Social media marketing | Liz Hover's Diary of a Web Gal

This month’s Winnipeg Girl Geek Dinner is all about blogging and I’m the presenter along with my pal Polly Washburn.

We’ll be sharing our experiences, from the techie bits to the creative stuff of choosing a theme, deciding what to write about, how to format a blog post, and why it’s important to post regular content.

Join us on Tuesday, June 8 (at 6 p.m. if you want to nosh on the delicious food at EAT! Bistro in Aqua Books or 7 p.m. if you just want to feed your mind.)

While the title of the event might be a bit girl-biased – boys are totally welcome.

Everyone is invited; if you plan on attending, please RSVP via Facebook or Eventbrite.

Really hope to see you there.

About us (the gals doing the talking)

I moved to Winnipeg from London, UK seven years ago and work as the digital media manager for the National Screen Institute – a film and TV training school. I author two blogs: Diary of a Web Gal and Hi, I’m Sadie Shih Tzu (nominated for a Canadian Weblog Award). I’ve presented workshops about the social web for the National Screen Institute, On Screen Manitoba, Canadian Women in Communications, the National Film Board and more. I also do web consulting to help develop and improve websites. My passion is the internet and how to best use it as a communications professional. Catch me on Twitter @lizhover @nsicanada @sadieshihtzu

My pal Polly moved to Winnipeg from New York over 10 years ago. She’s a film and digital media producer, owner of the production and consulting company Positron Media. She provides consulting and training in production and web marketing. She’s currently producing three feature films, a couple of shorts, a collaborative online digital media project, an iPhone app and an augmented reality game. Oh and if that wasn’t enough, she’s just launched a new blog ScreenLiving to examine content creation and distribution in a world where screens are both converging and proliferating.  Catch Polly on Twitter: @pollywashburn

I don’t usually write this kind of post about WordPress but I’m doing it for two reasons:

1. Matt Forsythe asked me to.
2. I’m on a mission for the best theme for my dog’s blog. And it pains me greatly that I can’t settle on a theme I truly love. She’s nominated for a Canadian Weblog Award and I want her blog to be the best.

You need to know some stuff about me before you read the rest of this.

I am obsessive. I am tenacious. I will not settle until I find the solution to my problem. For these reasons I can tell you with confidence that I have scoured the web for the best minimal WordPress themes. Premium and free.

I LOVE going to a post like this and seeing a screen grab of the theme. It turns me off when folks don’t offer one.

There are many reasons for my listing below. If a theme is too complicated to use everyday then it didn’t make this list. I’m not stupid when it comes to HTML and CSS but I want an easy life. And so does my dog.

In no particular order:

Cutline theme – Sadie Shih Tzu is currently using this theme. Very versatile. Custom header (which matters to me) and great layout. Neoclassical by Chris Pearson is very similar and worth checking out.

Intonasi Mono – very new theme. Beautifully put together.

Early Morning – a child theme for Thematic.

Minimalista – by Bird Themes – these guys have three cute WordPress themes but this is my favourite.

Pristine – there are two versions of this theme. The other one comes with a header.

Pure II – from a brilliant theme developer who has many more themes worth looking at. This is the newest.

BASE – from another amazingly talented theme developer whose full time job is with Woo Themes. I really like this one.

WhitePress – a new theme that I found on Weblog Tools Collection.

Seven Five – I’ve been in love with this theme for a long time. An ultra minimal theme with a focus on social networks and life streams.

Koi and Vigilance tie for a place in my top 10 so I have to include them both.

There are other themes that deserve a mention:

Clean Home from MidMo which comes in two versions – free and pro.

Keep it Simple – I was using this theme on Sadie’s site until recently.

Grid Focus – another beautiful theme. It doesn’t make my top ten because it isn’t easy to use.

Modern Clix – this one didn’t make the top ten because I see it referenced constantly and it’s super popular. I wanted to offer something new with this post rather than giving you the same list of minimal themes you’ll see if you Google that search term.  However this is a great theme and is easy to use.

There are many places to look for good themes – too many to mention – but I recommend:

- Theme Lab

- Simple Themes

- tripwire Magazine – this post lists over 90 delicious WordPress themes

- GraphPaperPress has many beautiful themes which I’ve played around with. My problem is that they aren’t intuitive to use. I’m sure if you become a pro member you get more support. I feel obliged to mention them because they produce some beautiful work but it’s not for WordPress newbies.

- Of course you can also check out the long list of minimal themes on WordPress.org which includes some of the themes mentioned in this post.

- I know folks rave about Thesis. Again, I feel obliged to mention this theme because so many people love it. I’ve never used it and have heard mixed things about it. But it might be just the thing you’re after.

I warmly welcome your own suggestions about themes I haven’t mentioned here. Have you unearthed a WordPress gem? Please leave a comment below with a link to that theme.

This weekend I whipped up a post for One Degree about blogging.

And I’d love you to read it if you’ve even remotely considered blogging and quickly swept the idea away.

What’s One Degree? It’s a website for Canadian marketers like me. I tweet for One Degree.

Thanks to Peter Mosely (the boss at One Degree) for asking me to write the post.

(BTW: I’m cool with punctuation but my headline font isn’t. It doesn’t have any apostrophes).

It’s Tamar Weinberg to the rescue again (or more acurately guest blogger Glen Allsopp writing on Tamar’s site.)

If we could all somehow connect telepathically, I would save so much time!

As Glen points out in his post on Tamar’s site, there has always been a joke on the social web about folks claiming to ‘social media experts.’

These folks are a dime a dozen.

Which muddies the waters for everyone.

Long ago I read that social media isn’t an add on; it isn’t something that your marketing director suddenly has ‘to do.’ It should underscore all your communications.

According to Glen a real social media expert should:

1. Highlight others
2. Grow bigger ears
3. Accept a new normal
4. Make everything else irrelevant
5. Ignore social media ‘checklists’ or top lists

If you’re looking to weed out the pretenders from the real McCoy, check out Glen’s post: 5 things true social media experts do online.

(PS: Glen rocks. And he’s only 20. I am in AWE).

After listing my most popular posts of 2009 it seemed only fair that I list my least popular posts of 2009.

These posts are basically the fat kid that got picked last in gym class (in England we say P.E. – physical education).

I’m hoping you’ll discover something in one of them that will help you or someone you know.

And if you feel so inclined you can check out my archives which list in a nice and simple format all past posts on Diary of a Web Gal.

So here are my blog posts most in need of a big hug.

• Jeremy Fisher’s super cool animated web series
• Learn by doing
• Keep jargon out of your news releases and your website
• 15 tools for monitoring the popularity of a website
• I love my iPhone
• Lunatic bloggers can keep the blogosphere
• 21 WordPress plugins you must use
• I am no longer a tweet up virgin
• Alternatives to Photoshop
• So who are the most prolific internet users?

There was a little rejoicing in the Web Gal household yesterday.

One of my blogs, Hi, I’m Sadie Shih Tzu has been nominated for a Canadian Weblog Award (Life category).

The Canadian Weblog Awards promote blogs from across Canada year-round with interviews, articles, and the nomination, judging, and award process. A jury then decides on a short list and winners are announced in January 2011.

The awards are something of a breath of fresh air: they’re designed to uncover good, but perhaps not mainstream or popular blogs.

Much of the judging criteria focuses on common sense stuff that all web designers would apply when creating a website. The same stuff I use in my job as website manager.

Design

• Usability — Is the website user-friendly and easy to navigate?
• Operability — Do all of its components function properly?
• Interactivity — Are a comments section and author contact information available? Are its interactive components (including comments, audio, video, etc.) effective, appropriate, and accessible?
• Aesthetics — Is the website pleasing to look at? Is its design original?

• Originality — Is the content original and creatively expressed?
• Intelligibility and clarity — Is the content well-written? Are the content’s messages clearly and effectively delivered?
• Currency — Is the content timely? Is the weblog updated on a regular basis?
• Transparency and authenticity — Is the author’s purpose and realness both trusted and apparent?
• Attention to detail — Has the content been edited for spelling and grammatical errors? Is the content arranged for ease of consumption?
• Engagingness — Is the content interesting? Does it contain broad appeal within its genre?

So we’ll have to be patient for a few months before we find out if Sadie’s blog progresses any further.

This is truly an honour to be recognised among my fellow Canadian bloggers. I’ve never envisioned making money from Sadie’s blog. It’s only ever an online space for her personality to come alive for others. Pure entertainment. And with the deluge of blogs available it’s a wonder anyone ever found Sadie’s.

We’ve no idea who nominated Hi, I’m Sadie Shih Tzu. If it was you, thank you.