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We are back after a few months off!
We decided to take some time off after Andrew and Valerie had Twin girls. Bob told Andrew he is crazy if he thinks he can do the Bunker Project with two newborns and toddler. After the first few months Andrew can say that Bob was definitely right. He recommended we take some time off until the dust settles and now we are back… but Bob is sick tonight so he is sitting this one out.
Twitter Mavens in attendance:
@paultherockgod Paul
@bsainsbury Bonnie Sainsbury
@terrythelocksmith Terry from Mr. Locksmith
@bc_insurancegal Margaret Reynolds
@itech Neil Kilburne
@twisted_majic James Karg
@tsquared Troy Tyrell
Bonnie says she is an avid reader of Brother And Twins and she recommends everyone read it. She particularly liked the latest post on Questions Mothers of Twins Hate to Hear.
Terry the locksmith’s son just had twin girls too. Cool!
James does a decent impression of Bob. James said the Bunker project is four years old… wow!
Today’s Bunker Topic is WordPress.
Why shouldn’t you use WordPress?
Bonnie said there is overhead associated with WordPress and that everyone thinks they are a web designer once they get started with WordPress.
If you are blogging you should be writing content and not wasting time creating headers and tweaking themes.
Andrew asks Bonnie if she recommends people who are susceptible to the distractions of WordPress to use Squarespace or Blogger.com
Bonnie says no but she does recommend Medium because it ONLY for blogging.
Andrew brings up a benefit of using a hosted service like Square Space or Medium your site won’t crash if you get a ton of traffic (mentioned by Oprah) like it will on a shared hosting account.
Bonnie recommends Medium because they advertise each others blogs within the Medium community. So by being on Medium you benefit from the community in Medium.
Andrew asks Bonnie if she likes the Minimalist feel of Medium. She feels more like a blogger on Medium and a marketer on WordPress.
Paul the Rock God says if your on WordPress you can own your site vs.. not owning it on other platforms. Andrew says that you can pay a small fee to use your own domain on Blogger or WordPress.com and if you leave you can export all your data.
Bonnie said on Medium, Ghost or Svtle you can spend less time there creating shorter posts and get more exposure. Andrew mentions that is what Mike Elgin is doing but he is using Google Plus.
Ghost is trying to solve the complexity of WordPress but is opening the platform to developers to create widgets and plugins and themes. Isn’t it going to become WordPress?
Plug In vs. Widget?
Paul the Rock God asks what the difference between a plug-in and a widget is?
Bonnie said that a plug-in is a script that allows you to add functionality to a website without having to code it yourself. And a plug-in is box that displays something in a meaningful way.
Neil gives us a more technical explanation for a plug-in. He says that a lot of the terminology is just marketing rubbish.
Neil says that nothing matters except what you want to put on your site. Whatever you do will automatically update on your website.
Terry said that if it is a business you hire someone to build your WordPress site for you and don’t worry about what a plug-in or widget is. If is a hobby fart around with plugins.
iTeq Global
Neil says that all the plugins in WordPress are a waste of time. Neil can’t talk about his new project ( iTeq ) in detail but it will allow you to add any functionality to your website without plugins.
Andrew brings up the Prosociate plug-in which brings in products in from Amazon and integrates your affiliate amazon products into Woo Commerce on WordPress and when you check out it gives you a 90 day cookie instead of a 24 hour cookie.
Bonnie said she knows of the plug-in and it can do much more that. Neil said it can’t do anything more than what you can do on iTeq with simple copy and paste. He said imagine WordPress or Wix on steroids.
Neil wants to get iTeq into the mainstream, especially into education. It is free to use and if we can teach the children in Canada and around the World how to design websites and mobile applications we’ll all be better off.
James said that speaking of mobile apps… The Bunker Project now has a mobile app in Windows Phone 8.
You can find out more about iTeq at www.iteqglobal.com
Should you use ReTweet Old Post?
Andrew was talking to Bob earlier in the day and Bob wanted to ask Bonnie what she thinks about the plug-in ReTweet Old Post.
Bonnie said she loves that plug-in especially if your content is evergreen. Why wouldn’t people be interested in the content now if was good before. So if used correctly she likes it.
Andrew brings up Scott Stratton and his conversation with Cliff Ravenscraft on a recent Podcast Answerman episode. Both Scott and Cliff slammed the ReTweet Old post but they are both anti-scheduled posts and don’t like the constant link sharing that Twitter has become.
James used to schedule his Tweets but then it became a pain in the ass. James like to Tweet about topics where he can be leading the curve. So if he schedules posts he won’t be breaking news or commenting on breaking news quickly.
Why use Twitter Lists?
Paul asks why use lists if your following the person anyway… why put them in a list?
Andrew said he can’t really ‘follow’ 7000 people but he can follow a short list of people within that group. He has a Bunker Project list and it is easier to see what the Bunker Mavens are up to and to engage with them.
Bonnie said she uses other peoples list to decide who to follow and to target in order to harvest followers.
Paul asks how can he monetize his Twitter account now that he is getting up in the low thousands?
James asks people to donate $1, Margaret puts out great content and connects with people and some of them become clients, Bonnie gets people to know, like and trust her so she can make sales.
James said Paul is already a business and can make money by offering a digital product, subscriptions to his list, etc.
We talk about a personal relationship on Twitter vs.. just becoming known on Twitter. If you become known and people trust your content and consistently like what you say then that is a relationship but not a ‘personal relationship’. And that is where you can monetize Twitter.
We get into how much of your social content should be linked back to your own site or products.
Andrew brings up the Instant Savings App and how difficult it is to get rid of. We talk about adware and the importance of avoiding freeware because of bundled malware.
Google sells Motorola.
Bonnie wants to talk about the Motorola sale. We talk about the benefits to Google by selling Motorola to Lenovo and keeping most of the patents.
Andrew thinks it is a good move and is a win win situation.
Bonnie said she heard from someone she trusts that Smart Phone technology won’t be iterating as fast a pace anymore. They’ve gone as far as they can and now it will be just minor iterations.
Gaming with James:
Nintendo is having a bad time now…
Angry Birds gives the NSA access to your phone info.
