Double endorsement day for WCFay

Two blogs published today encouraging people to attend WordCamp Fayetteville. Read ’em both and share!

From sponsor The Belford Group:

A different kind of camp is coming up at the end of July that we atThe Belford Group strongly endorse and hope our clients consider attending because we are sure they will find ways to better manage their own website and learn ways to grow their business. That, and it’s a lot of fun.

Read the whole blog post at The Belford Group blog.

From Arkansas Women Bloggers:

The whole idea of WordCamp Fayetteville is to learn how to make one’s blog or website better but we wanted to go into more detail about all the reasons ARWB members should register right now for WordCamp Fayetteville.

Read all top 10 reasons to attend WordCamp Fayetteville at the Arkansas Women Bloggers site.

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Entrepreneur track helps get business off the ground

2012 WC FayettevilleThanks to Angie Albright for writing this blog!

Few people go into business these days without establishing a web presence immediately. Those businesses that have been around for years have recognized the need to be online as well, which usually includes a website, ecommerce, and social media. However, few entrepreneurs have the capital to hire an IT and web development staff right off the bat. WordPress’s DIY philosophy makes it possible to have that necessary web presence and to do business online effectively.

 

For entrepreneurs, WordPress’s interactive nature means businesses can be responsive to the industry and to their customers or clients. The Entrepreneur Track at WordCamp this year has been designed to help those businesses learn how to use their site to brand, track, and promote the business while also providing a secure online environment for the business and for their visitors.

 

Kyle Smith is going to kick off the day by talking about Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in Style with Kyle. Wait! This IS for entrepreneurs! Kyle will talk about how to work with the way your site LOOKS to its visitors, and how to make adjustments to colors, fonts, and all other things that make a site attractive and user-friendly. Later in the day, the talented folks from Blue Zoo Creative will teach attendees about using WordPress Plugins (did you know there are more than 20,000 of them?) in “There’s an App (Plugin) for That!” They will focus on how to find the right plugins to run your business and show off a few of their favorites.

 

Author and marketing wiz Lela Davidson is going to talk to entrepreneurs about how to use WordPress to promote their business in her session entitled, “You Made a Sex Tape. Now Who’s Going to See It?” (She promises no sex tapes will actually be viewed or available during the session, but we recommend you attend the session anyway.) How can you use WordPress to promote your product, business, or service? Lela will offer concrete strategies for doing just that.

 

Once you’ve done the promotion, how do you know if it’s working? Queen of Google Analytics, Angela Belford of The Belford Group, will conduct a session on using Google Analytics and demystifying some of its new dashboard features. Knowing how to read the analytics and investing some time in Google Analytics will help entrepreneurs take their business to new levels of success.

 

The day will close with Cade Collister going into “Lock Down.” What that actually means is that he’ll offer some guidance for how to secure your site and keep it safe for both the business and the people using the site. Josh Clemence from Acumen Brands will close the day by challenging entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs to “Just Do It” and how to harness the power of WordPress to get your ideas for that new business off the ground.

 

Get smart. Get inspired. Get your business off the ground!

 

 

 

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Developer Track provides many learning opportunities

2012 WC FayettevilleWhen most people think of a technology or web development conference, they probably envision rooms filled with people writing code and creating highly technical aspects of websites.

WordCamps are unique in that they are technology conferences for the average WordPress user, which includes people from all backgrounds and technical skill levels. The developers are the backbone of WordPress and the WordCamp experience in the sense that they are the ones who make WordPress work. They write the plugins, create custom themes and make sites more secure.

As technology changes and people interact with blogs and websites on an ever-evolving scale, it’s the developer’s job to keep up with, and even ahead of, those changes. Each year, WordCamp Fayetteville’s Developer Track has provided valuable content for WordCamp’s most technical participants and this year promises to be just as valuable.

Some of the sessions include:

  • Rapid Theme Development with Genesis Framework– Cotton Rohrscheib will demonstrate how WordPress can be a totally customizable content management solution with the help of Genesis Framework.
  • UX, UI, WTF-Dustin Williams says this about his session: “Let’s have a chat about how User Experience (UX), the User Interface (UI) and even Content is important to everything that we interact with. We will talk about examples and ideas from the Analog world to the Digital world, how users interact with them, and how we can implement them into your projects.”
  • Going Mobile with WordPress-Shelley Keith will talk about plugins, mobile app builders and responsive themes and how all three relate to the WordPress world.

There will also be sessions about the foundational components of working in WordPress including site security and CSS-related topics.

Another highlight of this year’s Developer Track features a speaker known as “Otto” in the WordPress forums. Participants will get the chance to “Ask Otto Anything” after hearing about how he got involved in the support forums and his role. If you have any sort of support questions, this is the place to be and Otto is the person to ask.

A major feature that was built into the schedule for this year’s WordCamp Fayetteville is the simple fact that there’s shorter sessions and more time to network between sessions. This gives attendees and speakers more time to interact, ask questions and learn from each other. There’s no doubt that some great ideas and new programming features will be born from discussions happening in this year’s WordCamp Fayetteville Developer Track.

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Content Creators track gives blogger track a facelift

Thanks to April Robertson for writing this blog for us!

2012 WC FayettevilleIf you’ve been to WordCamp Fayetteville before, you might not recognize the Content Creators track. Originally, it was called “the bloggers track” but we’ve improved it so much that we gave it a new name.

A bit o’ history

We decided there needed to be an easier way to tell the difference between the blogger and entrepreneur tracks so we did two things: better defined the tracks and changed the name for the blogger track to “Content Creators” to better reflect its purpose.

Essentially, the Content Creators track is for those whose content is your product, whether you sell it or not. This includes hobby bloggers, professional/corporate bloggers or other writers. If your words are not your product and you are using WordPress as a vehicle to sell or promote a different product or service, the Entrepreneur Track might be more suited to your business plan.

Great content

This year’s Content Creator track has seven great sessions designed to effectively feature your written copy, photos, websites and stories, winning the attention of a broader audience and making money along the way.

Sessions available in the Content Creator track include:

  • Writing Online focuses on a different perspective for writing online and seeing things through the readers’ eyes. Jamie Smith and Angie Albright of The Belford Group will teach the ins and outs of search engine optimization, online reading habits and effective layout and style. These two speakers have a varied background of writing professionally and hope to lend tips for strategies that work across a plethora of published material: websites, blogs and personal sites.
  • The Power of Your Story is designed to help you cut through the noise of social media spamming and really connect with your audience. Kimanzi Constable, author of The Difference Between Living and Existing, will walk you through building a platform, starting a business that’s bound to be successful and winning the attention of your ideal readers.
  • Successful Social Media Marketing combines the pillars of public relations: earned, owned and paid media with new techniques and experimental tactics to make the most of your time in promoting your blog or business. Speaker for this session is social media marketer Stephanie McCratic of Acumen Holdings.
  • How to Make Money Blogging covers the best routes to earn revenue from a WordPress blog. Eleanor Evans has four years of experience with this subject and hopes to guide others in advertising networks, paid link placements, sponsored content, reviews and more. If you’re looking to write about a certain brand or learn the FTC disclosure requirements, this is the session for you.
  • Linkbuilding for WordPress centers on the essential practice made easier by WordPress widgets, plugins and how to take advantage of them. Rebecca Haden, owner of Haden Interactive and instructor at Northwest Arkansas Community College, will host the session.
  • In the Eye of the Beholder: Imagery in the WordPress Blog encompasses a broad range of image topics- design, connection to social media sites- especially Pinterest, obtaining images legally, photo crediting your own work and using photos to overcome writer’s block. Speaker Jennifer Ramsey is owner of Desert Rose Coaching and Consulting in Midland, Texas.
  • In The Why and How of Going Multi-Author, speaker Kyle Judkins shows us why guest bloggers are beneficially for both sides: the owner of the blog and the guest bloggers. He’ll provide strategies and tools to keep the technique an effective one.
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New to WordPress? The WordPress 101 track is for you

Thanks to Megan Perez for writing this blog post!

2012 WC FayettevilleWhat’s all this about a WordPress 101 track at this year’s WordCamp Fayetteville?  It’s exactly that: a track designed specifically for people who have little to no previous WordPress experience.  Feedback from last year’s Camp included quite a bit of discussion about offering basic sessions on the fundamental elements of using WordPress: wordpress.com versus wordpress.org; posts versus pages; using the Dashboard; changing themes; adding photos;  creating links and so on.

This year, we took that feedback and incorporated it into the very foundation of the Camp’s session planning. We have seven different presentations prepared; a Friday night “orientation” event for the beginners; and a Sunday consultation meeting.  We’ve also shortened this year’s sessions so that there is more time between programs for Camp attendees to visit, meet and network with one another.

The WordPress 101 track will include discussion on wordpress.com; site styling; writing content; writing for search engines; site administration; and an end-of-the-day debriefing that will discuss post-conference, continuing education opportunities and session summaries.

Speakers include seasoned WordPress enthusiasts, professional WordPress trainers, website administrators, copywriters, and graphic designers.

Camp attendees are free to attend any session in any of the tracks at any time. Your ticket does not lock you into any particular series of presentations.  Float around. Slide from track to track. Explore. This is your learning experience. We encourage you to take ownership of it and make it yours.  If this is your very first Camp, you may want to take a look at our Frequently Asked Questions page to get an idea of what all of the hubbub is about and what you should bring.

We hope to see you there. It’s going to be a good one.

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