A year after writing about how a po-dunk restaurant went viral with a conventional signboard with inflammatory messages, the conversation in comments is still going on. Even with the URL of the restaurant clearly in every picture- I still get search hits- and, why? Because the comments add to the content, and the newness of the material.

The main reason the comments are still coming- the Subscribe to Comments Plug-in which notifies everyone who has commented that there is a new comment on the subject via e-mail. Yes, I know you can subscribe to a feed for comments, but, the reality is- this is easier- just tick the box as you comment, and off you go.

I could have written the post below- and I highly advise you to read the little tutorial they present on set-up:

boojies » Tips: Increase the Stickiness of Your Site with the Subscribe to Comments Plugin
I didn’t realize just how useful this plugin is until I used it on someone else’s site. I fell in love with it. It’s beneficial to both the reader and the blog site/publisher.

Bill Caskey is a sales trainer. People pay his company good money to help them sell more. He advocates blogs as one tool to engage clients- his post has many gems- but I thought this part is something most people who think blogs aren’t for business should read:

BillCaskey: How Social Media Affects Sales People
While there are 40,000,000 blogs, most companies don’t see them for what they could be. If you have a website and not a blog, then you’re missing a great way to lead people to your website. But make your blog a rigorous conversation about the industry. DON’T make it about you and only you.

Ask questions. Pose opinions and ask for feedback. Create controversy by being honest. Blogs should be written by people–not by some faceless company PR person.

You can also use blogs to create Case Studies on ways you’ve solved problems for your customers. Have a new product? Take a pic of it and post about it. But be honest about it’s strengths and weaknesses. Don’t tell one side of the story. If you do, it’ll sound like it came from your marketing department–more blah-blah-blah.

People use the internet to solve problems- and the first thing they do is a search: if they come up with you as the expert on your subject- you will have the opportunity to make the sale. If they don’t find you- you may as well not exist.

WordPress 2.2.1 may be “required” – but on every install, I wasn’t getting the visual text editor, TinyMCE to display. After uploading, re-uploading, clearing cache, shutting off the “use visual editor”- turning off and on plugins- I finally gave up and loaded Dean’s FCKEditor– which gives you all kinds of cool tools that aren’t easily available in TinyMCE. (See picture above).

I’ve been through a ton of WordPress upgrades- and most have been painless. This has not.

After spending 6 hours -I was able to update 4 installs successfully with TinyMCE – but gave up on the fifth and went with Dean’s solution.