This document discusses using WordPress as a social media hub by integrating various social media platforms and features. It provides tips on leveraging WordPress plugins to enable social sharing, comments, profiles and login from sites like Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed and others. It also recommends experimenting with different sharing and commenting options to see what works best and tracking results. The goal is to bring conversations from other sites back to the blog and better connect people to content and each other.

1. Using WordPress As Your Social
Media Hub
Kevin Palmer (@kevinpalmer)
WordCamp Chicago
June 6,2009
Socialmediaanswers.com

2. Why WordPress As Your Social Media Hub?
• Technical:
• Design Flexibility
• Plugin Development
• Evolution of WordPress (MU to WP
codebase, BuddyPress)
• Social:
• Hub and Spoke Model
• Content Discovery and Sharing
• Allow People to Connect on Their Terms

3. Social News
Micro
Reputation
Blogging
Lifestreaming Video
Major Social
Podcasting
Networks
Niche Social
Networks

4. Make Your Outposts Visible

5. Social Media Icons Resources
• 20 Icon Sets- http://bit.ly/1YW4b5
• Widgets
• Lijit- http://www.lijit.com/
• Blog Catalog- http://blogcatalog.com

6. Give Readers The Ability To Share

7. You Need to Experiment a Little
• Don’t Get Discouraged Right Away
• Try Different Deployment Methods
• Try Different Plugins (Share This, DiggDigg, etc)
• Code Custom Buttons Into Theme
• Try Different Styles and Location
• Track Results- (Crazy Egg, Analytics, etc)

8. Sharing Resources
• Share This- http://sharethis.com/
• DiggDigg- http://bit.ly/L770U
• Add This- http://www.addthis.com/
• Add To Any- http://www.addtoany.com/
• TweetMeme- http://bit.ly/3d60X
• Crazy Egg- https://crazyegg.com/

9. Make Your Commenting System More Social
• Spice Up Default Comments
• Plugins: Social Profiles, Comment Luv, etc
• Facebook Connect, Twitter Log In
• Use a Third Party System
• Intense Debate
• Disqus

10. Intense Debate vs. Disqus
Both Intense Debate Only Disqus Only
Comment Threading OpenID Facebook Connect
Reply By E-mail Off Site Comment Off Site Comment Retrieval
Retrieval- Friend Feed Only For Multiple Sites
E-mail Notifications Profile Sync- Auto Log In Profile Sync- Log Into
Disqus
Commenter Profiles Twitter Sign In
Moderation
Comment Voting
Comment on Twitter
Comment RSS
Gravatar Support
Trackbacks
Two-Way Comment Sync

11. Commenting System Resources
• Default Comments
• Social Profiles- http://bit.ly/ASL7
• Comment Luv- http://comluv.com/
• Facebook Connect- http://bit.ly/yRln
• Facebook Connect- http://bit.ly/aAWo
• Intense Debate- http://intensedebate.com/
• Disqus- http://disqus.com/
• Comparison- http://bit.ly/FkDu

12. Where Are Conversations Happening?
• Bring The Conversations Back to Your Blog
• Integrate FriendFeed and Twitter Comments

13. Bring Your Lifestream Into WordPress
• Multiple plugins/widgets that do this (BC)
• You can create a template for a page as well

14. FF and Twitter Resources
• FriendFeed Comments- http://bit.ly/16EIlv
• FreindFeedLifestream- http://bit.ly/162MCx
• Twitter Comments- http://bit.ly/j0b8

15. Facebook Connect
• What Features Can You Enable?
• Login
• Commenting
• Recent Visitors
• Invite Friends
• Share Comments via Newsfeed
• Share Posts via Newsfeed
• FacebookPlugin Directory- http://bit.ly/aAWo

16. Google Friend Connect
• What Features Can You Enable?
• Members
• Sign In
• Social Bar
• Comments
• Rating and Reviews
• Recommendations
• Poll
• Events
• Friend Connect Gadgets- http://bit.ly/GiGbg

17. Video/Podcasting
• Podcasting- Make sure you use a plugin that
works with iTunes
• Podcasting- http://bit.ly/2Yq4YO
• Powerpress- http://bit.ly/byazm
• Video- Embed play count is mattering more
and more with YouTube stats
• Leverage TubeMogl- http://tubemogul.com
• Think about self branding player and videos

18. Have Your Content Go to Outposts
• Don’t Forget To Fill Out Profiles Completely
• Leverage Link Sharing on Facebook and Twitter when
new posts go up
• Networked Blogs on Facebook
• WordPress Functionality on LinkedIn
• RSS or Blog Links on Niche Sites

19. Closing Thoughts
• Don’t Deploy Everything Presented
• See where your audience is
• Examine other sites in this niche
• Experiment
• See where your audience is
• Examine other sites in this niche
• All About The Connection
• People to your content and you to your readers

20. Thanks!
• Kevin Palmer
• http://socialmediaanswers.com
• kevin@socialmediaanswers.com
• Twitter: @kevinpalmer