Many, from miles around, come to see performances by regional and touring musical performers, as well as live HD simulcasts of great operas presented by the Metropolitan Opera and simulcast plays presented by the National Theatre of London. Oh, the hall also hosts Pothole Pictures, an all-volunteer-run, non-profit community movie house showing the best in classic, foreign and independent films. 420 seats of sheer audience bliss!

As members of the community we were thrilled to create their new website. The website allows Memorial Hall to post new events in various categories, update their calendar via Google that instantly updates on the website, sell tickets online, track every visit to the site with Google Analytics allowing them to see where each vistor came from, how they found the website and how long they looked at various pages. They can even blog to their hearts content as we built it all with the WordPress platform. Of course we provide the hosting so it is fully customizable and we keep everything running smoothly.

Bravo Shelburne Falls Memorial Hall!

Truly unique, and all from Jeff’s creative brain, we took his design and ideas, forcing the code to bend to our will. The result is a truly unique website that can display Jeff’s work while allowing him to easily update it whenever he likes.

When setting up your Google Adwords campaign you will select any number of keywords but, when you choose one, you must consider the four keyword matching options that trigger your ads to appear in Google searches. The four keyword matching options are  broad, phrase, exact and negative match.

That’s it. Easy.

It’s all done with punctuation and Google explains it this way:

1. Broad match: keyword
Allows your ad to show on similar phrases and relevant variations
(The broad match modifier may also be used to further refine your broad keyword matches: +keyword.)

2. Phrase match: “keyword”
Allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase

3. Exact match: [keyword]
Allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase exclusively

4. Negative match: -keyword
Ensures your ad doesn’t show for any search that includes that term

Think of your keywords as search-targeted and use one of the four settings/options. Some options will result in fewer impressions and narrower targeting while applying the most relevant keyword, with the best matching option, will yield a better ROI from more ad impressions, clicks, and conversions.

Part 2 of my new series on Adwords, will go into more detail about each keyword matching option and how to apply them to your campaign.

For more tips, tricks and ideas follow us on Five Rings Media Facebook and Five Rings Media Twitter

Rumor has it that the new iPhone 5 could be announced as early as September 7.

- Kenny Butler

• Secure
• Fast access
• Passwords can be shared

In the end, we ended up using Passpack to manage our passwords.  It was free to test drive, and affordable to subscribe for a business account.  We are now able to access all of our passwords immediately, from any computer on any operating system. In a pinch, we can even access them from our phones.

Passpack uses user groups, making permissions easy to manage from a centralized account, and we can share passwords with contractors and customers alike as needed. It also offers excellent randomly-generated passwords, and has a robust tagging feature built-in (so we can tag by customer and by function).

We have been using Passpack for months, and it looks like it’s going to stay in our virtual toolbox for quite some time.

Writer Michael Phillips

Kenny Butler, president of Five Rings Media, LLC interviews client, Michael Phillips who is a successful writer and director in Los Angeles. His blog MichaelPhillipswrites.com deals with both art and politics.

KB – Why do you blog?

MP – That is not simple question. I think there are many reasons to blog, but what speaks specifically to me are the ones that increase my own personal brand. In other words, becoming more visible, establishing an internet presence with true content to back it up, and lastly I just have things I want to say.

KB –  How long have you been blogging?

MP – I have been blogging on an off for two years, but recently I have become a serious blogger, by which I mean a daily post, every day. This has enabled me to create return visitors, people whose daily online activity includes a look at my site. Also, it now gives my site some true dynamic content.

KB – Has blogging and Social Media had any affect on your business? Do you do things differently than, say, you did 10 or 15 years ago?

MP - 10-15 years ago there was,essentially no internet and thus no need to have a presence online. Now it is the single most productive business tool and, daily, it is becoming more central to the way people do business. Branded myself online by many ways, including my blog, has brought me much greater visibility.
My last play “Anais: An Erotic Evening with Anais Nin” is a prime example of how I use social media and blogging in a business model. At the end of a very successful opening run I would say that, approximately 90% of  ticket sales were generated from the internet by using tools like blogging, as opposed to traditional, old fashioned PR approaches.

KB – How technically difficult was it getting started, managing your own content on your website?

MP - I thought that managing my own content would be technical challenge. Was I wrong! It is very easy to learn the basics and be up and running very quickly. There are also many sources for help if you need it.

KB - How much control do you feel you have with your online presence now that you are using a fully hosted, and managed WordPress website?

MP - I feel like I have total control in managing how my online presence is presented, and I do not think I would have this without a fully hosted, and managed WordPress website.

KB – Do you view your blog as the center piece of your social network?

MP - I do indeed see my blog as the most vital part of my social network, however it is by no means the only piece. Coupling the blog with twitter and Facebook lets me strengthen my appeal on all three.
Becoming a blogger has certainly raised my visibility and also changed the way people view me.

KB - How has Five Rings Media helped you?

MP - They have provided me with a high quality base for my blog, a complete system of how to blog effectively, how to integrate all my Social Media and their excellent customer service is without equal. Without them I would have to spend a lot of time on site issues etc, which would take away from what I want to do, blog. They also provide a way for me to see how many people are visiting my site and what those visitors are interested in.

KB - Is it difficult to find things to blog about?

MP - I thought it would be difficult to blog everyday but what I have found is once you have done it consistently, over time it becomes a discipline, a habit. Most days I find that I have too many things I want to blog about.

KB - What are your current writing goals for your blog?

MP - I have a few goals for my blog, one is to be consistent with content, another is to keep increasing the number of visitors, and also the number of consistent reader.

KB – Why do you post your poetry on your blog?

MP - For a couple of reasons. I have two different audiences that read my blog and there is not that much cross over between them. One group comes to read my political commentary and another group comes to read my poetry. The other reason to write poetry on the weekends, is I enjoy sharing it, and putting my poetry out on the web in a way that I control.

KB - Do you have advice for new bloggers?

MP - I think the sooner you embrace blogging as a vital part of your social media marketing, the sooner you will start to have some success. I admit in the beginning I was actually a naysayer, but overtime and with success, I have become quite the advocate for the process. The only other piece of advice is develop a thick skin if you put your words out there someone will take issue with it.

In the end, we signed up for a free service called mon.itor.us which offers instant notifications when a site doesn’t respond (via SMS or email), and offers a weekly and monthly report of your uptime on a per-site basis. It’s a great service at a great price, and comes highly recommended to anyone who would want to know when their site goes down.

This approach to discussion does not require expensive software, and can be accomplished using something as simple as MS Paint.  As long as a tool suits your needs, it is worth using.  So far, we’ve saved several hours worth of back-and-forth communications and clarifications because of this effective means of communication.