Notes: WordPress global Marketing Team meeting, September 28, 2022

If you are reading these notes on a website other than the Make WordPress Marketing blog, you can add comments directly to the #marketing channel on the Make WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. or via the team’s blog.

After each item in the meeting notes, there is a link directly to its related Slack thread. This will help you join the discussions and get more involved. The team may not be aware of comments you add on other sites which replicate the notes.

1. Welcome and introduction

These summary notes focus on key items and actions from the meeting and assist with asynchronous contribution to the Global Marketing Team. For those unable to attend a meeting live due to differences in time zones and other commitments, please do join the discussion threads after the meeting and give your updates. If you are working on a task, please also update the relevant GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ ticket in the WordPress Marketing Team repository.

2. Getting to know each other

  1. Meeting attendees: participants can be viewed in this Slack thread. We welcome people from across all time zones to participate.
  2. Social question of the week from @nalininonstopnewsuk: In the spirit of WordPress Translation Day, what is your favorite language, and do you watch films in other languages? Read the replies from contributors on Slack.

3. Notes and volunteer opportunities

Thank you to our notetaking volunteers for the next few weeks. How-to information for the team’s notes are available in the Marketing Team Handbook. We will be adding screenshots to help contributors less familiar with updating the blog site.

The GitHub card for all aspects of each week’s meeting and any collaboration are linked in the list below by date. If you have suggestions for the agendas for these meetings or have an update you can give asynchronously, you can also add them to the card for the relevant week. There are contributors available to help anyone get started with the team GitHub, message in the main Marketing slack channel and include @nalininonstopnewsuk in your message.

Team notes from 21 September 2022 — props to @santanainniss for drafting and @nalininonstopnewsuk for reviewing.

Notetakers for coming weeks – join our group of contributors who help with notes by volunteering when you see a call for notetakers during our meetings, or by adding your name to the weekly GitHub card.

05 October 2022@adeebmalik
12 October 2022@Robin
19 October 2022 – (update) @kawserz

Help to facilitate a coffee break?

We are seeking contributors to volunteer to open the virtual bi-weekly coffee break.

Check out GitHub card #23 and add your name to the list! Read the updated guide on facilitating a coffee break and volunteer. Free versions of Zoom and Google Meet can be used, you do not need to have a pro account.

4. Marketing project and task updates

Update from @eidolonnight

The main Marketing Team task board is available in GitHub. If you would like help using GitHub, please reply in this thread. There is help available.

Also, if you’re a member of the WordPress Github organization and have 2 Factor Authentication disabled, please enable it on your GitHub account, as it will soon be required. You can enable it here: https://github.com/settings/security

4a. Updates on WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ social media accounts and how you can help

A reminder from @eidolonnight, you can find details for helping share and amplify WordPress news on social media in the WordPress Social Media Amplification (GitHub ticket #7). You will also find a list of the primary WordPress.org social accounts and campaign contacts there.

This is a good first task for new contributors. You can get started participating in our online conversations and/or contributing content to one of our active campaigns. You can post in this thread and tag any of the people listed in the “Process” section of that GitHub issue.

We had several great ideas come in from new contributors at Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/., WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. US (WCUS). Read our brainstorm document for more info: WCUS Social Content Brainstorm

4b. Updates on forthcoming WordPress releases and FSE

@dansoschin subbed in for WordPress 6.1 Marketing & Communications Lead, @jpantani, for 6.1 release updates. Dan noted WordPress 6.1 Beta 2 shipped on 27 September 2022 and is now available. He will be sharing links in the #marketing channel to start work on the About Page later in the week. (More on this later in the notes)

4c. Contributor events update

  • WordCamp Asia’s Contributor Day is 17 February 2023. If you will be at Contributor Day and involved in the marketing table please add to GitHub ticket #108.
    • For anyone who would like to act as table leads, the table leads from WCEU and WCUS can certainly help.
  • @nalininonstopnewsuk inquired if anyone knows any other WordCamp or WordPress MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. contributor days/ events which are likely to have a marketing table?

4d. Newsletters and series

  • Month in WordPress:  If you have any news or Make team updates that would be valuable and relevant for the September 2022 edition, please feel free to add them as a comment to this GitHub card #109 by Friday, 30 September 2022. Note that this edition could go out on 10 October 2022.
    • @rmartinezduque will keep us informed on her progress and the final publication date. 
  • Annual WordPress Meetup Survey: The Community Team would like to conduct another outreach effort to encourage meetup organizers and members to complete the Annual WordPress Meetup Survey (available in 14 languages). The deadline has been set as October 15, 2022.
  • People of WordPress: Copy editing for the current edition is in progress, there is a delay due to the geographic situation in the country of the person to be featured. This is likely to be published in a few days.

4e. Campaigns

Photos directory initiative (GitHub card #80) for World Photography Day.

Please continue to submit your photos, and if you would like to share a story behind the photo you sent and the place it represents, please feel free to reach out to @rmartinezduque on the #marketing or @photos channel on the Make WordPress Slack.

These are some examples of photo stories shared on Twitter as part of the #WPPhotos campaign. These were also shared across other WordPress.org social platforms:

5. Diary dates – upcoming events and meetings

Our next Coffee break will be Thursday October 6, 2022 at 18:30/ 6.30pm UTC. We still need a facilitator!

This bi-weekly social coffee break is held by the Make Marketing team for all WordPress Marketing contributors, and occasional guests. Stop by and meet some of the friendly faces marketing WordPress.

Follow this Google Calendar with meetings, collaborations, and social activities. We also list important dates in this Forthcoming Diary Dates post.

6. Open floor

Suggestions for social media posts: @amitpatelmd has some ideas/suggestions for social media posts, specifically around hashtags that may be relevant to WordPress topics and their various audiences. He sees great content being published—both on the WordPress.org official account and posts shared by community members—and wants to help extend the reach of this content to audiences via organic content SEO as opposed to only relying on promoted ads. Amit will draft some bullet points for Marketing’s review and discussion.

@eidolonnight asked Amit to share his ideas/suggestions in the WordPress Social Media Amplification card (GitHub card #7) to help ensure these ideas/suggestions don’t get lost and so that contributors get the credit they deserve.

Next meeting

Join the GitHub card #116 for next week’s meeting on 5 October 2022 at 15:00 UTC in the Marketing Team channel on the WordPress Slack.

Post meeting

  • @dansoschin shared the draft to WordPress 6.1 About Page and welcomes edits. A few notes:
    • Many thanks to @annezazu for her work in the exploration of 6.1 and for seeding a lot of the copy.
    • The About Page is not seen by all WordPress users. It’s seen by users after they have upgraded and if they have access to the dashboard. More promotional content/copy about features/benefits will go into the news release that will be created in a few weeks.
    • This doc is a starter, so it is not meant to be complete. If you worked on something that is compelling enough to be included, please add it even if you are not comfortable with writing copy, as the team can help refine it for you. The same for features. If you feel another feature should be included, please add it. 
    • Please track any changes using the Suggest Edit mode. 
    • Major edits will close on 06 October 2022.

#marketing-team, #meeting-notes

Process Proposal: Moderating the New Showcase

Earlier in 2023, @jpantani posted about Revitalizing the Showcase, and the new Showcase launched on October 18th, 2023. The following is an update on what sort of entries have come in so far, and a proposal for the next steps in moderation.

Submission Stats

In the first 30 days post-launch, the Showcase received 142 new submissions. This is in line with expectations based on the trend of over a thousand submissions each year. After performing a high-level review of these entries, I found the following:

  • Of the 142 entries, 48 (34%) were immediately omitted due to the site: not loading, having SSLSSL Secure Socket Layer - Encryption from the server to the browser and back. Prevents prying eyes from seeing what you are sending between your browser and the server. errors, being a blank/hosting/domain page, containing only default content (i.e. “Hello world”), being a duplicate submission, or not being a WordPress site.
  • 21 entries (15%) were discounted due to low-resolution images, excessive ads, broken styling, etc. Some of these seem to be intentional efforts to drive traffic to sites with a ton of ads or affiliate links.
  • The remaining 73 entries are in this Google sheet so everyone can see the breadth of submissions. Note that these have not been reviewed beyond the simple checks mentioned above.

49% of entries being unsuitable (due to the reasons stated above) for the Showcase is also in line with previous Showcase behavior. Unfortunately, the new submission form and login requirement do not seem to be deterring these low-quality entries.

Ongoing Showcase Moderation

Given the volume and nature of the Showcase submission cadence, it would not make sense to create GithubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ issues for every submission. Even narrowed to the 73 passable entries, creating an issue per submission would be time-consuming and create a lot of notification noise. It should be noted that no integration currently allows the automatic creation of Github issues from Showcase submissions.

Instead, I think a Showcase admin (myself or perhaps @ndiego or @laurlittle) could periodically export entries to a spreadsheet like the one shared above. Marketing contributors and others are invited to the sheet to collaborate on the review. Based on the obvious motivation to manipulate this process, this document should not be publicly editable, but could be publicly visible.

After sites are reviewed in the spreadsheet, those deemed appropriate for publication in the Showcase could be turned into Github issues (ideally with a new issue template) where collaborators can submit screenshots, copy, etc. Once complete, a Showcase admin could publish this content as a new Showcase entry. This process is similar to that of the People of WordPress, so there is some precedent for it working already.

Next Steps

This post is a proposal to which everyone can offer feedback and/or volunteer to help with moderation and content. With new submissions piling up daily, establishing a process within the next couple of weeks is the soft deadline. Future iterations are certainly possible and expected, and I would hope that over time some of these tasks can be automated.

Assuming this process is agreeable, we will need the following:

  • A fresh Google sheet to store exported Showcase submissions
  • A new issue template in the Marketing-Team repo
  • Reviewers to go through submissions and create Github issues for those that meet the submission criteria
  • Copywriters to write the Showcase entry descriptions (an excellent task for new contributors)
  • Designers to capture the necessary screenshots

Thank you to @ndiego, @laurlittle, @rmartinezduque, and @ninianepress for their review of this proposal.

+make.wordpress.org/design/

How to Create a Business Website with WordPress

Is having an online presence important or useful for your organization? Let’s talk about how to create a business website using WordPress.

Is having an online presence important or useful for your organization? Then creating a business website is one of the first steps you will take. It is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to find clients both locally and around the world.

So how do you actually create a website?  We will take you through the ten key steps.

First, let us look at why you should build your business website using WordPress.org

Why you should create your business website with WordPress

WordPress is one of the most trusted and used Content Management Systems (CMS) and platforms in the world. Reasons for choosing WordPress include:

  • 31% of all websites run on WordPress. With nearly two billion websites in the world, that is a lot of users putting their confidence in WordPress.
  • Websites small and large use WordPress. From personal blogs to large newsgathering sites like CNN, WordPress can handle all types of sites.
  • Get the look you want. You can create a unique style for your website by utilizing thousands of free and paid themes available for WordPress.
  • Huge community available to support you. WordPress users can access help and support from one of the largest Open SourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. communities consisting of developers, writers, editors, and designers. You will find no end to the amount of assistance available in the community’s support forumSupport Forum WordPress Support Forums is a place to go for help and conversations around using WordPress. Also the place to go to report issues that are caused by errors with the WordPress code and implementations..

If you are a small business operating on a tight budget, using WordPress helps you build an online presence more easily. The WordPress Open Source CMS is free to download and use. You need to pay for your domain, hosting, and maintenance (if you choose to hire a developer).

You also have the option to join an amazing network of people by contributing to one of the WordPress groups. These groups are organized at https://make.wordpress.org/

Now that you have chosen WordPress to help run the website for your organization, we will explore what you will need to build it.

Create Your Domain Name and Business Email

A domain name is the website ‘name’ or the web address where users can visit your site, like www.yourcompany.com. There are a variety of top-level domains available. These can be country-specific and have a suffix like .com, .uk, .ie or represent the type of organization for example .biz, .org

Many domains will have an option for you to choose an email address which uses your website address, for instance, hello@yourcompany.com

An email address where prospective clients or customers can contact you is a vital part of having an online presence. It may not look as professional if you use a personal email address.

You can purchase a domain name through a domain name registrar. There are a number of registrars available. Each one is equipped with its own set of features and comes with a number of advantages and disadvantages. Once you have identified the one that fits your organization, you can pay to register your domain name for a set period, from a year to a maximum available from that particular registrar.

Domain Name Registrar

Many of the domain name registrars will also offer email addresses for your business at an additional cost. While you are viewing the benefits of each registrar it is a good idea to see which email package fits what you require based on the number of accounts you can create and amount of storage you might need.

Now that you have your name and contact details set up, it is time to think about exactly what you want from your website.

What does Your Website Offer?

It can be beneficial for an organization to have an online presence. But do you know what you want it to achieve?

A starting point is to consider what makes your offering unique. In other words, why will people want to buy your products or services? One of the best ways to do this is to write one clear sentence outlining your company’s value proposition.

The next step is to plan what your website will include. This can include text, images, selling or sign-up options. Make a list of the features and functionality you will need. Do you need an FAQ page to answer complex questions? What about a blog? Do you need an eCommerce option to make online sales? Do you need a contact form?

At the top of this list should be what you will include on your homepage. It can’t have everything so you will need to choose what elements are the most important to your organization. This can be by considering what will maximize customer conversions – whether that is for sales, leads, subscribers or anything else

This screenshot shows how you can add pages to your website using WordPress.

What is your branding?

A strong brand is important for businesses of all sizes. It improves recognition of your organization and fosters confidence in it which, in turn, can generate more repeat customers.

The first step is to design your logo which is consistent with your existing brand or helps you define one for your company. If you do not have an offline logo you can adapt for the web, you can either design one yourself using a graphic editors or hire a design agency or freelancer. The style and wording that form part of a logo are aimed at reflecting your business and its offerings. You will want your logo to reflect your company in a meaningful way and this can be discussed and developed as you explore what you want through the design process.

Another factor to take into account is your logo’s color — something you will also need to think about for the website as a whole. Different colors create different emotions for customers. Are you creating a youthful brand or one that is a bit more mature? Your color palette can help you develop and market your brand.

Web colors are different than the ones you work with offline. There are a number of online palette tools which can help you choose web-friendly and accessible colors, find schemes which are close to your printed publication ones, and better understand how different audiences may reactReact React is a JavaScript library that makes it easy to reason about, construct, and maintain stateless and stateful user interfaces. https://reactjs.org/. to your choices.

How will you build your site?

There are two general approaches to building your business website — either doing it yourself or hiring a developer to help with part or the entire project.

If your knowledge of coding is mainly basic HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. and CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site., you can build your business website using WordPress or using a drag and drop WordPress page builder. Page builders allow you to customize much of your website without having to write complex coding yourself. However, while page builders are much more powerful nowadays, they still come with some limitations.

Page builders

The new WordPress Editor named GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ has features aimed at supporting you in developing your website pages and posts through the use of blocks.

Gutenberg and WordPress


If you have limited time and would like to work alongside a web specialist, you can hire a developer, web designer, or a web content builder familiar with using the WordPress CMS. When hiring a developer, make sure they have have a track record of building reliable, fast websites, is aware of mobile-design and has an understanding of search engine optimization (SEO).

Who will host your website?

You will need a hosting space for your website. This is where the website will live.

Before selecting a host, carry out some research on what might best fit your organization’s needs. There are generally three main factors to consider when picking a host:
● speed
● customer support
● uptime

You can start by reviewing the hosts recommended by WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/.

Hosting

What will your website look like?

Think about the look and feel you want to have for your website look and and how it is going to fit in or change your existing organization’s branding.

On WordPress you can browse through thousands of themes to select one which will help your website content stand out. In the Theme Directory, you can find out more about each theme, whether it is compatible with your version of WordPress and the experience of other users. Here are some factors to consider when picking your theme and theme provider:

● is it being regularly maintained?
● are other users of the theme satisfied with what it offers?
● does it support your chosen plugins?
● will it help make your website easier to find by search engines (more on this later)?

WordPress Theme Directory

What content will you add to your website?

Good content is what brings people to your website, stay there, and eventually make a purchase or build their relationship with your organization. This is why you will need to plan the information and how it is structured. Here are some things to think about:

  • What information do you want your customers to find on your homepage? In WordPress you have lots of options from a static homepage with a welcome message to a series of blog posts and sections showcasing your products or services
  • What will appear on the landing pages (the webpage visitors reach when they follow an external link to your website)?
  • What is the strategy for the type and style of your regular articles? These may be in the form of a blog or updates to your news pages
  • When creating content, think about how people will find your information when they are searching the internet (more on search engine optimization below).

How will your website be found?

How do you get people to find your site in the first place so that you can engage with them and encourage them to spend time on the content you are providing?

Developing a solid search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is vital. There are lots of good templates available which can be adapted for an organization’s needs and incorporate useful tips from members of the WordPress community. By following a SEO strategy, you will be helping potential customers find your website through their online searches, which in turn can improve your sales conversions and increase brand awareness.

There are two avenues you can go down to increase search traffic: paid or organic.

  • Paid search involves an advertising budget to increase a search engine result when someone types in a word or phrase.
  • Organic search is based on publishing content using good SEO practices.

An effective way to organically optimize your results is by researching “long tail keywords.” To illustrate, a shoe company may want to rank first for “shoes” as may thousands of other firms. Given the popularity of the keyword “shoes,” you would need to spend a lot of money to rank well for that specific term.

A better option would be to target long tail keywords, for example, “women’s white air force 1s.” The keyword “shoes” will have more searches, but the consumers typing in “women’s white air force 1s” are much more likely to make a purchase. If your search engine strategy involves paying for Google Ads, it can be cheaper to pay for long tail keywords than a keyword like “shoes.”

Google Ads

Once you have planned your keywords, you can also plan how they link with each other. A URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org map (also known as keyword mapping) can help:

  • your visitors in their journey around your site
  • encourage visitors to explore material you have linked together
  • help search engines in mapping the usefulness of your information, pages and posts
  • assist you in developing new content and promotion opportunities as the maps can help identify what other pages should link to each other and the keywords you are using on different pages.

Can your website scale?

Now that you have your SEO strategy planned, you will need to ensure that your website is capable to support your needs in delivering it.

WordPress plugins are like apps which you can use to add new features and functionality to your website. Plugins need regular updates to gain new functionality and to help keep your website secure.

SEO Plugins 


Your first step could be to install an SEO pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party to assist you in maintaining your website SEO by:

  • optimizing your content
  • giving you more control of your breadcrumbs (navigation paths which appear at the top of your page and help search engines understand your website’s structure
  • allowing you to set SEO metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress.-info for pages and archives
  • and through a number of other functions.

The screenshot above shows examples of the plugins you can use on WordPress to boost your SEO.

Once you have set up your website, you can build and submit your sitemap to Google, Bing, Yahoo (via Bing) and other search engines to make it easier for them to find your site’s pages.

How can you optimize your site?

All that hard work of attracting customers to your website can be diminished if it performs poorly. Users are often only willing to give you seconds of their time before leaving a web page.

Here are just some of the checks you can make to help your website run smoothly.

  • check your images are web-friendly in size and number to avoid users having to wait a long time for the page to load
  • put in security protection to mitigate against hacks and malware which could slow down your site
  • ask if your host can add an SSLSSL Secure Socket Layer - Encryption from the server to the browser and back. Prevents prying eyes from seeing what you are sending between your browser and the server. licence to your site to help protect your users if you are using forms and collecting personal data
  • identify WordPress plugins tested for monitoring or improving website performance
  • avoid lots of plugins that you don’t need which will have an adverse effect on loading times
  • find out how visitors with accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) needs use your website and make it easier for them.

If you are not experienced in web development, you can talk with a professional web developer to help optimize your website’s performance.

Conclusion

Following these introductory 10 steps will help you highlight your business to new audiences and customers. By using WordPress, once you have your basic site you can add more features and content to expand your online presence.

Get started today by downloading WordPress.org and enjoy building your new site.

WordPress.org download

Credits

Thanks to @joelobo and @webcommsat for writing this guide, and the businesses that worked with them. Also thanks to @mcdwayne, @harryjackson1221, and @bridgetwillard of the marketing team for their contributions to it.

Supporting the WordPress Foundation through a Google Ads Grant

The WordPress Foundation (WPF) is approved for a grant from Google Ads. The primary aim of using the grant is to increase overall awareness and coverage of the foundation and topics related to its mission. This might be reflected in additional coverage via social media, blogs, tech media, etc. Here are some details and how you can help this project succeed.

Background

The grant is for restricted use of up to $10,000 for monthly ads spent through AdWords to support the mission of the WPF:

To ensure free access, in perpetuity, to the software projects we support. People and businesses come and go, so it is essential to ensure that the source code for these projects will survive beyond the current contributor base so that we may create a stable platform for web publishing for generations to come.

wordpressfoundation.org

From Google: “To qualify for Google Ad Grants, your organization must be an eligible nonprofit, have a high-quality website that meets our website policy, and be able to meet the program policies.” The WordPress Foundation has met these requirements and will launch the campaign tentatively this spring, in March 2024.

Campaign Scope

In an Ad Grants campaign, nonprofits may only leverage text ads (no images) supported by multi-word keyword phrases (no single words). To this end, text ad campaigns will be created that drive awareness of the following topics/items/categories:

Objective & Metrics

Apart from monitoring campaign performance using the typical AdWords KPIs such as impressions, clicks, and quality score, we’ll look at the total amount and quality of traffic driven to the promoted resources. Additionally, with more traffic to the WPF website, the foundation may receive additional donations. While not a primary goal, it’s another valuable measurement of success. @dansoschin will configure and manage the campaigns with approval from the project’s leadership team. Results will be shared in the marketing SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel and/or marketing blog when appropriate.

How You Can Help

Leave comments below, including links, for any resources you believe align with the WFP mission and would be helpful to support as part of this campaign through paid traffic. The resources must be non-commercial, educational, and aligned with the WPF mission (as listed above). Furthermore, the content promoted must be hosted on WordPress.orgv or WordPressFoundation.org.

While this campaign will launch soon, feedback is welcome anytime – list your resource below with any relevant context.

#ad-grant, #adwords, #google

Day 10: #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks

Welcome to Day 10 of the #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks campaign, twenty days of celebrating WordPress and the WordPress community leading up to the 20th Anniversary of WordPress. We are halfway through our countdown!

Do you have more questions about how to participate? Let us know in the #marketing Slack channel or on the FAQ page.

Prompt 10/20

Blog: Check out the WordPress Roadmap (or this Roadmap to 6.3). What upcoming WordPress projects are you most excited to see happen? Post your response on a WordPress website and link it in the comments.

Develop: Fork Hello Dolly and replace the lyrics that appear in the WordPress dashboard with lines from your favorite song (poem, musical, book, film, etc.). Then post it on your GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/. Link to your fork in the comments. (Extra credit: Tell us what you replaced the lyrics with.)

Design: Design a logo, homepage, or flyer for an imaginary WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. at any (real or imaginary) location you choose. Share your creation wherever you like (website, social media, digital art account, etc.), tag it #WP20, and post the link in the comments.

Photograph: Share a photo of a memorable moment with fellow WordPress community members. Post it on your preferred social network, and tag it #WP20. Share the link to your social post in the comments. (Extra credit: TagTag Tag is one of the pre-defined taxonomies in WordPress. Users can add tags to their WordPress posts along with categories. However, while a category may cover a broad range of topics, tags are smaller in scope and focused to specific topics. Think of them as keywords used for topics discussed in a particular post. the people in the picture and tell us about the moment.)

Contribute: Comment on, contribute to, or watch the #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks: Unique Badge Event Trac ticket to help us create and implement commemorative #WP20 badges. Link to your comment or contribution, or just let us know you’re watching!

Note: You can share context in your comment if you like, but don’t forget to include the link as specified in each prompt.

If none of these actions work for you, feel free to make your own WordPress-focused action. Anyone who shares at least one action as a comment on a #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks post before or on May 27 will have the achievement acknowledged by the Marketing team. Folx who share an action on all 20 posts before WordCamp US in August 2023 will get an additional acknowledgement of their accomplishment.

Previous Prompts

Contributors to the #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks campaign include: @ninianepress, @ngreennc, @nomadskateboarding, @santanainniss, @sereedmedia, @courane01, @meaganhanes, @costdev, @felix, @joen, @boogah, @quizzycal, @tobifjellner, @annezazu, @psykro, @flixos90, @rmartinezduque.

#from-blogs-to-blocks

Announcing the 2024 MakeWP Marketing Team Reps

The voting process for the 2024 Make WordPress Marketing Team team reps ended today, January 9, at 17:00 UTC, after opening December 20, 2023.

The 2024 MakeWP Marketing Team Reps are:

Over the next week, the departing 2023 Team Reps (myself and Robin) will be working to onboard the new team reps. The complete election timeline is as follows:

  • Wednesday, December 6: Nominations open
  • Tuesday, December 19: Nominations close
  • Wednesday, December 20: Voting begins
  • Tuesday, January 9: Voting closes
  • Tuesday, January 09: New Marketing Team Reps announced
  • Wednesday, January 10 – Monday, January 15: Team RepTeam Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts. onboarding and transition
  • Tuesday, January 16: 2024 Marketing Team Reps begin term

Congratulations, welcome, and good luck to the new Team Reps.

Screenshot from the RankedVote.co results page showing 3 winners (Nyasha Green, Bernard Meter and Jenni McKinnon), Votes to Win (8 of 29 votes), and Candidates (5).

Thanks to Courtney Robertson for reviewing this post.

#election, #marketing-team, #team-reps

Election process and nominations for MakeWP Marketing Team Reps 2024

It’s time for the election of the 2024 Marketing Team Reps.

Here is the timeline:

  • Wednesday, December 6: Nominations open
  • Tuesday, December 19: Nominations close
  • Wednesday, December 20: Voting begins
  • Tuesday, January 9: Voting closes
  • Wednesday, January 10: New Marketing Team Reps announced
  • Wednesday, January 10 – Monday, January 15: Team RepTeam Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts. onboarding and transition
  • Tuesday, January 16: 2024 Marketing Team Reps begin term

About Team Reps in WordPress

The Make WordPress contributor community is segmented into teams for each area of focus, such as Marketing or Training. Team representatives coordinate team efforts and administrative tasks and facilitate the team meetings and activities. 

“Team Rep is a leadership role that is mostly administrative in nature; it is not a Lead role. Someone who is a leader in a team can lead whether they are doing the team rep job or not.”

Read more about WordPress Team Reps and the Team Rep role.

About the MakeWP Marketing Team Reps 

The Make WordPress Marketing Team has three Team Reps. The Team Reps share team responsibilities and can divide responsibilities as needed. 

Marketing Team Rep Responsibilities

Team Communications and Documentation

  • Coordinate team activities and tasks with other Team Reps and Marketing team contributors
  • Ensure Marketing team tasks, meetings, processes, and decisions are documented
  • Ensure marketing work being done on the team and throughout the project is represented at team meetings and reflected on the team’s GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/
  • Communicate and collaborate on behalf of the Marketing team with other contributor teams and project leadership; openly share this process and information with the full Marketing team
  • Ensure meetings, proposals, and decisions are documented on the Marketing team blog
  • Maintain the Marketing blog, including managing posts and contributor input/comments
  • Monitor the team’s GitHub for new, updated, or closed issues
  • Provide quarterly or biannually Marketing team updates to make.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org//updates  

Team Meetings

  • Facilitate the planning and scheduling process for Marketing team meetings on GitHub
  • Facilitate team meetings, with input and participation from other contributors
  • Maintain the meeting schedules and meeting flow
  • Facilitate “Coffee & Collaboration”, an audio/video based meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area., to work on Marketing team issues  
  • Maintain the team calendar and meetings postings on make.wordpress.org/meetings

Task and Team Management

  • Assist with updates to the handbook as needed
  • Facilitate contributor access to GitHub, Marketing documents, etc.
  • Facilitate Marketing Tables at WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Contributor Days, particularly flagship WordCamps 
  • Encourage contributors and help direct them to contribution opportunities 

Current Team Reps

All 2023 Marketing Team Reps (@sereedmedia, @robinwpdeveloper, and @ngreennc) are eligible for another term. I (Sé Reed) will not be standing for another term at this time. As such, my fellow Team Reps have appointed me to manage the 2024 election process. 

A New Approach with Ranked Choice Voting

We’re introducing ranked choice voting, ensuring a fair election process. The process will be run via the free service offered at RCV123.org, Here’s how it works:

  • Voters provide an email to receive a verification code.
  • Upon verification, voters are shown a list of all candidates.
  • Voters rank candidates in order of preference.
  • If no candidate has more than 50% of the first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated.
  • Votes for the eliminated candidate are then redistributed to the remaining candidates based on the next preference on each voter’s list.
  • This process repeats until a candidate has more than 50% of the votes, ensuring that the most preferred candidates are elected.

Note: The email address verification is to ensure valid voting. Vote records will not be connected to the email addresses provided.

Why Ranked Voting?

Ranked voting ensures that your preferences are accurately represented and reflective of our community’s diversity and our team’s intentions. Voting will remain open and public. 

Nominate a contributor for 2024 Marketing Team Rep

Nominations will be accepted as comments on this post. You may nominate others and/or yourself. Please tag your nominee(s) with their WordPress.org username. Nominees may accept or decline to stand for the position.

Nominations will close at 23:59 UTC on Tuesday, December 19, 2023.


Thank you to @ngreennc, @oglekler, and @robinwpdeveloper for reviewing this post.

#marketing-team, #team-rep-nominations, #team-reps

Notes: Global Marketing Team meeting, 07 November 2023

Please add any comments on the related Marketing Tasks GitHub issue or in the #marketing channel on the Make WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.

Team News

  • Upcoming WordCamps:
    • WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Montreal, Quebec, Canada /  8 November
  • Coffee & Collaboration Session: Wednesday, 8 November@ 16:00 UTC

WordPress Publications

WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ social media updates

  • Stats provided by @bmcsherry
    • We had another strong week for WordPress. We are trending up as we get closer to the 6.4 launch around the corner. With solid performances from the WordPress 6.4 pre-launch campaigns (2x) and the Learn campaign, we managed to show some great energy from the community this week. We expect that with the launch of 6.4 coming up, we will again show some really good performances across the week.
    • Here is a look at the numbers for the week:
      • Impressions: 237,625
      • Engagements: 4,985
      • Link clicks: 1,437
      • Engagement Rate: 1.9%

New Issues

  • None today

Open Issues

This is not a list of all issues from the Marketing Team GitHub in Slack. This is a compilation of items that had discussion in Slack during the week.

  • Marketing Team management – 9 open issues
    • No discussion or updates this week.
  • Cross-team collaboration -18 open issues
    • No discussion or updates this week.
  1. Project marketing – 17 open issues
    • Tell WordCamps hosting Contributor Days about the Contribute page/tool #295
      • Comment: this should be easy but somehow it is not. Translation is a factor.
  • People of WordPress – 6 open issues
    • No discussion or updates this week.

Closing Soon

  1. Help create a plan for short form video on Tik Tok #114  AND Develop shortform video content and related copy with Learn Team #187
  2. Add ideas to the WP Campaigns Social Content Brainstorm doc #191
  3. From Blogs to Blocks campaign #220
  4. Share and help collect #WPPhotos stories #238
  5. Celebrating Pride Month and WordPress Diversity #240
  6. Familiarize yourself with the WordPress Brand Writing Style Guide #241

Recently Closed

  1. None

Open Floor

  • Post time-change, should we keep the #marketing meeting at 15:00 UTC? What other contributors are affected by the time change?
  • We need to start Team RepTeam Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts. elections for 2024. Please let the current team reps know if you have interest in the role.

Next Steps

#marketing-team, #meeting-notes

Notes: Global Marketing Team meeting, 24 October 2023

Please add any comments on the related Marketing Tasks GitHub issue or in the #marketing channel on the Make WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.

Team News

  • We published the meeting notes from last week and hope to keep current with notes and continue to complete past notes.
  • Upcoming WordCamps:
    • WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Mumbai 2023 / 28 October–29 October
    • WordCamp Managua, Nicaragua / 28  October
    • WordCamp San José, Costa Rica / 4 November–5 November (Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. Nov 5)
    • WordCamp Madrid / 4 November–5 November
    • WordCamp Montreal, Quebec, Canada /  8 November
  • Coffee & Collaboration Session: Wednesday, 25 October @ 16:00 UTC
    • @sereedmedia and @oglekler discussed ideas for adding content to the WordPress Mobile app:
      • https://github.com/WordPress/Marketing-Team/issues/296
      • https://github.com/WordPress/Marketing-Team/issues/288

WordPress Publications

WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ social media updates

  • Stats provided by @bmcsherry
    • This was a good week for WordPress. After the slight pause in some social activity, we introduced coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. campaigns during the week as we slowly re-introduced social media.
    • We saw the news announcement for the WordPress 6.4 RC1 campaign and the new Showcase section, which we saw good engagement with our audience. This was great excitement for the week, and they shared the good vibes with us.
    • Here is a look at the numbers for the week:
      • Impressions: 266,660
      • Engagements: 5,224
      • Link clicks: 1,922
      • Engagement Rate: 1.9%

New Issues

  • Unify communication and terminology around the blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. editor vs GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ across WordPress.org and associated venues (such as WordCamps, social media ++) #311

Open Issues

This is not a list of all issues from the Marketing Team GitHub in Slack. This is a compilation of items that had discussion in Slack during the week.

  • Marketing Team management – 9 open issues
    • No discussion or updates this week.
  • Cross-team collaboration -18 open issues
    • No discussion or updates this week.
  1. Project marketing – 16 open issues
    • No discussion or updates this week.
  • People of WordPress – 6 open issues
    • No discussion or updates this week.

Closing Soon

  1. Help create a plan for short form video on Tik Tok #114  AND Develop shortform video content and related copy with Learn Team #187
  2. Add ideas to the WP Campaigns Social Content Brainstorm doc #191
  3. From Blogs to Blocks campaign #220
  4. Share and help collect #WPPhotos stories #238
  5. Celebrating Pride Month and WordPress Diversity #240
  6. Familiarize yourself with the WordPress Brand Writing Style Guide #241

Recently Closed

  1. New Meeting Notes Format testing #194
  2. Get involved or Contribute tab for the About page — structure and the content #217
  3. Promote Helping to Documentation team with Mobile Apps docs #219
  4. WP20 Book: Building Blocks: The Evolution of WordPress 2013-2023 #223
  5. People of WordPress – Stefano Cassone #233
  6. Promote the #feature-notifications team’s Notification survey #248
  7. Start Here! New Marketing Team Contributor Issue for WordCamp Kathmandu Contributor Day #294
  8. The Month in WordPress: September 2023 Edition #297

Open Floor

Next Steps

#marketing-team, #meeting-notes

Help promote WordPress Meetups each week

Did you know contributors in the Marketing team pull together highlights and stories from online WordPress Meetups every week to help keep the community connected and support organizers?

You can discover what is on each week by following social media channels, and take part in promoting these amazing events held across the world. If you have social media experience and can help with the tasks in this area, join or leave a note asynchronously in the Marketing team meetings and we will help you get started. Tasks include:

  • research on the internet
  • checking links and current social media tags for the meetups and prospective audiences
  • maintaining the admin and tools behind this task area, and continuing to make it simpler and easier
  • checking time conversions (we also list events which are for a wider audience in UTC time so others can join in)
  • marketing/ communications support to organizers and responding to requests, working alongside the Community team
  • short stories and identification of potential ‘Contributor Story’ follow-ups too. We had been working on a series on organizers of WordPress Meetups which could possible run on social and newsletters to help encourage others, especially during pandemic. Some of our pre-pandemic meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. marketing support is on hold until the return to in-person events
  • update surveys and follow-up actions

Can I join for a few months or focus solely to this task area?

We have multiple ways you can get involved, so do come and chat to me (@webcommsat – @ abhanonstopnewsuk on SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.), @lmurillom, @yvettesonneveld, and @meher who have been co-ordinating this area. We can also pair you up with an existing contributor, where possible, to get started.

You can join the rota on specific tasks for a couple of months or become part of the main group collaborating on this We have a small task group that work on this area every week and prepare items in advance.

During the last two years, we’ve also enjoyed contribution in this area from many contributors, ranging from those who wanted to learn more about a specific aspect to help their own local WordPress Meetups, to those who had specialist skills and were able to share them directly.

Social media examples

We write social media in such a way that the Meetups themselves can use them and people can reshare the posts or the meetup that is of interest to them with their own networks. With more people taking part, we can do more on this. We have reduced some of the outputs in this area due to the effect of the pandemic and as some of our regular contributors have had more limited time. If you would like to join the team on this, do let us know.

LinkedIn – Make WordPress Marketing Team

Facebook – WordPress Events

Twitter – WordPress Events

Some of this content may also be useful for the monthly Meetup newsletters.

WPDiversity events of interest to Meetup organizers

We work alongside the Community team’s WPDiversity group, and have a handful of members that contribute in both areas. Many of the events run by the group can benefit Meetup organizers and aim to encourage and support both them and potential speakers. The group runs workshops for underrepresented community members and for WordPress event organizers to increase diversity in the project.

You can help promote these events by resharing our social media posts and using our special web links for the event bookings. If you would like to help in drafting the posts, come to one of our weekly meetings on Wednesdays (currently 14:00 UTC) on the #marketing channel on the Make WordPress Slack Instance.

As we get details on the finalized events, they are added to the Rolling Tasks board on the Marketing GitHub. We have moved to a quarterly google doc for working on social media posts as some events series span two months.

We also promote links in the weekly Marketing team agenda and share them and the event link for promotions with the WPDiversity team.

Learn WordPress promotions

We are collaborating with the Training team on workshops, meetup events and more to highlight and introduce all the amazing content on and are coming to this free Learn WordPress resource.

The current Learn WordPress marcomms board, Marketing team.

Recap of the tools we use and collaborate on with Learn WordPress

In the longer term, we will bring together meetup promotions tasks and Learn WordPress events onto the single Rolling Tasks card on the Marketing Team’s GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/. But for now, as team members are learning about GitHub and the ways of logging Learn WordPress items ready for promotion and the lead-in times for marketing queries / drafting are being finalized, we are running three separate tasks boards. This also helps us with discussions on graphics and be in sync with other plans in the Training team.

We also are aware that some of our members have difficulty or access issues using Google Sheets. We are continuing to signpost and help with this, if you can join in, let us know.

Once the Marketing GitHub moves into the main WordPress directory, it may be that we keep the Learn WordPress marcomms board on its own to be able to potentially automate or cross-use from the main LearnWordPress GitHub repository. For background for those new to the tools being used, the Training team also use TrelloTrello Project management system using the concepts of boards and cards to organize tasks in a sane way. This is what the make.wordpress.com/marketing team uses for example: https://trello.com/b/8UGHVBu8/wp-marketing. and spreadsheet trackers, and there are discussions on other tools.

Thanks to @yvettesonneveld, @meher, @lmurillom, and @nalininonstopnewsuk for reviewing this post, and everyone involved in social media research, preparation, editing, posting, and reviewing.

#learnwp, #onlinewpmeetup