David Kamerer

Associate Professor of Communication, Loyola University Chicago

Free tools for managing your store’s web site

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My favorite store is having a sale this week, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at its web site.
 

That’s because the site just sits there. It’s little more than a business card with some pretty pictures.
The site isn’t updated because it’s a hassle to do it. If the job requires a web designer, complex software and an arcane process called FTP to send information to a server, it’s too complicated to do regularly. 
But it doesn’t have to be that way. A new kind of web site – a content management system, or CMS – makes it easy to administer from a secure dashboard. And when it’s easy, you’ll update it when you’re having a sale.
A CMS can be expensive, as a custom-designed and programmed site might be. Or it can be free, if you use an off-the-shelf or open source tool. Many companies use blogging platforms such as WordPress or Movable Type as their CMS. If you need more power or control, there are open-source tools like Joomla or Drupal. When you choose one of these, you gain support from communities of experts who provide free programming modules or visual themes.

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Skittles “tastes a rainbow” of sites

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Visit Skittles.com for a bold experiment. The candy company has temporarily taken down its normal website. In its place is a dashboard that directs you to its portfolio of social media sites. Click on “chatter” and it redirects you to a Twitter search of “skittles.” Click on “friends” and it takes you to Facebook. Brilliant, bold move. We’ll discuss it later, but for now, just check it out.skittles.gif

The end of a newspaper … and rising from the ashes …

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The Rocky Mountain News had a good run, but it’s over. Here’s a 20+ minute video on the end. It’s worth your time:

While the news coming from the newspaper industry is almost universally bad, there are some glimmers of hope. 
There are many, many more reasons to love your newspaper than as a destination for your press releases.

Choosing a CMS

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As a college professor, I work with mostly junior and senior communication students who are interested in public relations, marketing and media production. Many are in the process of migrating their work online, whether it’s for a portfolio or a client-based project.

I see a clear trend among the students. Even a year ago, there was intense interest in learning to hard-code web sites using Dreamweaver or a similar tool. Today, that doesn’t happen. The students have learned and seen the value of using a content management system, or CMS. Most use WordPress, but there is a smattering on Blogger, Tumblr, TypePad or Movable Type. Some have skills with Drupal or Joomla.

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All of these platforms have robust third-party support, whether its themes, plug-ins, widgets or community sites that answer technical questions. Most are free, and most allow you to host the content yourself if you want to.
It seems like WordPress is dominant, but a recent study of top blogs shows a plurality of leaders. 
The key point – find a CMS that you can live with, one that does 90 percent of what you want and need to do. Apply a theme, and then focus on what you do best: the content. Later on, when you want to re-skin the site, or reformat it for delivery to iPhones, or push it to your Facebook or LinkedIn account, you’ll be glad you did.
There will always be a place for hard-coded sites, but once you’ve seen the advantages of a good CMS, you’ll never go back.

Publish magazines on demand with MagCloud

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magcloudlogo.pngYes, we’re sending more online messages and we’re printing less these days. But print is far from dead. And I’m always looking for ways to leverage existing printed documents using online technology, from Issuu, which lets you display printed documents on screen while preserving layout (it’s great for online presentation of printed portfolios) to Scribd, which includes social media sharing/embedding for formatted documents.

MagCloud is another print extender. With this service, you upload your formatted document and people can preview it online. You get a custom URL (like DavidKamerer.MagCloud.com), RSS, and a nice looking page that’s indexed by search engines and can be visible to customers or other stakeholders. The game changer is that MagCloud can also deliver a high-resolution printed version of your work via First Class mail. If you want, the company will handle your mailing list and subscriptions. Or, you can print just one. Digital printing makes flat pricing possible, which is great if you’re doing a small run. 

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You set the price of your magazine; the finished cost is 20 cents a page, plus $1.40 for U.S. shipping. If you allow a profit margin, MagCloud deposits the profit into your PayPal account.
MagCloud provides detailed instructions for setting up your document (including specifics for Adobe InDesign) and for creating the .pdf files that you upload). You’re pretty much limited to the standard 8.5″ by 11″ vertical format, and the time constraints may challenge you (7-10 days to receive your proof, then another 7-10 days for your final copy to be delivered). But the end result, printed on high quality H/P digital printers, will look much better than the output at your local copy shop. 
Students might consider MagCloud for printed portfolios and campaign books. This process also would facilitate highly targeted fundraising appeals and other micro-print applications.
It’s time to start thinking about printed documents in new ways. This is a user- and web- friendly approach to interactive and digital printing.
MagCloud is a project of H/P Labs, and is currently in Beta.

Twitter: ultimate focus group or just a bunch of bullies?

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tropcarton.jpgTropicana is abandoning its new-look packaging after receiving criticism from consumers on Twitter and other social media channels. 

Flash mobs are increasingly part of the modern life, whether it’s baby-wearing mothers who are angry at Motrin, or Facebook users upset with a change in their terms of service.
But do flash mobs constitute legitimate research?
Public relations pros quoted in The New York Times sing the praises of these new tools. 

“You used to wait to go to the water cooler or a cocktail party to talk over something,” said Richard Laermer, chief executive at RLM Public Relations in New York. “Now, every minute is a cocktail party,” he added. “You write an e-mail and in an hour, you’ve got a fan base agreeing with you.”

And here’s Peter Shankman: “Twitter is the ultimate focus group. I can post something and in a minute get feedback from 700 people around the world, giving me their real opinions.”

Yes, the opinions are real. And somewhere in there you can find real insights. But the twitterverse is just a big SLOP sample – a self-selected opinion poll. The postings of the Twitterati don’t represent anyone – not even Twitter users overall.
Somewhere inside Tropicana, someone is listening to all these mini-rants. And that’s good. And that person should then consider the next step in an inquiry, which is to find out if these opinions are representative of some larger group that Tropicana cares about. There are lots of traditional tools with which to do that – from focus groups to large-sample surveys based upon an EPSEM sample (if you’re not a researcher, that’s an equal probability of selection method sample, which allows you to estimate error from the sample relative to the unknowable population parameter.)

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There are lots of self-appointed “social media experts” out there who are just hammer-pounders. What’s that? You know the old saying, “give a kid a hammer, and everything looks like a nail.” These “experts” may or may not have real training or experience in marketing, public relations or research, and they view every problem as being solvable by the tool du jour, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or Flickr. They offer one-note solutions to complex problems.
Social media are a new part of the communication landscape, and they have transformed it. There are new rules of behavior, new opportunities, new cowpies to step in. Every business should learn about social media and take it seriously. 
But I wouldn’t make a knee-jerk reaction based upon what a few cranks said on Twitter.  
Yes, they may be customers, but they’re not representative of all your customers. Listen, yes. But don’t let them bully you into making poor decisions. That’s a poor use of social media.

Rest in peace: “you’re welcome”

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“You’re welcome,” long a popular part of daily speech and a polite acknowledgement to “thank you,” has died of natural causes after a long period of abandonment by the culture. It is survived by its distant relatives, “no problem,” “not a problem,” “uh-huh” and “whatever.”

While “you’re welcome’s” birth date is unknown, the phrase first appeared in the 1907 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. During most of the 20th century, the phrase issued from the lips of the most genteel people in the world.
But in recent years it has been in declining health, abandoned by the keepers of the culture. Even noted linguist Deborah Tannen gave up on the phrase.
“You’re supposed to say something that minimizes the pleasure when you do something for someone,” said Tannen, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University in Washington.

“No problem” is a clearer expression of minimized pleasure, she said.

When contacted, “no problem,” a night manager at Applebee’s in Plano, Texas, expressed little regret over “you’re welcome’s” passing.
“If I don’t seem to care, well my bad,” he said. “Just saying.”

The Missing Google Analytics Manual

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What good is a web site if it just sits there? I’m hearing from more and more small businesses and non-profits who are ready to start taking measurement of their web traffic seriously. For these smaller websites, Google Analytics is a powerful and easy solution. Here’s a treasure trove of support information from grokdotcom.com if you’re just getting started with Google Analytics.

Here’s a quick overview: start by creating an account with Google. Your analytics account can be created from your Gmail login. Google Analytics will then provide some code that you’ll place on your website. Depending on how your site is configured, you’ll put it on every page, or in one place that’s served up with every page. When visitors hit your site, the code will “phone home” to Google. You’ll view the results a day later on a very nice dashboard viewable from your Google Analytics account page.
If you’re a Movable Type user like me, a good place to install the code is in your Footer template file, just before the </body> tag. You just need to put it on your site once, since the footer is served with every call to your site. And, since it’s in the footer, disruption to the user is minimal, since it’s served last. Note that this code is “off the page” text; it’s not visible to your site visitors.
There’s really no excuse to not measure your web traffic. It’s not hard to get started, and the service is free. Do this today!