with terms you want. It can even be used to cloak affiliate links or redirects. It is SOOOOO SWEET! Just yesterday I used it again for a project. I have just revamped my Marriage 911 Flight Plans. I wanted to redirect the old link because the old sales letter was no longer valid and the link was out there EVERYWHERE. I just deleted that old sales page (which I normally don’t recommend) and redirected that link into the new page. It was easy, peasy! Also, another cool feature was when I shortened my links this week for our IP-Chat, I was able to create different links for the different places that I shared about the chat and the coaching program. It immediately began showing me stats on where people are coming from (I was just wondering last week if Twitter was worth my time—BUT, within 2 minutes I had over a 100 click throughs to my site. I LOVE knowing that that few seconds on Twitter was worth my time). Great way to test your responses to headlines or to where you post. Did I say that I LOVE this one?

WP-THREAD COMMENT…This is another plugin for comments, I was using it until I tried Disqus. I think I am going to switch to Disqus. But, this one is SUPER! Look at it on http://www.CindysDesktop.com. On it, you can comment on the other comments and carry on a discussion. Of course, it requires a WordPress login. I like offering the multiple options for logging in to comment—Disqus does that.

FACEBOOK LIKE…I am using that on my sites. I think it is really helping to grow my pitiful fan pages.

And, on my sidebar….

FACEBOOK SOCIAL PLUGIN
GENESIS LATEST TWEETS (inside Genesis—Studio Press).

There are also a few Plugins that I am using with my Studio Press themes–  Dynamic Content Gallery, Featured Content Gallery, WP-Cycle.

I LOVE plugins! I am sure that I am forgetting a bunch, but these are the ones that I am playing with a lot lately. Hope you have fun with them too!

Love,
Cindy…Your Biz Mentor
http://www.TheBizMentor.com