Bridget Willard | SaaS Marketing Agency

Author: Bridget Willard

  • WordPress and Facebook oEmbed Support

    Many of us who have been blogging for years are completely used to being able to post a link to a Facebook or Instagram post and it magically appearing.

    That is from the oEmbed support from Facebook’s API. The old oEmbed endpoints end October 24, 2020. They have new Facebook oEmbed endpoints. The developer requirements, should you want to create your own app, are in that post.

    Keep in mind that when we say “Facebook’s API” this also includes Instagram.

    Search Engine Journal noted that the changes are retroactive.

    “To be specific, an upcoming API update will remove support for unauthenticated Facebook and Instagram embeds. …The change is retroactive, so all Facebook and Instagram embeds on the sites of unauthenticated publishers will soon become broken. This has the potential to affect millions of sites.” Matt Southern

    I will admit it was nice to see something about WordPress Core in SEJ!

    Facebook and WordPress

    As a result, WordPress Core (the base software not plugins and themes) is ending support for Facebook and Instagram oEmbeds as of WordPress 5.5.2.

    I support this decision fully. As I wrote on the Trac ticket 50861:

    As a writer and social media manager, who loves and depends upon oEmbeds (rather than screenshots), I completely understand the logic behind removal.

    I completely agree this should become plugin-dependent.

    Facebook is famous for changing the rules on their playground. And, honestly, APIs be like that sometimes. Right?

    So, as far as communicating this to the general public, we should fill in the holes of people’s education.

    WordPress 5.5.2 has an important update that affects oEmbeds of Facebook properties. This includes Instagram and Facebook links.

    How Does This Affect You?

    Previously, any WordPress blogger could simply insert a URL of a Facebook or Instagram post and the image and post would render. Like magic, but definitely technical.

    Unfortunately, Facebook has made access to their API a bit more complicated which, cheers to them, helps protect the privacy of its user base.

    If you’re worried about this update, check your posts for links that don’t unfurl/render. They will appear as regular links. It isn’t broken, it just doesn’t render. Instead, use the link like you would any link — in a sentence — with accessibility in mind.

    You can always include a screenshot with alt tags and a caption as well

    Jetpack to the Rescue

    Well, it’s no surprise that Jetpack by Automattic finds a reason to be relevant again. They will be supporting oEmbeds from Facebook and Instagram as long as your site is connected to Jetpack.

    “Facebook and Instagram are ending support for their oEmbed API on October 24. After this change, you must register a Facebook developer account, create an app, and provide a token when calling the new API. …Simply connect your site to Jetpack and start sharing. We’ll handle everything behind the scenes so you don’t have to worry about it.” Jetpack

    But I Want My oEmbeds

    If you don’t want to use Jetpack, and I get it, there are other plugins you can use. In the same WordPress Trac thread, Syed Balkhi suggests two of his company’s solutions:

    “Just wanted to comment here, since our Smash Balloon Instagram and FB feed plugins are already used by over 1.2 million users, we have added the oEmbed functionality to it.

    This was easy for us to do because to create custom feeds, users would have to use the API key anyways. Over the years, our plugin has simplified that process to make it very user-friendly.

    I think it’d be helpful to recommend these because we DO NOT require users to go through a complicated FB app setup process or anything.

    Instagram Feeds – https://wordpress.org/plugins/instagram-feed/
    Facebook Feeds – https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-facebook-feed/

    How Else Can I Link to Facebook and Instagram Posts?

    The good news is that links are links. As long as the post is public, you can still create a link within the context of a paragraph. People can click the link and go to the post. It’s not that big of a deal. If you really want the visual, then take a screenshot. If you do that, make sure to include alt text and a link to the actual post. It’s a little bit of work, but worth it.

  • Beaver Builder Landing Page Tutorial: Partner with a Designer

    Are you wondering how to use , well, better? The best route is to hire a designer. They can build modules and templates for you to use!

    Can I Build My Website Myself?

    Yes. WordPress is for everyone. And, yes, anyone can build a website. Your biggest hurdle is having high-quality versions of your logos and photos as well as information about your business ready for print, as they say.

    Pick a free theme, enter your information, and boom. You’re done. This is especially true for a basic site that has home, about, contact, and a blog.

    Hey. I built my own and for the last construction company I worked on. It’s hard. Believe me. And don’t even get me started on the black hole of choosing a theme. If you’re doing it yourself, pick an easy theme. Heck. I wish I had started with from the beginning.

    Why Hire A Designer?

    You should hire a designer because you are not one. Seriously. They’re educated. They’re faster. They think of solutions better than you.

    Please learn from my mistakes. I’ve done so many things the hard way because I didn’t know better. I’m not a designer. Neither are you.

    Hiring a designer to build you layouts and modules in Beaver Builder — if not your whole site — is the best way to go.

    The second best way to go is to buy, along with Beaver Builder, Soul Sections which are ready to go! Like, seriously. Responsiveness (how your website looks on mobile devices) is baked in and Dave Bloom is awesome. (Also, my client, but still. He’s awesome.)

    Here is my . I’ve been using it for over 3 years. My site is built on Beaver Builder Theme using Beaver Builder. It’s worth every single penny.

    Easily Replicate a Landing Page Template

    In this video, I show you how to easily replicate one of your landing pages so that you can build another (using my two books as examples) that is consistent with your site.

    You don’t need the landing page to be in the main menu or navigation. It’s for internal linking, and search results.

    If you’re curious about best practices for landing pages, I’d suggest watching the episode of The Smart Marketing Show with Jen Miller. There is also a Part II that goes into strategy.

    Beaver Builder Video Tutorial

    Here is the video tutorial on how to replicate your layout to make another landing page on your site.

    Photo by niklas_hamann on Unsplash

  • Get Your cPanel Updates in Slack!

    How exciting is this news from cPanel? Their new update (90) has a lot of great features, but the one that caught my eye is the ability to use Slack’s webhooks to get notifications.

    Their say:

    In cPanel & WHM version 90, you can now send system notifications to one or more Slack WebHooks. You can specify Slack® WebHooks in WHM’s Basic WebHost Manager Setup interface (WHM >> Home >> Server Configuration >> Basic WebHost Manager Setup).

    Web developers, system admins, and even marketers feel overwhelmed often about the digital chores and hurdles we cross just to find out what we need to know.

    I mean, how many tabs do you have open and how many screens? I’m way over my 8-tab max, typing this while I’m curating Tweets for a Twitter Pro Client.

    But y’all, this sounds like a great improvement for any agency or freelancer’s workflow.

    Which WordPress Web Hosts Will Include cPanel 90?

    The next logical question is which hosting companies will upgrade to cPanel 90. I personally use Pressable and I don’t believe they have cPanel access, according to my designer anyway. Companies love SiteGround for this reason.

    What do you think of Slack notifications from cPanel?

  • How Do You Get Customers on The X Platform (Twitter)? My Top 7 Tips

    Can you really get customers on Twitter? Yes. You can. I do. Most of the time. Yes, if you’re in business and it’s focused on business-to-business (B2B), then you need Twitter. I recently talked with Kim Doyal on this subject as well.

    Firstly, you can’t analyze data that you don’t measure. Tracking your lead source only happens if you ask your customers how they heard about you.

    I Get My Customers from Twitter

    As an exercise, I imported clients from FreshBooks into Google Sheets. Almost 42% of my leads come through referrals (usually in my Twitter DMs), 30% come from Twitter, and almost 12% come from friends (most of whom I met on Twitter.) It’s arguable that 70% of my business truly comes from Twitter. Then again, I manage Twitter for brands.

    pie chart of lead source for my business
    Pie Chart of Lead Source – April 2020

    People ask me all the time:

    “You mean people pay you to do that?”

    To which I generally reply:

    “Yes, so far it’s working.”

    (Do people pay you to answer their phones? Hello?)

    Here are my time-tested tips on how to get customers on Twitter.

    1. Be Present in Your Twitter Feed

    To get customers on Twitter it is important that you are present in your feed. What does this look like? It means that you sign onto Twitter in the morning, check notifications, reply to everyone, and post something. Scroll through the home feed and reply to at least three people.

    Posting once a day on Twitter isn’t for growth, by the way. It’s basic life support. If you want to grow, you need to spend time on Twitter. It’s about volume over time.

    In the last 28 days, for example, I tweeted over 1500 times. Now, I also have 18,000 followers. So my volume is appropriate for my account.

    2. Search for Questions on Twitter

    To get customers on Twitter it is important that you are seen as a source of information. Not only are you a source, but you are an accessible source. This means curbing your use of jargon or, at least, using it and defining it.

    People are tweeting all day long about things that interest them as well as their frustrations. Find questions that you can answer and reply to their tweets. This is how you build followers and affinity for your brand. People will like you for being helpful.

    Remember to use quotes around your search phrase and choose “latest tweets” instead of “top tweets.” It’s a bit of extra work, but it helps.

    3. Share Your Content Regularly

    To get customers on Twitter it is important that you publish on your blog and share it on Twitter regularly. You want people to recognize your brand and affiliate it with your field of expertise.

    It is important that you carve out the time to do this. Your marketing engine (flywheel as Rand Fishkin calls it) is fueled only by your effort. How are you marketing your business?

    4. Reply to Everyone

    To get customers on Twitter it is important that you reply to everyone. Everyone is relevant. People leave jobs an average of every two years (or less). It’s the relationships that stay around forever. I replied to a tweet and got a $23,000 client. Yep. I did.

    Yes, you have the extra 40 seconds it takes to say, “Thank you.” If you don’t, why are you in business?

    5. Follow and List Everyone Who Isn’t Spam

    To get customers on Twitter it is important that you are — are you ready for this? — social. People always think of the media part of “social media” and conveniently forget the work part. Yes. The work is to interact with others.

    To make your experience efficient and effective, add people to your Twitter Lists. This allows you to filter the feed by topic or category of your determination.

    6. Be Consistent. It’s a Long Game

    To get customers on Twitter it is important that you are patient. It’s not the Field of Dreams. People don’t just come to your profile and buy your $30,000 barbecue pit. There is no such thing as first-click leads.

    “Want to make marketing a competitive advantage for your business? You’re gonna need a flywheel. No individual hack, no short-term set of investments, can compete.” Rand Fishkin of Spark Toro

    Twitter should be part of your daily routine just like email. It’s outreach. Because Google indexes individual tweets, Twitter should also be part of your SEO strategy.

    7. Don’t Be Afraid to Make Statements

    To get customers on Twitter it is important that you differentiate yourself and your brand. What does it do for your customer? What are you providing to your customer?

    What values matter to your business? It’s okay to take a stand. Stay with it. Make your stance and stand by it. Plenty of people say all kinds of things online. Most of the time, I’d recommend that you shouldn’t but there are cases where it is core. People will be upset. Your customers won’t.

    Patagonia, for example, doesn’t mind being outspoken about environmental issues. They probably don’t have very many customers from the oil and gas industry, but they’re fine with it.

    This is an example of aligning your values with your customers.

    Are You At Bat?

    Your swings only count if you’re at-bat. The very best baseball players only succeed 1/3 of the time but they have to step up to the plate. Where are you?

    You can’t get customers on Twitter if you’re not active on Twitter. You need an account. You need a website that is mobile responsive. You may need to outsource, even.

    Twitter has been out since 2007. It’s not just a fad. Your competitors are online. Why aren’t you?

    Bonus Video:

    Using Twitter for Business Development

  • Remote Work Gives You the Freedom to Change

    One of the best parts of remote work — even as a self-employed person — is the freedom to work anywhere. In this case, it meant moving out of state.

    “I’ve been thinking ’bout catching a train
    Leave my phone machine by the radar range
    Hello it’s me, I’m not at home
    If you’d like to reach me, leave me alone”  Sheryl Crow et al 

    Remote Work is About Freedom

    There really is no reason why people should have to be forced to work in the same building. Seriously. Especially if all of their work is done in the cloud. It’s about control or the appearance of control. If work is about the actual work, the deliverables, then we should be accountable and compensated as such.

    I was fortunate enough to be accountable for my deliverables during my time as Director of Marketing at an advertising firm. I will never go back to selling the time it takes to produce high value work. But that’s another blog post.

    As I wrote in an earlier post, “Ultimately, remote work is freedom. It’s freedom from people interrupting your work. It’s freedom from an expensive commute. But there are downsides, too. You need to be around people.”

    Freedom to Change

    I started freelancing in October 2017 out of necessity. It quickly became my preferred business model. And yet I hadn’t fully taken advantage of my location-independence. I had changed my hours and I had changed my billing rates. I created half-day Fridays and I was able to travel and work at the same time.

    What I didn’t change was my home base. My very sentimental, expensive home. Until I moved to Texas last week.

    My clients are all over the world — quite literally.

    At the time one of them was living in Indonesia and is now in the Philippines after a brief stent in Europe. Another literally lives in an RV with his family so they can drive around the States. These two individuals kept reaching out to me privately.

    Why do you stay in California? You’re location-independent.

    Why, indeed.

    Freedom to Thrive

    I’ve written about surviving after the loss of my husband four years ago this past May. Surviving isn’t living. Surviving is base level. Surviving is being able to work and pay your bills. It leaves nothing left for enjoyment, arousal, inspiration.

    Honestly, as a widow of a well-enough known pastor and person in the community, it left me with very little room for personal growth beyond his legacy. I felt like I was outrunning an avalanche of ghosts. The parade of people who had died. The ghosts of relationships past — family, friends, memories. It was too much.

    To thrive, to be at peace, to be in a space that is created for me, I needed to leave. It became apparent on a Texas work-cation this summer. My two very close friends began to urge me to look at neighborhoods and pricing.

    I remember thinking, I just need to decide. I was texting Sarah Phillips while walking to my motel room and she said,

    “Bridget, you just need to decide.”

    I did. Almost immediately I got three business leads, two of whom are monthly clients now just about six weeks later. That was (almost) enough for  me. I put out a few more feelers, applied for an apartment, was approved, and like dominoes I moved into a two-bed, two-bath apartment in downtown San Antonio.

    Bridget's desk in her second bedroom of her San Antonio apartment.
    It’s nice to have a dedicated office space again both for the tax write off and for my mental health.

    Freedom to Self-Examine

    High overhead means less disposable income. It means I have to work myself into the ground in order to live. I was living to work. High debt (thanks to dental work) had me grinding. It resulted in a mental health crisis I wrote about elsewhere. I made a sequence of difficult decisions. I had to.

    A month later, the COVID pandemic hit. I was financially fine — for a while. In July I lost a client. I lost another in August. That gave me extra time to think but also was below my nut. The stress began to mount to where several friends and clients told me I was burnt out. I had no idea why they were saying it. Until I did.

    One day, I sat at my desk, laptop closed with the intent to write; I burst into tears. Big, giant, uncontrollable tears. Sarah knew it. She said, “Come spend time with me; I need help setting up my new home.” Maybe that was the reason, maybe it was a ruse, either way, it opened my eyes.

    Change needed to happen, it wasn’t just going to “do me good.” There was no way I was going to relive the stress of 2009-2011.

    Seven months after my mental health crisis, I moved into my apartment in Texas — to the day.

    Freedom to Experience

    During my work-cation with Sarah and since I’ve moved, I have been fishing, walked to a nearby park, spent hours upon hours alone driving on the road thinking and crying and praying, bought original art, and probably a whole lot more I haven’t even thought of.

    Things that I will be exploring and experiencing soon include kayaking, tennis, and visiting the botanical gardens, zoo, and the modern art museum.

    Remote Work is Empowering

    Once I decided to leave the burden of California, I was completely empowered — mentally. It’s remote work that made this possible. I didn’t have to move for a job, hate it, and have nowhere to return. I didn’t move for some guy and either fit into his family or not.

    The pace is slower, the costs are lower, I have fiber internet, a washer/dryer, and central air. My life is easier. All of my work is done in less than 4 or 5 hours a day. I can allow my body to rest. I can enjoy things around me.

    I have agency maybe for the first time in my life. Freedom to really drive my life. It wouldn’t be possible without remote work.

    Okay, here’s a P.S. since so many people have been asking.

    Why Did You Move to San Antonio?

    1. There are no state income taxes in Texas.
    2. I wanted to live in the Central or Eastern Time Zones to make scheduling easier with my clients. Other cities I considered were Montpelier, VT, Nashville, TN, and Atlanta, GA.
    3. Gas is $1.65/gallon. I bought eggs for 75 cents the other day. Cents.
    4. People from the Gulf Coast are evacuated during hurricanes to San Antonio.
    5. It’s the 7th largest city in the United States.
    6. There are about 1/2 million single men here (big place for military to retire).
    7. The jet stream doesn’t usually travel here so the threat of tornados is low.
    8. I wanted to live downtown so I can walk places. But I still have my car.
    9. The neighborhood I chose is quiet and has the best Mexican food I’ve ever had.
    10. My best friend Sarah lives two hours south and Rhonda lives 30 minutes north.
    11. There is a big enough airport here.
    12. I want a lower overhead so I can travel to Europe (after COVID — if that ever happens).
    13. The people here are super nice. Genuinely nice.
    14. I didn’t fit into the culture in Southern California. It’s pretty hard to date as a solid seven in a land of Barbies (just sayin’).
    15. I only moved to Southern California because of my husband’s family, most of whom I am estranged from — except some awesome nieces and nephews.
    16. There is less visual distraction here. It’s less agitating to drive. It’s cute what they think traffic is. I believe the expression is “Bless their hearts.”