August was a very busy month here at Watershed Studio and included everything from getting the kids back into the swing of things at school to attending Blog Indiana 2010 and having the opportunity to catch Jeff Pulver at the 140 Characters Conference Roadtrip Tweetup here in Indy. Now that fall is only a few weeks away we’re gearing up for the new projects that always hit this time of year and we have a few things of our own up our sleeves.

If you need anything at all, please contact us.   In the meantime, check out these blog posts from August:

• Indy Media School: September 2010 Courses
• Blogging for Passion or for Dollars – Would you blog if the government taxed you to do so? The city of Philadelphia is trying to do just that.
• Hootsuite Premium Pricing Shocker – This month Hootsuite unveiled their pricing structure which caught everyone off guard. If you use Hootsuite, be sure to check this out.
• Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) – This is a review from one of the sessions at Blog Indiana focused on SEO from a PR angle.
• Ten Social Media Reads, Vol 2

• Saturday, September 11, 2010 from 9:30 AM – Noon
• Saturday, September 25, 2010 from 9:30 AM – Noon

Introduction to Social Media for Business

• Thursday, September 9, 2010 from 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM
• Tuesday, September 14, 2010 from 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM
• Thursday, September 23, 2010 from 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM

Social Media 101

• Saturday, September 4, 2010 from 9:30 AM – Noon
• Saturday, September 18, 2010 from 9:30 AM – Noon

WordPress for Small Business and Nonprofits

• Tuesday, September 7, 2010 from 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM
• Thursday, September 16, 2010 from 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM

1. After seeing mentions of Slingshot SEO all over the place I was curious as to what Slingshot SEO did.
2. I was curious as to their take on tackling brand management in the search engines.

Going in everyone who has listened to me knows my take on the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) industry as a whole.  It would seem that the vast majority of those that claim to be “SEO Experts/Gurus” are paranoid, incompetent and up to no good which turns out to bite their clients in the rear eventually.  My blood boils when new clients come to us stating something like “our last SEO guy got us banned from (insert search engine here), he took a ton of our money, can you help us out & get that behind us?”.  While we can help out, it’s a long road back to normalcy.

All of that to say, in the first few minutes of Jeremy’s presentation it was clear that Slingshot SEO was legit and he had my full attention.

As to what Slingshot SEO does, I would peg them more as a search engine PR firm as opposed to simply optimizing content.  Their approach is optimizing content in multiple places and across multiple services with the goal of resolving small problems before they become large ones.

A few of the key points Jeremy hit on are:

• Most people click on negative search results first
• Most people don’t actually read everything and often stop at the title and make assumptions
• Use monitoring tools such as Google Alerts (which we highly recommend)
• Make sure your most important information is on your home page (that would seem obvious, but take a look around and let me know what you see)
• Focus on customer service (you are in business for your customers)
• Respect others
• Know when to say no (this is a hard one to learn, especially when business is slow and/or you’re a start-up, but trust me, LEARN TO SAY NO if you don’t feel good and/or confident about something as it’s not worth damaging your business for)

However, I have to disagree with the stance of staying away from all review sites/directories (i.e. all of the”Local” sites within the search engines).  Yes, I understand that you don’t control these in any manner and people can try to ruin your reputation there, but if you are confident that you have a good product and good customer service any negative responses can be dealt with.  As a consumer I don’t expect everyone to like everything, but if something is clearly crap, let it be called out as such.  And as a business owner myself, if something I do is honestly below expectations, I want to know that and to be held accountable.  My business isn’t here for me or my feelings, it’s here for my customers.

Overall it was one of the better sessions I sat in on and thanks to Jeremy for sharing.

Here are the slides if you wish to view them…

1. AOL Launches SafeSocial…To Screen Your Kid’s Every Friend Posted (Katy Gathright – Social Times)
2. 4 Ways to Make Content Go Viral in Social Media (Kyle Lacy)
3. How Freelancers Might Use Social Media in the Future (Stephanie Marcus – Mashable)
4. Make Shareability a Priority (Chris Brogan)
5. Marketing Your Business through the Use of Podcasts (Gini Dietrich)
6. 100 Ways to Measure Social Media (Pam Dyer)
7. Social Media Parenting: Raising the Digital Generation (Matt Silverman – Mashable)
8. 12 Ways to Market Your Event With Social Media (Rich Brooks – Social Media Examiner)
9. Twitter And The Nine-Month Bounce (Erick Schonfeld – Tech Crunch)
10. Winemakers shun social media grapevine (Leslie Gevirtz – Reuters)

If you have any social media reads that you’d like to suggest, please contact us or Tweet us @watershedstudio.

Taking a step closer to an eerie Orwellian state where creativity is crushed in the name of “the greater good,” the city of Philadelphia is demanding that bloggers pay $300 for the privilege of writing on the Internet.

This $300 “business privilege license” is for all local bloggers – even the ones that make no money off their words.

The city doesn’t stop there. In addition to the $300 for the license to write on the World Wide Web, bloggers must pay city wage taxes, business privilege taxes and taxes on any net profits — on top of state and federal taxes — even if the blogger only made $11 over two years, reports the City Paper.

Full story at NBC Philadelphia

Even though I’ve never heard of anything like a blanket “business privilege license”, I understand paying taxes is something we all have to do. If that’s how it is in Philly for any business, then fine.  But when you automatically label bloggers as businesses then I have a problem with that.

Taking a step back to the mid-1990′s, I used to publish a ‘zine (and yes, ‘zines are still alive and well in 2010).  We printed 100 copies, got some free music to review, had a few small ad sales, and if we were lucky we broke even.  But it was about our passion for the subject and it was nothing more than a hobby for a group of college kids.

Step forward to 2002 and I jumped head first into blogging and haven’t looked back.  The idea of being a zinester & the idea of being a blogger were pretty much the same thing for me, but with blogging there was a lot less overhead and many more potential eyeballs.

Now jump to present day 2010 and I find myself making a living off of blogging.  (Note that I didn’t say from blogging.)

When Watershed Studio was started back in 2004 our focus was on web design and building PHP based web  applications since that’s what I was doing as a day job back then. Today that has morphed into a lot of WordPress development for clients as well as social media related consulting, coaching & training.  Last year WordSprung was launched as an extension of our WordPress services and earlier this year we launched Indy Media School to focus on the social media training side of things.

On the flip side of the coin, in 2006 the decision was made to separate our content (blogs, podcasts, writings, etc) from the design & consulting side of things and Surge Bucket Media was formed.  Four years later Surge Bucket Media (SBM) consists of dozens of web properties, many of which are networked together.  The difference here being that SBM is currently nowhere near the money maker that everything under the Watershed Studio umbrella is.  And a lot of that is on purpose as we are trying to keep advertising down to an absolute minimum and frankly we do that because we like to do it.

All of that to say, we have seen quite the spectrum of blogs & bloggers throughout the years. While many of our clients are businesses, both small and large, we also have numerous clients who blog out of their own pockets. In other words, their blogs are their passion and they are funding them themselves without a concern for monetary gain.  And it’s this crowd that the vast majority of bloggers would fall into.

Going back to Philadelphia, I honestly don’t see how this will hold up. There are just too many issues at hand, not to mention the moment when freedom of speech and press are brought up (and Philly should be pretty familiar with those, right?).   If I were a small potatoes blogger in Philly I wouldn’t be packing my bags just yet, but I certainly would raise a ruckus with your city government.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Please leave us a comment or leave a voicemail at 317-565-4250.

As I looked at this I was shocked by the top end (the actual top end is not listed here, but is in their Enterprise Services at $1499-$1998 per month).  The biggest shocker being their pricing emphasis on “Team Members” (a.k.a. other Hootsuite users who can use one or more of your social network accounts) rather than some sort of true functionality.

I recall just this past week looking through the FAQ’s and reading this & this (emphasis mine):

• “There is no cost to use the HootSuite Team Collaboration tools or any part of the social media dashboard at this time. Everything is free – though in the future, we will likely add premium level accounts.”
• “The web version of HootSuite as well as HootSuite Lite for iPhone and Android is currently free. HootSuite for iPhone and Android currently costs $2.99. We are investigating pricing plans and exciting new features for paid accounts.“

Fair enough. It’s worded in a  way that says, “We do charge for some things & will be charging for other things at some point. Don’t get used to having everything you currently have for free”.  You can’t argue with that. It’s pretty clear and from a business perspective understandable.

I have absolutely no problem paying for services. We’re in the business of getting paid for services & we pay for services all of the time if the ROI is there.  Just earlier this week in some sort of prophetic thought I was thinking to myself that if Hootsuite charged $5/mo for the service I had at that point in time I’d be happy to pay it.

Beyond the whole Team Members issue (I need this to be expandable to an infinite number of users, even if it costs $4.99/mo for each additional user) their $4.99/mo a plan suites me just fine.  But by charging $15 for the first team member for collaboration aspects (the “priority support” isn’t something I can see being used much & in my opinion should be there with any paid account), they’re really doing themselves no favors.

That said, I can see no good reason for most of our clients to bump up to the “Silver” plan solely for the purpose of allowing us access to their account via our account. And a good portion of them would probably be fine with the Basic plan as long as the advertising isn’t too annoying.

So having mulled this over we’ll be moving our internal Twitter collaboration over to CoTweet.  Facebook pages updates will take place through our Bronze Hootsuite account or directly via Facebook by other team members. Post updates via RSS will continue to be handled via WordPress & the Facebook app. For clients, we’ll simply log into their accounts when needed.  At the end of the day we may not be able to do everything the way we’d like to do it, but we can still do it.

Now it’s your turn. How will the Hootsuite changes affect you, if at all?  What other applications & services do you use for your social media management?  Let us know and if you’d like you can leave a voice message at 317-565-4250.

• Saturday, August 7, 2010 from 9:00 AM – Noon
• Tuesday, August 17, 2010 from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Introduction to Social Media for Business

• Tuesday, August 3, 2010 from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
• Tuesday, August 31, 2010 from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

WordPress for Small Business and Nonprofits

• Monday, August 9, 2010 from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

If you’re unfamiliar with OIOpublisher, it is a PHP based ad platform with a focus on performance, control and ease of use. It allows you to easily serve advertising on your blog or website and keep 100% of the revenue you bring in. For those of you using WordPress, it includes a plugin that allows for easy integration. And if you need consulting help setting it up, please contact us.

Disclosure:We are an affiliate of OIOPublisher, but we use the product ourselves and can vouch that it’s an excellent product.

Schedule your WordPress upgrade today via our WordSprung WordPress Upgrade Service.

• WordPress 3.0.1
• Indy Media School: August 2010 Courses
• Ten Social Media Reads, Vol 1

1. 7 Surprising Statistics About Twitter in America (Jay Baer – Convince & Convert)
2. Delivering Wow! (Jeff Stanger – Blue Trolley Press)
3. Five ways to integrate social media into your overall marketing mix (Catherine Parker – Memeburn)
4. How to be the Life of the Social Media Party (Darren Rowse – ProBlogger)
5. How to Use Proactive Social Customer Service to Build Your Brand (American Express OPEN Forum)
6. IndyCar Drivers now tussle through Twitter posts (Curt Cavin – Indy Star)
7. More small businesses use Twitter, Facebook to promote (Jon Swartz – USA Today)
8. Social media: why there’s no point trying to escape (Shane Richmond – Telegraph Media Group)
9. The Power of Social Media: Educate Embrace and Empower (Kyle Lacy)
10. When Someone Blindsides You With a Negative Blog Post (Liz Strauss)

If you have any social media reads that you’d like to suggest, please contact us or Tweet us @watershedstudio.

• Thursday, July 15, 2010 from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
• Thursday, July 29, 2010 from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Introduction to Social Media for Business

• Tuesday, July 6, 2010 from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
• Tuesday, July 20, 2010 from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

WordPress for Small Business and Nonprofits

• Saturday, July 24, 2010 from 9:00 AM – Noon

If you’re like most bloggers, then you’ve probably been kicking yourself trying to figure out the answer to these questions…trying to find the key that unlocks the large steel doors that are holding you back from the success you’ve been looking for.

In his book, Blogging to the Third Power, Nicholas Cardot shares what he has discovered as being the essential elements necessary to connect with people on a large scale.

eBook Edition: Click here to view more details
Print Edition: Click here to view more details

• WordPress 3.0
• Indy Media School: July 2010 Courses

Schedule your WordPress upgrade today via our WordSprung WordPress Upgrade Service.

• Indy Media School: WordPress For Small Business and Nonprofits
• WordSprung’s WordPress Maintenance Package

• Watershed Studio Gallery
• Indy Media School
• WordCamp Indy 2010

Q: I want to be able to upload images (for ads, banners, etc.) without having to FTP in. I’ve been doing it by adding them to a dummy post and then copying the link and adding where I need it-is there a better solution?

A: There’s a built in solution for WordPress to do just this.

In the sidebar of the WordPress Admin Area, click on “Media > Add New” (located at http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/media-new.php).

Upload Files In WordPress via the Media Section

From there you’ll see the same file uploading interface that you do when you create a post or page.

If you need assistance, please contact us.

[Question submitted by Kelly Whalen.]

• 17th Annual Stutz Artists Open House
• New Joint Business Venture
• WordCamp Indy 2010
• WordPress Q&A
• OIOpublisher Coupon Code for March 2010

Q: I am after a YouTube plugin for a widget. What I want to do is have a YouTube video that randomly rotates between three/four videos in the side bar. Is there one?

A: While it was created for serving ads, Datafeedr Random Ads, should do the trick for you. We’ve used it for images in the past and it does exactly what we needed it to.

Installation Instructions

1. Upload the plugin files to your plugins directory
2. Activate the plugin
3. Go to Tools > Datafeedr Random Ads
4. Create an Ad Group (a set of ads that you want to rotate)
5. Place a widget in your sidebar or template code in your template files

If you need assistance, please contact us.