I have been fortunate to have had opportunities to apply the knowledge I’ve gleaned from starting and growing my own blogs to helping clients develop blogs of their own. My portfolio of work is presented here:
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church
As part of our annual gift to our church I have developed a self-hosted WordPress based site using the Genesis theme that I customized. I handle regular maintenance and help with ensure their content gets published regularly, as well as set them up on the standard grouping of social networking channels, set up a video channel on Blip.tv for their Sunday sermons and an audio podcast that is available on iTunes.
John Cave Osborne’s Blog
I had the opportunity to overhaul a blog for friend and fellow dad blogger, John Cave Osborne. JCO is the author of the book Tales from the Trips: How Three Babies Turned Our World Upside Down and uses his site to participate in the online parenting community, as well as market his book. This site was a hosted to self-hosted WordPress blog conversion and the first site I put together using the Genesis framework.
The Adirondack Fleece Blog
My client, Centerfield Sports, was so happy with the results of the Spread Your Warmth campaign that we worked to design a similar program for one of their other product lines. The result was to set up a blog on their website again using WordPress, Thesis and the standard list of social media outposts to create the Adirondack Fleece Blog and the Get in the Game program. Through this program, which ran from September 2010 through February 2011, youth sports teams and athletic associations were profiled for a chance to win two dozen custom embroidered fleece blankets.
Susan Singer Spaces
Susan Singer Spaces is the digital home for Susan Singer, a Senior Vice President with the Corcoran Group in New York City. For this project I converted Susan’s site from a pre-packaged hosted solution to a WordPress site with a static home page using Thesis and a third party skin to keep graphic development costs low and the standard accompaniment of social media channels for content distribution.
I also consulted with Susan on a content strategy that focused on providing useful information such as events and profiles of businesses in the neighborhoods she serves to help demonstrate her authority to potential real estate clients.
EcoQueen of Green
The EcoQueen of Green Blog was a conversion from a Blogger platform to a self-hosted WordPress blog running the Thesis theme. Originally started by the first Certified Eco Broker in New York City the site suffered from a lack of exposure.
For this project I coordinated the development of a blog header and Twitter background file with a third party designer, as well as completely overhauled the blog post Blogger conversion. Additionally, I set up social media outposts for content delivery including Twitter and a Facebook page.
The Sweatshirt Blanket Blog
The Sweatshirt Blanket Blog is a self-hosted WordPress blog running the Thesis theme that is part of the corporate web site for Sweatshirt Blanket, a product line of Centerfield Sports in Yorkville, New York. In addition to setting up the blog, establishing social media outposts and coordinating design elements with the company’s in house design staff, I have been engaged to assist with content creation, community development and social outreach campaigns.
As part of the outreach program I approached influential bloggers to review the product and host giveaways. The first phase of the outreach included three contests where two winners per contest received a blanket we customized for the blogger holding the contest, as well as named their favorite charitable or non-profit organization to receive six customized sweatshirt blankets. We had nearly 600 entries into the three contests and learned about a number of worthy causes.
In an effort to harness the momentum generated by the first phase of the outreach, I created the Spread Your Warmth campaign where the company’s readers and followers would nominate their favorite charitable cause or organization to be profiled by Sweatshirt Blanket on its blog. The posted profiles would then become an entry into a monthly contest where the winning charity would receive a dozen customized sweatshirt blanket based on an open vote on the blog. The goal of this second phase of the outreach campaign was to generate awareness for the company’s product and a number of worthy causes by doing some social good.
Through Spread Your Warmth 63 deserving charities were profiled generating over 20,000 visits and nearly 40,000 page views for my client’s website. After a year long run the campaign came to a close in April 2011 with a NCAA style bracket tournament as a thank you to all the people who supported it and the organizations that were a part of it.
Valuing Metrolina
Valuing Metrolina is the blog of Metrolina Residential Appraisals, Inc., a Charlotte, North Carolina residential real estate appraisal firm. This blog was designed to replace a pre-packaged, static web site that was not flexible enough for the client, as they desired to utilize social networking to aid their marketing efforts. It is a self-hosted WordPress blog running the Thesis theme.
