TAI Extends Client Websites With Both Third-Party and Custom WordPress Plug-ins

Last week saw the launch of another Trinity Applied Internet custom WordPress website for northern Nevada short sale and foreclosure experts GreenStreet Realty. It features the new custom sidebars plug-in Patrick is getting ready to release to the WordPress open source code base, allowing for each section, or even each individual page, to carry a completely separate set of widgets in the sidebar. This allows the template to be infinitely more flexible and takes WordPress one step further towards being able to handle content like big brothers Joomla! and Drupal.

We also got the opportunity to play around with the IDX integration piece offered by GreenStreet’s MLS listings vendor, and are happy to report it was smooth sailing. The listings appear in various places throughout the site, and can be searched from the sidebar widget. Clicking a property listing brings the user to GreenStreet’s results page which is actually external to the website, an integration that looks seamless to the user.

Our content department (Erin, Nicole, and for layout, Rachel) contributed extensively to this project as well, with support including social media set-up, research and copywriting. And, there’s more to come! Stay posted for more exciting project updates…

What’s It Like Working With Trinity Applied Internet? Ready and Waiting for Your Call!

Part C: Ready and Waiting!

We feel that availability and efficient communication are central to web development and technical applications consulting. So we’re here. Pretty much always. From the real person who answers the phone every time it rings during business hours (thanks Nicole!) to a prompt email reply from Keith, to Patrick, who knows the minute there’s even a hiccup on your server even at 2 am on a Sunday, we are here. Just ask us.

Aside from being available, we go one step further and consider it our job, not yours, to do all the legwork. The nature of software and the web, and especially error-reporting, is that there are always a multitude of questions. It is written company policy here that it is not the client’s job to figure out all the finer points before they approach us with an issue. We’ll ask you which browser you are in. If it is a particularly tricky issue we may ask you for a screenshot. But like any good professional consulting and development firm, if you don’t have the answers we will leave it at that. We take your report, employ our robust issue tracking system and our cross-browser testing software, and come back to you with what the trouble is and what can be done to fix it.

Oh, and it is fitting to also tell you that as far as the details go, we will take care of them. Ever get caught in what seems like an endless loop of email back and forth? Communications are streamlined and efficiency is served when the responsibility for fact-checking, looking at the system one more time, logging in and checking the orders in your shopping cart for the tenth time, falls to one person. That “person” is us, whichever member of the team here you happen to be talking to.

We can’t claim perfection in these goals (who can?) but we do strive toward them each and every day and with every client interaction. When we are working on deadline and the impulse is to shortcut, we remind ourselves. We hope it leads to a smooth and engaging experience for our clients, and we take pride in hearing positive feedback in this regard from clients.

Earlier this month, we received a lovely letter in the mail from Beth Wells, Executive Director of the NV STEM Education Coalition. “Our website (ed. note: and its custom WordPress regional events calendar module) has garnered positive feedback and has contributed to the amazing growth in support for the Coalition this year. Erin’s training and Nicole’s patient support and training in keeping the website up to date have been outstanding. I am happy to recommend your services to prospective clients.”

Thanks, Beth! And a big thanks to all of our (more than 40) 2011 clients. Here’s to another year of doing our best work on your behalf!

Investing Time and Experience Before We’ve Even Started

Working with Trinity Applied Internet Part B: Investing Time and Experience Before We’ve Even Started

You know the staff. Now, what is the process? How do we approach your project?

The term “applied” in the name of the company is no accident. A cumulative thirty years experience in software and web development speaks volumes on behalf of the partners, and is directly applied to every project we produce, problem we approach, and product we deliver. The process behind your website or web application development is not piecemeal or made up as we go along.

Consult, research, facilitate, plan (and plan and plan some more), design, develop, test, adjust. Rinse and repeat. Every time, for every project. It doesn’t matter the size or the complexity of the project at hand, we spend the time at the beginning on analysis of your company, research, and planning. In fact, if you have already been through an estimating and proposal process with us, you know we spend a considerable amount of time getting to know you before we’ve ever even won you as a client.

Think every shop that advertises their easy and cheap WordPress package, or their hosted solution you dial right into, does that on your behalf? They don’t. Believe us, because we hear time and again from clients who tried out the competition first because of a really attractive price point, and since have realized they didn’t need a cookie-cutter approach. Or they went with a big media and advertising agency and were shoehorned into marketing decisions based on what the agency was “really good at,” and how it wanted to promote themselves as a full interactive shop.

Well, that strayed from the topic a bit, but the point is, at Trinity Applied Internet you get specialized, considerate, and tailored service that addresses your needs specifically. If you are a marketing department working with some IT constraints, we plan for that. If you are a small organization with one paid staff member and no time for teaching yourself website administration, we plan for that when we design your project, rather than discovering it at the end (or not at all.)

The adage about “prior planning prevents…” at best catastrophe and at worse any number of irritating little hassles. We take it to heart, to the extent that we are researching, discussing, and planning your project before you have even officially engaged us.

What Is It Like Working With Trinity Applied Internet?

Part A: Who is Trinity Applied Internet?

So, you have chosen TAI to build your application, redesign your WordPress website, or maintain your online presence. First, thank you! We love to meet new clients, learn about your business, your goals, previous successes and past challenges. (In fact, if you have come to the point of engaging us, you know we have already discussed most of that with you, even as we developed the proposal for your work.)

Next, you wonder what can you expect from working with us, the first thing being – who are we? In short, you will be working directly with a team of staff members and/or contracted designers and developers. When the project dictates, we also manage partnership resources for illustration and graphic design, hosting, analytics and SEO, or e-commerce, on your behalf. (All professionals based in the US – no offshore code factories need apply!)

Keith, Lead architect, user interface, and art director: Begins most projects in consultation and facilitation around goals and technical requirements, leads production of wireframes and comps.

Erin, Lead project manager, content director, operations: Tracks project progress, supervises content production, load and testing, manages accounts.

Patrick, Lead developer, database architect, and technical director: Designs the code behind all our work, as well as develops a good portion of it, maintains, monitors and upgrades existing sites and/or applications, and manages our development and production servers.

Nicole, Content management assistant: Serves as communication central around here, takes your requests and gets them where they need to go, as well as loads content, posts to your blog, administers your social media.

Rachel, Designer: Creates wireframes and comps, codes HTML/CSS templates, addresses maintenance and testing code issues.

Kym, Developer: Codes HTML/CSS templates, builds custom plug-ins, modules and apps, addresses maintenance and testing code issues.

Depending on the work, your project will also be supported by part-time freelance designers and developers who are directly supervised by Keith. They help keep us fresh, and insure that every problem we tackle is addressed by someone with a breadth of experience.

One last note: as the staff roster on the website indicates, four of us share the same last name. We are a family-owned and operated business, just another guarantee that we’ll go to great lengths to produce an outstanding project and experience for our clients – the family name depends on it!

Perpetual Apprenticeship

Does it seem like you are perpetually learning new things about how tools and strategies online can move your business forward? Over the years, I’ve met many people in many different situations who somehow expected to read up, get some advice, and then carry on with the knowledge of how the internet works and informs their business. Small business owners with marketing websites, IT professionals certified in a particular enterprise system, and plenty of folks somewhere in the middle who have been tasked to generate leads, sell things, or otherwise move business online.

Invariably, after working with us a while, these clients look at me (usually in their mind’s eye because we’re meeting online) and quip something like, “How can you manage this stuff when everything is constantly changing? Doesn’t this drive you insane?”

The answer to question number two is, yes…and no. Luckily, everyone we are fortunate enough to have on this team thrives on learning. Research. Applying lessons learned in one area to another. Patrick brings many years’ experience designing and developing software systems (with a bit of hardware experience, to boot.) Keith has spent an equal amount of time navigating the waters of “we-think-it-can-be-done-let’s-work-it-out” in teams both large and small. We are all perpetual students, continually following industry news and taking learning opportunities wherever we find them. We clock lots of overhead hours to R&D. Those interested in doing one thing over and over their whole day, week, career, need not apply here.

And then, just as we start to feel smart-ish, there’s a new version of IE, or Google releases some big hairy updates, or someone goes and invents something. (Twitter?) Every lesson we learn seems to point to more undiscovered territory, but also allows us to keep a solid footing when recommending solutions, troubleshooting issues, and making informed choices throughout the design and development process. We are keep at it on behalf of our clients, because we’re curious, fascinated, maybe even a little obsessed.

Excuse me, but I’ve got to go review my Google alerts on search marketing now.

2011, Wrapped Up at Trinity Applied Internet

As we return from our holiday break ready to conquer 2012, we feel it is only fair to offer a short wrap-up of 2011. In brief, it was a great year with some challenging and intriguing projects, and a ton of changes for Trinity Applied Internet.

One year ago, TAI consisted of Keith, Patrick, and Erin. We have grown by more than 60%, adding Nicole and Rachel full time, and Kym part-time. We have built a content marketing team, and now are able to offer clients services including copywriting, blog management, social media management, shopping cart administration, and other strategic marketing tasks in conjunction with our standard websites and application development. Many thanks go to our outstanding content clients, including Joelle K. Jay and The Inner Edge, TopLine Leadership, Our Broken Family Court System Conference, and NV Stem Education Coalition. We can’t wait to see what the next year brings!

Our ongoing maintenance, hosting and support business has been humming right along, as well. We continued providing service and support to Server Technology, PDUS Direct, KUNR, and a number of other companies, while adding the Nevada Immunization Coalitions and ITS Logistics to the mix. We provided project management and support to Vitamin Research Products and performed a Microsoft AX to Salesforce systems integration for Haws Corporation. As always, Trinity Applied Internet is proud to be invited to work for these industry-leading, globally or regionally respected companies.

And, as always, we’ve been launching a steady stream of custom content managed websites for companies big and small. This year’s site launches included the Nevada Small Business Development Center, The Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Foundation, Edible Pedal 100, Reno Sunrise Rotary, and Cart Barn, just to name a few!

We had some new opportunities this year including the chance to participate in Reno’s first ever Hack-a-Thon, Hack4Reno. We had a great time and even won Best Social App for our community-driven event application, EventSmash.  We also jumped into the conversation online, and created a goofy little app that helped anyone keeping track of the Old Spice Guy contest know who was ahead in “mentions” at any time during the contest – great fun!

There isn’t really any way to wrap everything up in one blog post – it has been such a busy year. But suffice to say there is a lot going on, with even more exciting developments on the horizon. The start of 2012 will see the reveal of some very exciting projects, as well as new developments in the office… (Namely, an office!)

We’ll keep you posted!

Happy Holidays!

It’s that time of year again… Winter is here and Trinity Applied Internet is sending warmest wishes your way for a joyful and safe holiday season. Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. The development team at Trinity Applied Internet would like to wish you a wonderful holiday season and a prosperous 2012. We only hope that you’ve enjoyed working with us this year as much as we’ve enjoyed working with you. Thank you for being excellent clients, helpful partners, or faithful friends, and we look forward to working with you in the coming year.  Cheers to you! Best wishes from the Trinity Applied Internet Family, Keith, Erin, Patrick, Nicole and Rachel      Copyright © 2011, Trinity Applied Internet, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 1285 Baring Blvd. #508 Sparks, NV 89434

9 Tips for Your LinkedIn Company Page

Maybe you have heard about the relatively new LinkedIn Company Updates?

These updates are a huge step toward engagement of your company brand on LinkedIn, something that has been missing from the platform for quite a while.

Enabling your company updates allows you to specify who can post for your company (as long as they have stated your company as their present position within their own LinkedIn profile.) This means you don’t have to be the one making the updates, or, even better, you no longer need to give out your personal login information so someone else can do this for you.

Other benefits may not be obvious, or to savvy social media types, maybe they are obvious and have been a long time coming.

This Hubspot post, 11 Reasons your LinkedIn Company Page Sucks, actually taught me a few things and gave me some ideas for updating TAI’s own LinkedIn company page as well.

Some of the things I found most useful and interesting:

Ask For Followers.

It is important for you to have followers; otherwise, your company updates will be like a tree falling in a forest. No one will hear it, know it fell, or care.

Fill Out Your Products Tab.

Although this sounds obvious, Hubspot points out that you can be creative here and use things like webinars, free eBooks, and other services rather than just products one would traditionally assume can be used here.

Ask For Product Recommendations.

This is a crucial step in Linked In. The more recommendations, the better chance someone will try your services, or buy your products.

Customize Your Products Tab.

Another interesting tidbit I didn’t already know, is that you can customize your Products tab to be specific to an audience. The Hubspot guide has more on how to set this up, but it sounds like a great way to set yourself apart from, and above the competition.

Set Up a Products & Service Spotlight.

You can set up a Products & Services Spotlight by using a YouTube video (if you have those in your marketing handbag) or up to three images that will scroll across the page and can be linked to URL’s you specify. This is something we will be looking into setting up on our TAI company page, as well.

In the News?

Another thought is that if you are a company that has been (or expects/ hopes to be) in the media, make sure you check the “Share News about My Company” box. You see the option for this on the company overview page when you are in “edit” mode.

Put Your Company Blog in Its Place.

Make sure you are feeding your company blog into your company page. This can be set up in the “overview” of your company. This is kind of nice, since you have previously been forced to put your company blog on your personal page, which wasn’t necessarily the best plan for your customers to see it or find any value in it. Also, it means you have the option of using a personal blog again on your personal profile.

Use the Connections.

Due to the fact that LinkedIn is specifically structured for job recommendations and promotion of work networks, it is extremely valuable to utilize your “career” tab (assuming you have open positions) in order to bring the most talented and technology savvy applicants to your company.

Mind the Metrics.

Last but definitely NOT least, are analytics. LinkedIn provides several analytics that can help you to shape your LinkedIn campaigns to best utilize your target audience and promote company engagement.

Your Thoughts?

How do you use your LinkedIn Company page? If you have other ideas that you would like to share, please let us know in the comments!

Facebook Fan Page

You have been hearing about how your business needs to get ‘social’. You already have a personal Facebook page, but you’re wondering how to set up a Facebook Page for your business?  Believe me, you aren’t the only one asking!

Before we begin discussing the steps to creating a fully functional Facebook Page for your business, it’s important that you keep one thing in mind: You will make mistakes.  Not you might – you will.  Every business has a different ‘feel’ to it that makes it unique.  Maybe you will jump into the social business sphere and everything will go smoothly and easily – you will still make a mistake – but that’s okay.  Don’t be afraid; yes, the internet has a long memory, but showing you are willing to try new things (this Facebook Page thing for instance) and making mistakes is part of the key to showing that your brand and your business is run by humans. Only humans can connect to other humans – a brand by itself, cannot.  So – human good, mistakes okay, now we’re ready to go!

Facebook is Personal

You must have a personal Facebook account in order to create a Facebook Fan Page. (More evidence that you have to be human to connect.) If you don’t have one, get one; it’s free and easy to start (click here for a video that takes you through step by step.) You don’t have to have a million friends (or even two) before you can set up a Fan Page for your business, but you do have to be willing to have your name as an administrator on the business page.  Why wouldn’t you want to promote your own business or brand? Don’t be afraid to stand behind (or in front) of your business and proudly declare, “I made this!”

Why the “Fan” Page

I know it says “fan” as if you are some eighties big-hair band with a bunch of groupies running around fainting when you look at them, but this is serious business. Who doesn’t want customers who are (fanatically) happy about your product or service? Especially one who wants everyone they know to see that they “like” your brand?  This is the ultimate boost for any company, word of mouth, but with a viral spread attached! Think, if your brand or business could touch as many people as the flu, and help them out as much as the flu makes them sick?! It would be amazing – an epidemic of Fans of you! Think that might generate some brand awareness?  We do, too.

Set It Up

If you are still reading, you are definitely on board for getting your Facebook FanPage set up!  Let’s go:

1. Login to your Facebook (personal) account.
2. Scroll to the bottom of your News Feed page.
3. In the footer, click on ‘Create A Page’
4. Pick your type of business and fill in the information.
5. Make sure to read the Facebook Pages Terms, then click Get Started.

Facebook will walk you through all your options for how you want to set up your Page from here.

Post Something

Post something, anything; it doesn’t matter what. Get yourself used to regularly posting as your brand. You can switch between your personal page and your fan page by going to your account (toward the top right) and either clicking “Use Facebook As Page” or “Switch back to “your name.”  Find all your friends, and other businesses you like or frequent and “Like” their Facebook page (while you are using Facebook as your brand.) You won’t be walking into hundreds of fans right off the bat, but the more you post — and the better you become at communicating with the customers you have — the more fans you will acquire.  It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.

Trinity Applied Internet Voted Best Social Application at Hack4Reno

Hack4Reno was a fantastic experience, and we really enjoyed working with several local teams!

Keith Anderson of Trinity Applied Internet Working at the Hackathon

First, a giant thank you to Reno Collective and The City of Reno for putting on this incredible event – we look forward to participating again next year. And, we were blown away by the talent of all the teams, but want to give a special congratulations to our friend Dawson Loudon of Sapphire, who took Best in Show for GoOutsi.de.

We created EventSmash: a mobile-friendly, area-wide events calendar website. Anyone can post an event, but only registered users can vote on these events. Users can sort events by category, including: art, training, music, nightlife, and more. All posted events are geo-located, so users will only see events that are relevant to their location. Fields to be published for each event include event title, description, date, category and place.  Also, the map icons change based on the type of event. Users can sign in through Facebook, Twitter and Google.

Some of the technology behind the app:

• consumes and publishes events via RSS and iCal
• allows developers to integrate EventSmash with their own website or application using a publishing API
• built on Ruby on Rails and hosted on Heroku

Keith and Patrick Anderson at Reno Collective for a Hackathon Mixer

We are honored to have won Best Social Application, and will be fine tuning and updating the app for full use very soon. Check back or keep in touch through our Facebook and  Twitter updates!