It’s all about Wordpress and the WordCamp Atlanta on this week’s episode of The Bella Buzz. Desiree braved the icy roads of Atlanta to attend the Conference on Saturday for a chance to network with over 200 attendees interested in hearing about best practices and upcoming enhancements to WordPress.

The Wordpress platform can be called a blogging tool, a publishing platform or a content management system (CMS).  Whatever the terminology, it has become a factor across the web for developing vibrant web sites.

The open source tool was first launched in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg, and according to WikipediA as of September 2009 is being used by 202 Million websites worldwide.

Bella Web Design and Fluid Media both use the Wordpress platform as part of the tool kit we use with clients who are looking to establish a solid web presence.  Based upon the flexibility of design and functionality, it has become a logical choice when looking for ways in which to present content.

(Attention: Wordpress designers you can enter a contest the Bella Web Design is hosting, check this site for details and how to enter.)

When considering the use of Wordpress as your web platform, there are choices that you can make based upon needs.  Plugins are available to add practically any functionality that you can imagine for your site, and from a design standpoint you can look into Themes.  Themes are available for free that can be easily implemented into a site for a nice graphic feel for visitors, while advanced implementations can include custom themes designed to achieve specific graphic standard requirements you may have.  It can be an interesting business model for a designer to focus exclusively on building and marketing themes via the “freemium” model.  Freemium by the way is a term coined by Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson for when web services are offered at a basic level for free, with the intention of moving users into paid versions with additional features.

The WordCamp Atlanta Conference was a multi tracked event with beginner, intermediate and advanced tracks, with many quality presenters including locals such as Amani Channel, Dougal Campbell, and Rusty Tanton. As well as national figures such as Mitch Canter and Aaron Brazell.

We will update this post as the video presentations from all of the sessions are posted in a single location, but check out the Speakers page of the Conference web site to see who presented so you can search for presentations.

If you are interested in seeing what other people are saying about WordCamp Atlanta, search for the Twitter hashtag #wcatl.

Our discussion veers into a little segment about the changing role of “spec” creative in the design world. In the past, any client who asked a creative shop to provide designs prior to awarding the work was looked down upon or simply avoided.  Today, the approach has changed to where entire web sites such as Template Monster and Boxed Art have sprung up to handle the demand of creative work distribution.

As we turn the corner on 2010 and get into conference mode, keep an eye out for the next Metro Atlanta event SoCon10, January 29 – 30, 2010.

The title of the conference was Social Media Marketing .. Affordable, Effective and Essential. Obviously, social media efforts were the main topic for each of the presenters during the two day agenda.  What developed was a common theme about looking for efficiencies and automation to help manage the time commitment involved in social media campaigns.

We felt that we should do a followup podcast to detail the tools that we use to help with the process ….. with one caveat.  We don’t necessarily agree that you SHOULD automate the entire process of posting to social networks.  In order to fully engage in the social networks, the content that is posted should be applicable, relevant and targeted towards the audience that is congregating on each network.  By using automation tools you run the risk of presenting items that do not appeal to the audience and might damage your brand reputation.

Keep in my that if you only post your blog RSS feed into Twitter, then why would anyone follow you there?  You may be missing out on the opportunity to develop a real relationship with a customer, but if you only use it to publish blog posts, we’ll just subscribe to your RSS feed.

However, here is a rundown on some tools to consider.

The first tool that we reference is Tweetdeck.  The version 0.25b contains a simple checkbox that allows for posting messages to both Twitter and Facebook.  Cameron and I both use this tool, and determine at the point of publish where the message should appear.

Mary Boland from Rabun County CVB detailed how she uses the RSS function of the various blogs that she produces, to distribute the content to the Facebook Group page using the Notes application.

Here are some screen shots for integrating an RSS feed into your Facebook page:

1) Notes Application Page, Find the Edit Import Settings:

2) On the Import Settings Page, place the RSS feed link for you blog:

To integrate some content from Social Networks into your blog, you can find user generated content on YouTube and embed a player on your site so new videos will appear as they are posted on the subscribed channel.

A publishing tool that we have not used, but have heard mentioned a lot is Ping.fm.  There are numerous social networks that Ping.fm can post to from a single point of distribution.  Beware that there are some who consider the use of this tool as a form of spamming content across all social networks.

Talk during the presentations turned towards the help of interns posting to the social networks, and it was agreed that the potential for problems could occur, the group was assured that it had not happened and that the interns were grateful to be able to display real world experience on their resume upon graduation.  Specific guidelines were provided regarding what could be posted.

We applaud VisitAthensGA for being upfront about the fact that it is an intern who is posting, and they clearly demonstrate it in the Twitter profile seen below:

Almost forgotten to be mentioned on the podcast was the application called Twitterfeed.  Signing up on Twitterfeed will give you the ability to automatically have blog posts appear as a Tweet.

Finally, we caution against getting overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information that was presented and all of the social networks that were touched upon.  Craft a strategic plan that will get you familiar with using the networks first, then worry about automating the process of getting a consistent stream of content published.

Cameron and I had observed through our twitter following that there are an enormous number of conferences taking place across the country regarding online marketing, so it was great to be able to attend right in our backyard.

One of the key takeaways from the event was the actual face to face meeting of friends and acquaintances who we have only communicated with via online social networking. Meeting Desiree Scales, Greg Bond, Tessa, Svy and others in person really elevates the relationship to a whole other level.

The first part of the Saturday event consisted of some traditional presentations with a little audience participation thrown in, that had to do with a comparison of Atlanta versus Silicon Valley, plus a discussion of the Brand Atlanta campaign. The agenda indicates that they were directed to present on What We Can Learn from Silicon Valley and Atlanta’s Niche In The Social Media Universe … Although very smart guys, the audience response to what Jeff Haynie and Andrew Wilson were presenting was less than spectacular. It just seemed to be a bunch of focusing on the small local scene and not enough of discussing the big picture of social media.

Chris Carfi in his keynote demonstrated how the development of markets over the course of history manifests itself today in the way in which conversations can contribute to actions in the online space.

His presentation slides are available here:

Cameron had the opportunity to sit in on two afternoon sessions. The first regarding B2B applications for social meeting, moderated by John Gatrell, who posted a great conference right up at his blog Spatiallyrelevant.org.

A point of difference during the session is the role of guest posting on behalf of a CEO. Should there be others who are speaking on behalf of the CEO when that person is too busy to keep up a consistent time frame for communicating?

The second session of the afternoon was a session called What’s Next for Social Media? The moderator of this session was Chad Isreal from Engauge.

Mobile usage and applications that take advantage of location based services seemed to be high on the list social media tools.  On the heels of the announcement of Google Latitude the group identified the term “Augmented Reality” is what we will look for.

Augmented Reality in terms of relating your physical presence intersecting with your online profile to increase the potential for interaction. Wearing of certain eyewear might see generated images super imposed on top of the physical surroundings.

Final note of the day,

Kennesaw State announced at the start of the day the awarding of a $1.5 million dollar grant from The Harnisch Foundation to develop sustainable journalism models.

This concept came right on the heels of hearing on NPR another approach to funding investigative journalists, which is a high cost and therefore easily cut element of the media. The organization called ProPublica is about journalism in the public’s interest.