Nicholas Garofalo 2:21 pm on April 22, 2025
Tags: automation, , ,   

WPTV-to-YouTube Sync Resumes

The automated WordPress.tv to YouTube sync has been restored. This semi-automated process brings videos posted to WordPress.tv, primarily recordings from WordCamps and other WordPress events, over to the official WordPress YouTube channel.

This sync was paused in October 2024 to allow for a reevaluation of the video pipeline and content strategy. However, Q1 metrics show a 38% decline in YouTube subscriber growth compared to Q1 2024, along with a noticeable dip in average watch time. These trends highlight the importance of continuing to bring community-generated content to the platform—including 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. sessions.

WordPress’s official YouTube channel recently surpassed 110,000 subscribers, underscoring its reach as a hub for education, inspiration, and connection. Reinstating the WPTV sync will ensure that videos from WordCamps around the world continue to be shared and viewed widely, supporting the project’s goal of representing the global WordPress community.

If YouTube isn’t your preferred platform, WordPress is also represented on X, Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitch, TikTok, and Tumblr.

+make.wordpress.org/tv/ +make.wordpress.org/training/

#automation, #social, #wptv, #youtube

Nicholas Garofalo 4:25 pm on May 16, 2025  

Social icons across WordPress.org

Thanks to @bjmcsherry, @dd32, and @ryelle, all of our active social platforms are now represented in the footer of 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/: X, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, TikTok, YouTube, and Tumblr. Since switching to Postpone as our new scheduling tool last month, we’ve been able to reliably schedule and share content with our audience of 2.4 million followers across all of these platforms.

Expand / Include all of the WordPress social media accounts #689

While we do optimize post times and content for each platform, you can expect similar updates across platforms (I.e. no worries about missing out if you’re only on Bluesky or Mastodon). As a reminder, requests to amplify WordPress project content across social media can be made in Github using the “Request for Amplification” issue template.

Josepha 11:44 am on March 20, 2024  

Making a WordPress Media Corps

In my Big Picture post from January, one of the major obstacles I mentioned was our stagnating growth. To me, our first order of business to tackle this problem is to get a coordinated marketing push underway and despite significant effort we have not been able to do that. I acknowledge that there is blame to share, and I’m sure no one wants to argue process nonstop. The requests made by the Make Marketing team over the years are clear:

  • Influence over the product roadmap
  • Influence over brand standards
  • Influence over marketing strategy
  • Marketing budgets
  • Direct access to or more influence over official WordPress properties

With the exception of the possibility to influence marketing strategy through normal feedback/proposal review processes, these are not requests that I am able to fulfill for a variety of reasons from logistical to philosophical. However, I do want to find a way for this team to feel that their contributions are more impactful and, by extension, have a more meaningful contributor experience here.

Given that I cannot offer you the type of access and resourcing that a dedicated marketing team needs, I believe it is time to change the scope of the work. Since it’s become clear that we (sponsored and volunteer contributors alike) cannot collaborate effectively to market on our client’s (WordPress’) behalf, I would like to enable folks who are marketing independent of us to be able to do so with more confidence and less effort.

A WP Media Corps

It has long been the case that WordPress’ most successful marketing has been chalked up to word of mouth, but our substantial network of WP media partners has never been included in any definition of that. I know that we rely on outlets like WP Tavern Jukebox, Underrepresented in Tech, Do the Woo, Gutenberg Times, and countless others to get our information out to users of every variety. And for all these years, they’ve had to know the right people and read the right stuff to get accurate and up-to-date information into their content for their audiences.

I would like to enable their independent marketing to be of excellent quality with less chasing of people by creating a Media Corps which can be managed through this team.

What does that look like?

From a high level, this would mean weekly or bi-weekly media corps meetings where qualified media partners would receive highlights on progress toward project goals, a list of upcoming dates to know, and any future items on the horizon that they should keep an eye out for.
A qualified media partner would:

  • have 80% WP content
  • have high quality journalism/writing
  • follow WordPress community guidelines
  • honor embargoes
  • etc.

The work of Make Marketing would encompass:

  • For anyone wanting to participate in this new concept, the contributions are around managing the media room (recruiting, vetting, and coordinating media folks, etc).
  • For anyone still wanting to provide written content, the contributions are around our current growth area: enterprise clients and deciders. So, content on /showcase and /enterprise.
  • Sponsored contributors will host the media corps meetings until we sort out cadence and process.
  • Stretch: help us monitor trends and/or identify which features need a stronger marketing push.
  • Stretch: spin up a companion property to https://developer.wordpress.org/news/ that focuses on users.

What about the current tasks and projects we’ve got?

It’s been my experience in WordPress that when we close things as wont-fix it is heartbreaking. Even when we understand that we can’t fix it because of intractable problems, closing something without movement registers in the “loss” column of our mental tracking.

  • For those tickets that can’t move forward because of access or control that I cannot provide, it makes sense to put them in the ice box at least and come back to them when the situation seems more flexible.
  • For those tickets that can move forward based on what is currently available, let’s triage down to the most impactful few and close those out while we’re getting the media corps ramped up.
  • For tactical execution of existing campaigns, the sponsored contributors will continue that work.

What if I don’t like this plan?

This solution doesn’t offer any of the direct access our current team wants, but it does give a considerable amount of power to groups who already have curated audiences and have much more autonomy (and budget) to market on WordPress’ behalf. It also gives us a better chance of having clear and consistent information being communicated on behalf of the project. And finally, it gives us the opportunity to acknowledge the years of work that the WP media folks have already put in to our collective success.

It’s not a full set of wins, but I think the wins balance the losses if we keep an eye on the stated goals and obstacles I outlined in January. And if this is not what you were signing up to contribute to, if you can find a way to see that this has the potential to solve some problems that WordPress has, even though it doesn’t solve all the problems Make Marketing has, I encourage you to whole heartedly join this experiment. If you can’t, fortunately there are many other teams where you might find your niche!

Let’s Talk

This is a dramatic shift. I want you all to be able to ask any questions you have to see if this is an experiment you can participate in. You can ask them asynchronously in the comments, or I will be answering questions synchronously today in #marketing at 9am CDT and 6pm CDT (1400 UTC and 2300 UTC).

Josepha 7:57 pm on April 29, 2024  

WordPress Media Corps Next Steps

At @ninianepress‘s DM request, I’ve added “temporarily” to step two about archival plans for current marketing assets. It was a poor assumption on my part that we were all reading this in the context of “for the duration of our experiment”.

Last month, I introduced the idea of a WordPress Media Corps. I’d like us to take some next steps with this experiment, with full and hopeful conviction about what this might enable us to do in the future if we can pave this foundation today. 

This change is intended to tackle the big obstacles for the year as shared in the 2024 goals post. Because the changes rely on important parts of the WordPress project and ecosystem, we need the change to be big enough to see quick impact, but small enough to manage with the time we have available. Therefore, and by design, the MVPMinimum Viable Product "A minimum viable product (MVP) is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers, and to provide feedback for future product development." - WikiPedia scope for the WP Media Corps is limited but allows for future growth and experimentation. 

In this post, I’ll share some next steps for the WP Media Corps and a recap of important context so that we all have the same starting point.

The background

In order to simultaneously tackle both obstacles in our 2024 goals post and alleviate a long-standing struggle in getting reliable WordPress project information to end-users, I would like to create a Media Corps that will enable independent WordPress marketers and media members to produce excellent quality content with less time and effort.

The hypothesis

If we get accurate information more quickly and effortlessly to WordPress advocates, then the audiences that rely on them for the latest news will end up with more awareness (of features, programs, and the community at large) and contribute to additional growth in the project.

The risks

The current plans for this experiment have a lot of Automattic involvement, which is not desirable long term. For now, it will help limit variables while we quickly test the hypothesis, and will avoid calling in another round of contributors without a clear concept of what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how we think we get there together.

Next Steps

As noted earlier, a change like this needs to be big enough to see impact but small enough to manage with the time we have. To that end, here are some next steps that will direct full efforts towards this initiative.

  1. A new Make Media Corps team, blog, and 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 will be created in the next few days. Any handbook materials and documentation that still make sense for this new team will be migrated to the new team blog. 
  2. The existing Make Marketing Team and Slack channel will be temporarily archived once the new team is created so that people interested in WordPress marketing initiatives will be directed towards the WP Media Corps. The Marketing Team GitHub Repo will remain open for continued work on the WordPress Showcase and amplification requests.
  3. Plans for the MVP version of the WP Media Corps will be published on the new Make team site so that future media partners and community members can stay up to date on how this project will progress and have ample opportunity to provide feedback. I have asked @rmartinezduque to lead this initiative. 
  4. All contributors who want to give a whole-hearted go to this experiment, can join the new site and Slack channel.

Thank you

Marketing an 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. project is a difficult and unique challenge. It’s especially difficult for a project like WordPress with software that supports myriad use cases, and a community that tends to a sprawling, multifaceted ecosystem that supports current and future WordPressers at many points in their journey. I’m grateful to the folks who have chosen to tackle this since 2015 and I’m appreciative of everyone who showed up to do the important work of figuring out next steps together. 

Thank you to our past Marketing team reps (see the list below) who have documented this team’s history and welcomed numerous new contributors over the years, and thank you especially to @bernard0omnisend @ngreennc and @ninianepress who served as the most recent group of team reps.

@rosso99 @bridgetwillard @mcdwayne @skarjune @joostdevalk @jenblogs4u @siobhanseija @mikerbg @harryjackson1221 @maedahbatool @yvettesonneveld @webcommsat @meherbala @oglekler @nalininonstopnewsuk @lmurillom @eidolonnight @santanainniss @nhrrob @sereedmedia 

And thank you to everyone who has contributed to the various efforts this team has made to market WordPress. While the Media Corps may not solve all of the problems that we face in marketing WordPress, I truly believe it gives us the opportunity to tackle some of our most immediate problems and hopefully open new paths to contribution. As with any new project, we won’t know until we try; and as with any experiment, we won’t know until we try hard.

Adeeb Malik 9:16 pm on October 11, 2022
Tags: ,   

Notes: global WordPress Marketing team meeting, October 5, 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 live/ async: the list can be found in this Slack thread. We welcome people from across all time zones to participate.
  2. Social question of the week from @nalininonstopnewsuk: If you could recommend one thing you have in your refrigerator / fridge to someone else, what would it be and why? Read the replies from contributors on Slack.

3. Notetakers and coffee break facilitators – volunteer opportunities

Thank you to the note-taking volunteers for the next few weeks. Some forward planning has been done to help newer contributors get started, shadow and to check-in with other regular contributors. There are still lots of opportunities to volunteer too.

The GitHub card for all aspects of each week’s meeting and any collaboration are linked below by date. Cards have been set up for a couple of weeks in advance of each meeting. Please message Nalini initially in the Marketing channel on the Make WordPress Slack if you are unsure how to add comments to the GitHub card, and she will be able to help link you with one of our GitHub buddies.

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 (links below) for the relevant week.
12 October 2022 GitHub card #117 – @robinwpdeveloper
19 October 2022 GitHub card #119 – @kawserz

Forward planning for the next few weeks after this – please read [Nalini’s] earlier message if you would like to help on a future date.

There will be another opportunity to see how the Marketing blog (also known as the P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/.) works, this time in APAC time, 07:00 UTC Thursday, October 6, 2022.This will last no more than an hour. If you would like to join, please reply in this thread. Tomorrow’s session will be focused on using the P2 for some of the team’s new contributors who have agreed to take on the draft notes the next few weeks.

Even if you have not been linked to a meeting date yet, but have been following along with meetings for a few weeks, and would like to volunteer, you can still join this session. There’s always opportunities to volunteer for this, for the coffee breaks, and more.

A link to the Google Meet session will be posted in the Slack channel before the session. Thank you to the others who are also helping contributors set up GitHub and become more familiar with the blog site: @webcommsat, @marybaum, @meher, @lmurillom, @Reyes Martínez, @santanainniss and others who have also helped with helping contributors set up GitHub and become more familiar with the blog site.

Help to facilitate a coffee break?

The team is looking for contributors to open the virtual coffee shop for the bi-weekly coffee break.

Check out the GitHub card #23 and add your name to the list! Read the updated guide on facilitating a coffee break and volunteer.

4. Marketing project and task updates

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.

Thank you to those who are supporting our GitHub and spotting a spam message this week. If you spot a message which may be spam, please let one of the team reps know: @nalininonstopnewsuk @EidolonNight @lmurillom.

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

Our WordPress Social Media Amplification (GitHub ticket) details how you can help share and amplify WordPress news on social media. 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. Just comment here and tag any of the people listed in the “Process” section of that GitHub issue. Content and fresh ideas welcome.

@bjmcsherry shared the weekly stats on WP.org:

WP.org improved our week-over-week net-new followers’ growth over the previous week gaining a total of 1,620 new subscribers. This was an 11.2% (1,499) increase over the previous week’s growth. In addition, many of our campaigns including the WordPress 6.1 BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 2 testing campaign and the Learn WP campaign performed best. These campaigns scored high marks in some of our best examples throughout the last week.

Here are a look at some of the highlighted performance numbers for the past week:

  • Impressions: 262,750
  • Engagements: 4,090
  • Link clicks: 1,258
  • Messages received: 81

4b. Updates on forthcoming WordPress releases and FSE

@dansoschin, joins WordPress 6.1 as Marketing & Communications co-lead for his continued support while @jpantani is away. WordPress 6.1 release updates are as follows:

4c. Contributor events update

  • 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. Asia 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/. awareness: February 17, 2023 – GitHub ticket #108. Please add to the card if you intend to be at the contributor day and involved in the marketing table. If you would like to help organize the table, you can volunteer too.
  • WCAsia social content to go out on WordPress.org social accounts can be scheduled via @bjmcsherry. GitHub ticket #7
  • Does anyone know of 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: the September 2022 edition is in edit and will be out shortly, aimed at October 10, 2022.
  • September Polyglots Newsletter: this has been published. Props to: @nao, @erica, @webcommsat, and @amiero for contributing to the Polyglots September 2022 newsletter. GitHub card #115.
  • Annual WordPress Meetup Survey reminder: The Community Team is doing another outreach effort to encourage meetup organizers and members to complete the Annual WordPress Meetup Survey, which is available in 14 languages. The deadline for responses is October 15 2022.
  • People of WordPress: this is aimed be published this week. Date is waiting confirmation to avoid other scheduled posts.
  • There is an update regarding People of WordPress. This will be published by this week. @rmartinezduque shared an update on the same.

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 they sent and the place it represents, reach out to @rmartinezduque on the #marketing or @photos channel on the Make WordPress Slack.

5. Diary dates – upcoming events and meetings

Our next Coffee break will be Thursday 6 October 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

Question from @starbuck on community messaging.
Link to Slack discussion.

#marketing-team, #meeting-notes

slspeller911 8:04 pm on October 4, 2022
Tags: , , ,   

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

Nicholas Garofalo 6:20 pm on January 12, 2024  

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/

Dan Soschin 9:28 pm on January 29, 2024
Tags: ad grant, adwords, google   

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

Sé Reed 5:29 pm on January 9, 2024
Tags: , ,   

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

Sé Reed 6:05 pm on December 6, 2023
Tags: , ,   

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