The process to make content easier to share and more engaging online doesn't have to be a complicated one. In fact, you don't even need the expertise of a professional web developer or a great amount of time for development. In a lot of instances, you can take existing components and mould them to your specific needs. You do, however, need to think creatively at times and be willing to stay persistent in learning how to accomplish your goals.
In this chapter, we shall:
Go over what you should already know prior to reading this book
Gain insight to social media and its benefits
Learn the fundamentals, misconceptions, and basic implementations of social media
Leverage WordPress's core features to drive more site engagement
Create a newsletter campaign using a keyword-based RSS feed
Explore ideas to build business relationships
So let's get on with it.
This book assumes that you already have a fair understanding of WordPress, blogging, and social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter among others. It is not a book on how to build such networking sites but rather a primer on how you can provide your site visitors with similar site features, to drive more interactions with each other. Parts of this book will also rely on reputable third-party components and services to beef up your site.
You will also need to run a self-hosted version of WordPress that you can access on the backend, meaning that you can upload and modify files, which usually requires access to an FTP client, as well. Alternatively, you can easily get the same setup through services like ManageWP (http://managewp.com) or Pagely (http://page.ly), which bypass most of the technicalities. If you only understood half of the material thus far, you can brush up your knowledge through the resources listed below.
Everything you need to know about WordPress: http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page
Tutorials: http://wordpress.tv/category/how-to/, http://wpmututorials.com/category/basics/, http://net.tutsplus.com/category/tutorials/wordpress/
WordPress news: http://wordpress.org/news/, http://wpcandy.com, http://wpmu.org/, http://wptavern.com