Admin Bar

I recently had a client that converted from a wordpress.com blog to a self-hosted Wordpress (wordpress.org) site. One of his complaints in the process was losing his admin bar, a toolbar that goes across the top of the page when a logged-in user is using the site. (I will be happy to now tell the people at the MRA Blog that I can update them to 3.1 to get it back!) This toolbar allows you to quickly add content, edit your posts, and perform other functions right from your blog instead of going to your dashboard. Here is a screenshot of the admin bar from a site I recently updated to Wordpress 3.1, Firefly Occasions:

Internal Linking

Including links to previous material on your blog is a great way to get readers to explore your material further and increase your page views. This new, lightning-fast tool offers an easy pop-up format for searching and referencing your own material for archive links.

Streamlined Content Editing

For those using Wordpress who are not power users, the new post/page editing screen allows you to streamline the process and reduce screen clutter by only showing the options and fields you need. Want your other options back? A few clicks and they will be visible again! This is also a great option for admins of Wordpress multi-user sites to reduce user confusion and the need for tech support.

Custom Post Format

Let’s say you want a blog with multiple types of posts — perhaps posts containing videos, posts containing links, and posts containing audio content. Wordpress theme makers can now easily make different displays for each type of post to create a unique, tumblog-like browsing experience for your readers. I am betting that we will be seeing a lot more of this style of blog from theme developers in the near future, with this type of functionality added to the Wordpress core code. You can see this type of theme in action with the Auld Theme by WooThemes:

To get the full rundown of the 3.1 release, see the Wordpress 3.1 Release Announcement, the Wordpress 3.1 Codex Page, or this Wordpress 3.1 summary from Mashable.

Questions about Wordpress version 3.1 or Wordpress in general? Post them here and I’ll be sure to reply back to you!

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The journey from the Yahoo! purchase of MyBlogLog to its demise 4 years later is just another chapter in the Yahoo’s history of purchasing and killing great ideas. To be honest, I had forgotten that I had a MyBlogLog account until I received this e-mail, as social networking has far surpassed any services that MyBlogLog was able to provide. I guess we will never know what the possibilities for the service would have been if a company better utilize the technology would have taken it over back in 2007 instead of Yahoo! … but we can be grateful for MyBlogLog’s original innovation in the blog-as-a-community idea.

Yahoo! purchased MyBlogLog in January 2007 for the price of $10 million.

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Facebook Alerts: The Productivity Killer

This week, I have been getting a ton of e-mail from Facebook. As Facebook is now notifying Page admins of every comment on their Page, I feel both informed and suffocated by this new surge of inbox activity. I’m listed as an admin on many Pages due to the nature of my web development work, but I don’t interact with fans on my clients’ Pages so I really don’t know who these people commenting are! I find myself checking Pages I don’t need to check, or using a lot of my time dealing with the additional e-mail. If you have one Page that you are an admin on, it should not be a big deal — but if you have multiple Pages or a high-traffic Page, you will end up with a lot more e-mail than you bargained for. In this case, I would recommend turning off your Facebook e-mail alerts and use the HyperAlerts service to monitor the page in a digest format. To turn off your e-mail notifications, go to Account (on the top right) » Account Settings » Pages » Change email settings for individual Pages. (See screenshot below.) Uncheck all your Pages (or however many you don’t want to hear from) and then click Save.

Goodbye FBML, Hello iFrames

iFrames are the new way to display content on your Facebook Page content tab. iFrames are already in use on many sites — you may have used them before to embed a YouTube video, a newsletter signup form, or a Google Map in to your website. What makes them nice is that you can make them with simple HTML, so you don’t know specialized programming (FBML) or add static FBML applications to your profile to get professional-looking Facebook Pages. Another benefit is that you can host the content for your tab on your own site, making you able to change your content directly from your website or track visitors for your content.

There are some problems with this system however, such as making Facebook scams easier to pull off. There are also some losses of functionality, such as making Facebook Reveal Tabs an impossibility for most average users because it would require tapping into Facebook’s programming interface (API) to set these up.

Surfing Facebook as Your Page

One of my favorite new features is the ability of a Page admin to interact with other Facebook Pages. You can now go up to your Account tab and select Use Facebook as Page. This will bring up a list of Pages that you are an admin for, so that you may select which Page you want to be. This feature may be confusing when you use it initially, but as long as you keep track of what picture you are seeing in the top left, you’ll know who you are and you shouldn’t have a problem of posting something in the wrong place. The huge benefit to the feature is that small business owners can interact with each other as their company profiles (their Facebook Pages), not as their personal profiles — you can comment on other Pages, Like other Pages, and network through your company name. This makes it much easier for people to keep their business profiles and their personal profiles separate on Facebook.

Adding "Profile" Pictures to Your Page

Pictures added to your Photos now show up in the five boxes just like your personal profile page. They are nice to have — I added a bunch of screenshots of my work to have them appear up there — but they still have the same problem as the personal profiles in that you can’t easily control or choose which of your photos appear up there. However, you can remove certain photos from that area by clicking on the X that appears when you roll over the image, and only your photos appear there (not fan photos or things someone else posted on your wall).

Changes to the Page Look & Feel

The original design for Facebook Pages had a light blue bar across the top of it. I used this in my Page and logo designs to give the illusion of a transparent image in a profile many times, as shown here in the old Page formatting:

Now that the formatting has changed on the Page upgrades, I will have to go back and fix all those graphics, as they will just look like they have an odd blue bar hanging out at the top. The new design has a flat, white top with the navigation moved to the left sidebar, as show below.

Have you upgraded your Facebook Page yet? If so, do you like the new features?

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"Companies are looking for new ways to sell their products and engage customers. Social media is an effective and low cost marketing strategy that allows you to compete with larger brands to gain visibility with your target audience. Whether your company is interested in testing social media by creating a corporate blog, creating a funny video and sharing this with people on YouTube, or establishing personal connections through your own brand profile on Twitter, there are many ways to take advantage of social media to create memorable brand experiences and grow your business."

While this is an effective way of getting the word out, it also makes it harder for your true fans to be able to find you. (The last time I searched for my name, I came up with over 9,000 true hits on Google!) If I am trying to work some personal branding, how am I to manage what is going on in so many locations?

A Central Place for Branding

The answer is to bring all these places together in one location—a central place for your personal brand. This could be the info box on one of your profiles, a Google profile, a company website, or a domain of your own name—it is up to you. The idea is to gather all the links to everything you are doing and put them all in this one location. This gives you one central location to base from, one single link to put into your e-mail signature, or a solid link to provide in the profiles for all the various websites you belong to. It helps focus your marketing efforts, keeps things simple, and lets people know where you are without having to Google you.

Virtual Business Cards

One way to create a central repository is to make yourself an online business card. Services like card.ly, Retaggr, PeoplePond, or Dandy ID provide fast and easy ways to create an online business card, even for a novice user. For those with a bit more advanced knowledge, you can make a vcard site using your own domain name like Tim van Damme and all the people he has inspired on his Wall of Fame. With either method, the idea is clear: keep it simple, make it precise, and keep it professional.

Social Media Spots

For those with an existing website (or existing websites), establishing a section of the site for social media and other connections is the best way to centralize your marketing efforts. For example, Sonya Ferreira of Sonya Lee Weddings & Events created a special "Connect With Me" section for all her links and social media connections in an eye-catching location on her new blog. She says:

"Social media marketing does have great benefits for my business, but I feel like having all these various profiles and websites really fragments my branding efforts. Having a blog (Brides with Passports) that I can brand with a centralized social media section has definitely simplified things."

Many modern themes for Wordpress come with a social media focus, offering plug and play configuration for connecting all your social media accounts. Some examples of this include:

• Therapy and AntiSocial by WooThemes
• Urban Elements by Press75
• Cherry Truffle by Elegant Themes

You could also add a plugin to an existing installation, like Social Media Page for WordPress.

LifeStream

For the ultimate mashup of all your social media sources, I offer the LifeStream Plugin for WordPress. You can use this anywhere from a sidebar on your regular site to a main selection for the site itself. MyTechTeam uses the LifeStream plugin in a sidebar to bring in feeds of interest to their customers as well as their own blog and Twitter feeds. I recently built my own lifestream site to look like my Twitter page that incorporates everywhere on the net that you can find me professionally.

Not good with programming? You can create your own (business)lifestream with Tumblr, Twitter, or a Facebook Page. There are many options that will take your feed from one site and post it to another (such as twitter feed), creating one page that is your centralized source of everything you!

Nikole Gipps is the face behind the superhero character at That PHP Girl, a web development help service for DIYers and non-tech pros.

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Nikole Gipps is the principal of NHG Consulting, a web design and marketing firm. She can be reached through her StartupNation profile, her company website, or her Small Business Essentials site.

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Confused by what "mashups" and "feed readers" are?

• A mashup is a web page that displays data from many sources in one place. See Mashup (web application hybrid) from Wikipedia for more information.
• A feed reader is a mashup in itself—it combines all the feeds from your favorite sites into one place so you can read them. See Save Time with Subscriptions for more information.

Nikole Gipps is the principal of NHG Consulting, a web design and marketing firm. She can be reached through her StartupNation profile, her company website, or her Small Business Essentials blog.

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What is sketchcasting?

Sketchcasting takes the concept of giving a presentation at the whiteboard and puts it into a simple video format so that you can easily share your ideas in a clear way. The idea is that you can present visual cues as you speak, giving you the ability to convey a very complex topic in a short amount of time. It combines the power of podcast audio (like the ones you can download here on SuN) with the visual aid of the whiteboard.

How do I make a sketchcast?

As outlined in this video, you will need:

• a computer (which you obviously already have)
• an inexpensive microphone (maybe $10-$20)
• software to record your on-screen movements ($50-$300)
• YouTube (free!)
• a drawing tablet or Tablet PC ($50-$150)

The process is pretty straight forward: you talk into the microphone as the program records your movements, save the file in a web-ready format (QuickTime video, AVI, or Flash file), upload to YouTube, and then link to it from your site or embed the video using YouTube’s code. For a more detailed explanation, see the video.

What can I use sketchcasting for?

The possibilities are nearly endless. Here are some of the ideas I thought about while watching the sketchcasting video:

• Project collaboration
  For example, say you have an engineer in Europe making a prototype of a new widget for you. You could open the drawings of the prototype in your drawing program, and then make a sketchcast of your comments while you are marking up the drawing.
• On-demand seminars
  You could add a sketchcast to your course outline to demonstrate concepts and give a lesson. By also adding commenting functions to the bottom of the sketchcast page, you could also start a conversation about that topic or lesson.
• Athletics
  Use sketchcasting to digram sports plays or techniques for your athletics-themed website, a la Madden and his TV chalkboard.
• How-to videos
  Demonstrate your actions rather than just talking or writing about them.
• Blogging
  You could spend half the time making your post if you were talking through it instead of writing and re-writing it. For a bonus, your natural speaking voice promotes you as an expert in your field. (Anyone can research and write an article. It takes a true expert to discuss a topic off the top of his/her head.)

How about you—would you try sketchcasting? Why or why not? What other uses can you think of for this technology?

For more information, and other great videos, check out sketch.basement.org.

Nikole Gipps is the principal of NHG Consulting, a web design and marketing firm. She can be reached through her StartupNation profile, her company website, or her Small Business Essentials blog.

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I don't have a landline. (Yes, in our house, we have 3 Nextel cell phones, in 3 area codes, but not a single landline.) So when a client needs an invoice faxed or wants to fax a print project markup to me, I end up having to get in my car and drive to Kinko's.

But not anymore! I've found GreenFax. It basically sends and receives faxes through my email for less cost than installing and maintaining a landline in my home. It was really easy to set up, and now I have my own dedicated fax number in my local area code! The messages are fast, too—someone sends me a fax and it's in my Eudora inbox instantly.

So check it out! There's apparently hope for those of use who are too high-tech to own a landline (and too cheap to own one just to get a couple of faxes a month).

Nikole Gipps is the principal of NHG Consulting, a web design and marketing firm. She can be reached through her StartupNation profile, her company website, or her Small Business Essentials blog.

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So what can you do?

• Make content your #1 priority.
  
  The goal of your site or blog should not be to merely toss the information up there and let it go. The problem, as I see it, is the ease and speed in which blog posts and site changes can be made. Your goal should not be speed, but quality. Review your content: Is it relevant to your readers? Have you edited it to remove anything unnecessary? Are you proud of that piece of work, and does it reflect positively upon your company? If it's not quality content, it belongs on the cutting room floor.
• Format your content to maximize readability for the web.
  
  Good content starts with good ideas, swings through heavy editing, and ends up with formatting your content for people, not machines. With so many site owners trying to format their content to rank high on the search engines, I believe the quality of the content goes down—so focus on your readers, not the search engines. (For more information on formatting your content, see Writing to be Read.)
• Reduce your posting frequency.
  
  I sometimes feel like we're all going to hyperventilate in the age of Twitter, as quantity has replaced quality. Too many bloggers are just rehashing the ideas of others instead of creating original content, or just linking to other posts instead of adding their own insights. You have this concept supported by places like Creative Weblogging, who asks new bloggers to make 7-10 posts per week. Let's reverse this trend by providing better content in fewer posts, and try to not be so vain as to think your readers have time to read daily posts from you that are not long enough to be of any real value.
• Participate in blog carnivals.
  
  Blog carnivals are collections of summaries and links to blog content, pulled together by an editor. By participating, contributing, and hosting a blog carnival, you are saying quality content is important to you, and you would like to reward those who write quality content with recognition. The oldest and best blog carnival for the business world is the Carnival of the Capitalists, which inspired this post because I happen to be hosting it today! Although hosting is a lot of work (I had to read through about 40 articles this weekend), it is worth it to me to support others in their quests to produce quality content week after week.
• Lend your support to the MBA by Blog project.
  
  The limitations of a blog carnival stop at their periodical nature: most carnivals are posted weekly or monthly. This is why the founders of the Carnival of the Capitalists created MBA by Blog, a celebration of the best business posts of all time. You can help out this project by suggesting new links any time you find a truly outstanding piece of information in a blog.

So readers, lend me your thoughts: What else bugs you about web content and how can we, as the writers, make that better?

Nikole Gipps is the principal of NHG Consulting, a web design and marketing firm. She can be reached through her StartupNation profile, her company website, or her Small Business Essentials blog.

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