Cincinnati Women Bloggers » CWB Meet Up

CWB Meetup on Saturday, May 21: Q&A with a WordPress Expert

Susan Wenner Jackson — Sat, 14 May 2011 16:56:06 +0000

Brook Westheimer, WordPress expert. Photo courtesy of Cincy Chic, Photographer: Neysa Ruhl

We’re on a roll — third month in a row that Cincinnati Women Bloggers is meeting as a group. This next one will be good for anyone with a WordPress blog/website — or if you’re thinking about switching to WordPress.

Our featured guest speaker is Brook Westheimer, founder and project manager at Watercourse Technology, a WordPress-focused shop. She came to the web development and small business world after spending years working in libraries and on boats. She studied interactive media at Miami University of Ohio and is an open source enthusiast.

On Saturday, May 21, at 10 a.m., Brook will be on hand to answer your questions about how to make WordPress work for your needs. Questions like …

Why do so many bloggers like WordPress so much?
How can I migrate my blog to WordPress?
What’s the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?
How can I modify my WordPress site with a custom theme?
Where do I find good themes and templates?
What WordPress plugins should I use, and how do I add them?
How do I know when it’s time to call for professional help (with WordPress, that is)?

Our host is Cincinnati CoWorks, which is kindly opening up its new space at 2400 Gilbert Avenue in Walnut Hills for our meeting. Cincinnati Coworks is a coworking community and space in Cincinnati, OH. Its purpose is to advocate for and support self-employed professionals, and incite creativity, opportunity, and learning by gathering people with ideas. Members are programmers, writers, entrepreneurs, telecommuters, and more. Cincinnati Coworks offers everything solopreneurs miss about having coworkers — water cooler chat, impromptu lunches, idea sharing, informal networking — without the cubes and corporate culture.

We hope you can join us for this month’s meeting. Please let us know if you plan to attend by commenting on this post.

Using Facebook to Grow Your Blog

Susan Wenner Jackson — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:30:34 +0000

If you missed our first Cincinnati Women Bloggers meeting in forever, this post will get you up to speed. And again, many thanks to CWB contributor Amy Cribbs and her gracious employer, Ziegler & Schneider, for hosting the meeting. Here’s what we talked about:

The Basics: Establishing your blog’s presence on Facebook

Set up a Facebook page for your blog.
Enter your basic info and links, then set up an auto-import of your blog posts to Facebook.
Suggest to your personal Facebook friends that they “LIKE” your blog’s new page. (Top right of your page, “Suggest to Friends” link)
Add other blogs’ and websites’ Facebook pages to your page’s favorites. (Left column of THEIR page, “Add to My Page’s Favorites”)
Feature your top picks as “Featured Likes.”
If you have blog partners, add them as Admins of your Facebook page. (Top right of your page, “See All” link, add more.)
Write a blog post asking your readers to like your new page on Facebook.
Add a Facebook badge to your blog.

Beyond the Basics: Giving your blog’s Facebook page momentum

Update your page regularly – not just with links to your blog, either. Start discussions, extend the conversation, suggest other pages to like and blogs/sites to visit.
Post videos and photos to your Facebook page, and encourage your fans to post theirs, too. (Side note: add photos so the photo strip at the top looks pretty – otherwise, it’ll be all sad and empty.)
Once you get 25 “likes,” customize your page name.
Include your Facebook page wherever you promote your blog (either include a link or even just a Facebook logo).
Run contests and giveaways on Facebook.
Provide your Facebook likers with special offers and discounts.
Consider running ads for your blog/blog’s page.
Check out Facebook Insights for info about how people are interacting with your page.
When commenting on other Facebook pages related to your blog, you can choose to show up as your Facebook page instead of your personal identity. (Top right of your page, “Use Facebook as YourPageName” link)

Advanced Tools: Seriously committing your blog to Facebook success

Facebook Social Plugins – Adding sharing functionality to your blog (Like button, Comments, Livestream Events)
Custom tabs and apps (you might need to hire someone for these)
Maximize your page’s profile picture (maximum dimensions are 180×540 pixels – use this space like a banner ad for your blog)
WordPress Facebook plugins

Blogs on Facebook (Worth a Like)

Helpful Resources: To stay on top of the ever-changing Facebook

If there’s a blog Facebook page you love to like, please share it in the comments. And if you have a super-savvy tip about using Facebook to grow your blog, don’t keep it to yourself. Spill it!

We’re Meeting… But We’re Not “Meeting”

Shannan Boyer — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:34:14 +0000

While there’s no formal meeting this month due to crazy happenings in our work/lives, this Saturday several of us are still meeting up at 10am at the Bean Haus in Covington for coffee. Because we don’t get to see each other very often, and because when we do there’s not a ton of time for catching up or chatting about social media and blogging in general, we thought it would be fun to get together just to get together.

Everyone is welcome to attend. Just head on up stairs after you get yourself a beverage. I am sure we’ll be there until at least 11:30 chatting.

If you are coming, or think you might be able to stop by, let us know in the comments. It will help us make sure we grab enough spots upstairs.

The Bean Haus is located at 640 Main Street in Covington, KY. If you need help finding it, you can call them at (859) 431-2326. {Thanks Carla!}

~ CWB

CWB February Meeting

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:50:41 +0000

Save the date!

Happy New Year everyone! Cincinnati Women Bloggers is excited to announce the details of our first meeting of 2010. We’re still working on finalizing all the details, but we hope you’ll mark your calendars for Saturday, February 27th and plan on joining us for what is sure to be a great meeting.

What: Using blogs and other social media tools in your job search, Sponsored by MomCorps

Who: Presented by Jennifer McClure (CincyRecruiter on Twitter)

When: Saturday, February 27, 2009 | 10 a.m.

Where: Red Tree Art Gallery and Coffee Shop

This meeting is sponsored by Mom Corps. Mom Corps is a company that provides businesses with direct access to a previously untapped market segment of exceptional talent – professionals who have opted out of the traditional workplace. You can find them on Twitter at MomCorpsCincy.

Next Meeting: Social Media and Politics

Shannan Boyer — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:46:28 +0000

We’ve all talked about how much the last presidential race was affected by social media. But, have you spent much time discussing how politics and social media are intersecting in our area? Do you want to?

Join us on Saturday, Oct. 24 at 10 a.m. at the Cincinnati Public Library downtown (room 3A) for the next Cincinnati Women Bloggers meeting. It’s sure to be an interesting event, and we thought it would be timely with election day right around the corner. I’ll be adding additional information about our speakers soon. But, in the meantime, you can RSVP by commenting on this post. Hope to see you there!

Update: Meet Our Speakers

This week’s speakers will be Jane Prendergast of the Cincinnati Enquirer and Kathy Groob, who founded ElectWomen Magazine.

Jane Prendergast

Jane Prendergast has what she thinks is the best job at The Enquirer – covering the city of Cincinnati, its neighborhoods, its people. But right now, she’s mostly busy with its $51 million budget deficit and its politics. She has the distinction of breaking this summer’s Twittergate scandal, in which one councilwoman tweeted during a council meeting that another “does not know when to shut up.” She has worked at The Enquirer 20 years. She contributes to the paper’s politics blog, Politics Extra, and on twitter @janeprendergast

Kathy Groob is the founder and facilitator of ElectWomen Magazine, a national media magazine site dedicated to providing resources to elect women to public office. ElectWomen Magazine is the first, independent,

Kathy Groob

comprehensive magazine-style website that offers women running for office a place to obtain resources, links to training, workshops, books and advice, statistics and even the ability to blog or e-mail questions. Groob has assembled a distinguished panel of contributors who provide articles and responses to reader questions. Kathy Groob is a 30-year businesswoman and entrepreneur and has served as an elected city official and ran for the Kentucky Senate in 2008. Her Senate campaign inspired hundreds of women to become involved and she created a bi-partisan network of campaign volunteers and supporters. She serves as a political consultant, is a leader in women’s organizations throughout her region and has been a mentor and advocate for women in the workplace throughout her career.

Blogging & the Law – Meeting Recap

cincinnatiwomenbloggers — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 04:04:29 +0000

Thank you to everyone who came out to Saturday’s Cincinnati Women Bloggers meeting on ethical and legal blogging . We want to thank Bridge Worldwide for hosting and thank both Stacy Cole of Graydon Head Ritchey and Dennis Hetzel of the Cincinnati Enquirer/NKY.com for taking time to educate us on this very important topic.

While the meeting was filled with lots of great information, following is a quick list of some of the things I took away from the meeting. Feel free to add more in the comments.

Information put up on public sites like Twitter, Facebook & Blogs is fair game. If it’s out in public it’s all good. In other words, you cannot claim right to privacy if an employer or potential employer finds questionable content that you’ve published.
With regards to blog content, it’s OK to use excerpts and link back to original article, it’s not OK to cut-n-paste entire article, etc.
Photo Rights – Simply saying where you grabbed the photo from is not enough. If the photo is copyrighted you need to get permission from the owner.
You can be held liable if you intentionally use, link to, or promote pirated work on your blog.
You can not be held liable for content others publish to your blog — ie. comments, unless you know they are false, slanderous, etc.
Don’t embed videos on your site that you know (or suspect) are in violation of a copyright. Better to be safe than sorry.
Disclose, Disclose, Disclose. You’ll be in a much better position with your readers if you keep everything in the open when it comes to your blog (reviews, compensated trips, advertising, etc).
Bloggers should have “notice and take down” procedures for dealing with copyright infringement.
The best blogs have personality. Readers want to have someone to connect with.
What to be a trusted navigator? Be content and format agnostic.
Things to think about — Who is your audience? What do you want your brand known for? Do you care about showing biases? Do you care about accuracy?

Want more from the meeting? Check out the Twitter stream (#CWB) and find photos on the Cincinnati Women Bloggers Facebook Fan page.

UPDATE: If you’d like to review the presentation made by Stacy Cole, you can view it on the Graydon Head Ritchey web site — HERE.

We want to thank Cincinnati Women Blogger’s member Amy of Amy in Ohio who suggested and arranged for Stacy and Dennis to present. If you have an idea for a topic or know a speaker we should connect with, please don’t hesitate to contact us at Cincinnatiwomenbloggers(@)gmail.com.