Who knew that when the rock band Styx sang about a robot in the early 80’s that they were talking about Facebook chatbots? Okay, maybe they weren’t, but it kinda makes you wonder. Check out the lyrics,
You’re wondering who I am (secret secret I’ve got a secret)
Machine or mannequin (secret secret I’ve got a secret)
With parts made in Japan (secret secret I’ve got a secret)
I am the modren man – “Mr. Roboto”
Well, these days you can create a chatbot, or as I like to pretend, a robot, to chat with users on your Facebook page. That’s just one of the topics in this month’s blog post roundup.
This month’s WordPress roundup includes blog posts about MainWP, Facebook chatbots, growing an email list, and a developer’s checklist.
MainWP Love
Creating a Stylish Client Report in MainWP
MainWP has a client report extension. A few weeks ago in the MainWP Facebook Group, Joshua Vandercar mentioned he had created a nice stylish client report and shared a screenshot. It was fantastic.
Other developers asked him how he managed to make it look so good, so Vandercar wrote a post. In the post, he breaks down how he made his stylish reports.
MainWP Vulnerability Checker Extension Overview
The MainWP Vulnerability Checker received some love in late June. The Resources on WordPress blog evaluated the extension and surmised it was ideal for monitoring vulnerabilities for various themes and plugins for a large number of sites.
MainWP Vulnerability Checker gives you another point of view of your sites. In combination with MainWP Sucuri extension and MainWP WordFence it provides you enough information to keep you sites secure and protect them from low level (script kiddie) attackers. Resources on WordPress
Facebook Chatbots
How to create and use a Facebook chatbot for your business
We’ve talked about chatbots on the MainWP blog, and Facebook Bots are one of those types of bots. At the GoDaddy Garage, Derric Haynie gives a nice explainer post about getting started with Facebook chatbots.
What I particularly like about the articles is that Haynie talks about the situation in which you would need a Facebook chatbot. He says,
If you’re getting at least two to three messages a day on a consistent basis (maybe you’re running a lot of Facebook ads) and you keep getting the same questions over and over, a Facebook chatbot is a great idea.
He also goes over different platforms developers can use to get started. If you are interested in using Chatbots at all, this article is worth the time to learn more.
List Growth
How a giveaway helped double our email list in 2 days
Are you trying to grow your email list? There are lots of different ways to facilitate growth. James Rose from the new SaaS Content Snare shares the techniques they used to double their email list in just two days.
The team at Content Snare ran a giveaway which Rose said took about 2 hours to set up. Content Snare used UpViral to grow their list.
Rose goes into the whys and hows of the giveaway and shows the numbers behind the success.
What ideas have you tried to grow your email list?
Developer’s checklist
A developer’s checklist for redesigning your clients’ websites
If you have launched more than a few websites, you know that having a checklist is imperative to catch any mistakes you make in your process.
John Hughes of WP Candy writes a good post on best developer principles for a new website at Torque Magazine. In all, he goes over nine different best ways to build out a client’s new WordPress website.
A content upgrade would have been a fantastic addition to the post, but it is still a good resource.
That’s a wrap
Have you grown your email list with a giveaway? Have built a Facebook chatbot? It really is amazing what you can do these days to serve your customers.
Until next time, just remember, I’m not a robot.
I’ve come to help you with your problems, so we can be free
I’m not a hero, I’m not the saviour, forget what you know
I’m just a man whose circumstances went beyond his control – “Mr. Roboto”
