Jetpack used to be a plugin only available to users on the WordPress.com network. Now, you can install this heavy plugin on your self hosted WordPress.org installation as well. You will need a WordPress.com user account to get full access to it. They have many features that are extremely useful for bloggers to use especially for their online marketing efforts. This one plugin can easily replace 10 other plugins you might already have installed on your self hosted WordPress installation. The plugin is still created and maintained by the folks at WordPress.com, but they are nice enough to let us self hosted users try it out. Check it out!
Jetpack’s uses for Online Marketing
Many people feel that Jetpack was originally for that inexperienced blogger who doesn’t know all that much about online blogs and websites. It’s just an entry level way to do a bunch of things. Well, now it has become a much more advanced tool that is useful for all kinds of website owners. Try some of these features out for your online marketing efforts.
Publicize your Posts
Publicize from Jetpack lets you automatically share your post to 4 of the top social media networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Tumblr. This makes it a lot easier to maintain your social media pages as all the posting is done right away. No need to go to all of your social media networks to repost something that you just shared. Publicize does it all in one fell swoop!
View your Stats
Yes, I know, you probably already have Google Analytics set up. Google Analytics is obviously much more advanced. However, if you just need a quick glance at a few statistics, why go all the way into another website service when it can be right on your toolbar? This makes it easy to just make quick notations of how certain areas of your site are doing, and make appropriate changes. Through this area you can see your referrers, subscribers, world viewers, views, and visitors. Again, it is definitely not Google Analytics, but it is still more convenient.
Let Visitors Subscribe
Jetpack also has a built in plugin to allow users to subscribe to your blog or comments. This is a quick solution for anyone looking to spread their brand’s reach a little bit further. You can insert the subscription box anywhere in the site with a quick and easy shortcode or with a widget. Once you have a list of users who have signed up for the subscription, you can view the list of emails to use for further email marketing efforts.
Allow your Visitors to Share
With Jetpack, you can also include a sharing bar below every page or post that directs users to share your content on one of many different networks. This will greatly increase the spread of your content and attract more people to your site as more of your visitors share it. So far, the following networks are available through the share bar:
- Tumblr
- Google+
- Digg
- Stumbleupon
- Press This
Contact Forms for your Visitors
Let your visitors contact you for further information regarding your website. Jetpack provides an easy contact form creator for any page of your website. This will automatically generate a simple form for your users to easily get in touch with you.
Just Scratching the Surface
These cool features are only a small fraction of the advantages Jetpack can offer. The features I discussed above are the ones that will directly affect your marketing efforts. There are several other areas of the plugin related to comments, spellcheck, and widgets. Check them out on their website and see what else you can do with it!
Keep in mind this plugin is extremely useful, yet it is a very heavy plugin. If you don’t see the advantages of using this plugin, then don’t install it as it might just bog down your site and slow things up a bit.