Cardeo » Social Media http://www.cardeo.ca Ramblings on web design and social media Wed, 26 Oct 2011 17:58:45 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Automatically Tweet Your RSS Feeds with TwitterFeed.com http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/automatically-tweet-your-rss-feeds-with-twitterfeed-com http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/automatically-tweet-your-rss-feeds-with-twitterfeed-com#comments Tue, 21 Sep 2010 23:41:20 +0000 admin http://www.cardeo.ca/?p=3580 Ever wonder how people automatically tweet their blog posts on Twitter? It’s actually super easy if you use TwitterFeed.com. It’s a free service that is super easy to setup. Check out the setup instructions after the jump

Setting Up Your Account

First things first, head over to TwitterFeed.com and sign up for an account. Next, Head over to your website or blog and copy your RSS feed URL.

Basic Feed Setup

Return to TwitterFeed.com and log into your account (you may already be logged in). Once you’re in, click the Create New Feed button. Next, enter a name for your feed and paste in the URL you copied from your website. Click the Test Feed button to make sure your feed URL is working. At this point, you can move onto Step 2 by clicking the button on the bottom left corner, or you can configure some advanced options.

Twitter Up Your Business

Advanced Options

I definitely would recommend configuring some of these options. To get started, click the Advanced Settings link near the bottom left of the page. That area should expand to reveal a number of customizations. Depending on the post frequency of your blog, you may want to change how often TwitterFeed.com looks for new posts. I’d also up the number of posts it will publish at any given time to 5. Under Post Content, I’d recommend setting it to Title Only. It just looks cleaner on Twitter where you only have 140 characters to play with. Post Prefix inserts some text before the title of your tweet. Post Suffix inserts some text after the title of your tweet. I’d recommend using Post Prefix to add something like: “New Blog Post:” before the title, so people know it’s a blog post. Aside from that, I’d leave the other advanced options as they are, and move onto step 2 by clicking that button.

Linking your Account

On the next page you’ll notice that you can link your TwitterFeed.com to 5 services, not just Twitter. The other services are: Facebook, Ping.fm, Hellotxt, and Statusnet. For this example, we’ll just setup our Twitter account. Click the Twitter link, then click the big Authenticate Twitter button. At this point you’ll be asked to log into your Twitter account which you should do, clicking the Allow button. Once you Allow TwitterFeed.com to access your Twitter profile, you’ll be returned to the TwitterFeed.com website. The last thing you need to do is hit the All Done button near the bottom left corner of the page. That’s it, that’s all, you’re done. Head back to your dashboard if you want to add another feed.

Keep in mind you can import any feed to your Twitter account. That mean’s you could import your Flickr photostream, or your Delicious bookmarks stream.

]]> http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/automatically-tweet-your-rss-feeds-with-twitterfeed-com/feed 0 Styling a Custom Facebook Tab http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/styling-a-custom-facebook-tab http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/styling-a-custom-facebook-tab#comments Wed, 15 Sep 2010 07:04:14 +0000 admin http://www.cardeo.ca/?p=3536 Up until now, I was under the impression that you had to do all your styling inline when building a custom Facebook tab. Rejoice! Today I discovered there is another way to do the styling which is way less annoying.

Use the <style> Tag

To avoid using inline styles, you can insert a <style></style> at the top of your document. See below for an example:

Here’s what the code looks like

<style>
#mybox {
 background-color:#000;
 width:200px;
 height:200px;
}
</style>

<div id="mybox">This is my box</div>

Note how the <style> tag is not wrapped in a <head> tag. Also the code for your tab is not wrapped in a <body> tag. This is intentional, you need to leave those tags out for this to work. A little unorthodox but it gets the job done. Better yet, you don’t have to use those pesky inline styles!

]]> http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/styling-a-custom-facebook-tab/feed 1 15 Simple Ways to Integrate Facebook into Your Website http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/15-simple-ways-to-integrate-facebook-into-your-website http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/15-simple-ways-to-integrate-facebook-into-your-website#comments Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:17:09 +0000 admin http://www.cardeo.ca/?p=3399 Have you ever wondered how to integrate Facebook into your blog? If so, there’s a great post over at web.appstorm.net explaining 15 Simple Ways to Integrate Facebook into Your Website.

Preview of Topics Covered

  • Facebook Like Button
  • Disqus
  • Echo
  • IntenseDebate
  • WP-FacebookConnect
  • Facebook Dashboard Widget
  • Fotobook
  • Gaboinked!
  • WPBook
  • Drupal Facebook Connect
  • Joomla Facebook Fanbox
  • Facebook Buddy Module
  • KA Facebook Fanbox Pro
  • Facebook Connect Wizard
  • Facebook Wiki

Read Article | 15 Simple Ways to Integrate Facebook into Your Website

]]> http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/15-simple-ways-to-integrate-facebook-into-your-website/feed 0 Twitter Tweet Button http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/twitter-tweet-button http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/twitter-tweet-button#comments Fri, 13 Aug 2010 18:48:09 +0000 admin http://www.cardeo.ca/?p=3391 Finally Twitter has a released a Tweet Button! Up until now this was a more complicated process, where you had to figure out the code yourself. However, things just got easier and you can easily add a “Tweet This” button to your website or blog.

]]> http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/twitter-tweet-button/feed 0 How to Authenticate Users With Twitter OAuth http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/how-to-authenticate-users-with-twitter-oauth http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/how-to-authenticate-users-with-twitter-oauth#comments Wed, 04 Aug 2010 17:49:47 +0000 admin http://www.cardeo.ca/?p=3322 Ever wonder how to authenticate users with Twitter OAuth for your Twitter webapp? There’s a great tutorial on how to do just that over at Nettuts.com. The tutorial will take you through all the necessary steps, and there are downloadable source files for your reference.

]]> http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/how-to-authenticate-users-with-twitter-oauth/feed 0 Adding A Facebook Like Button To Your WordPress Blog http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/adding-a-facebook-like-button-to-your-wordpress-blog http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/adding-a-facebook-like-button-to-your-wordpress-blog#comments Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:35:37 +0000 admin http://www.cardeo.ca/?p=3312 Ever wondered how to add a Facebook “Like” button to your WordPress blog? It’s actually quite simple using the Facebook Like Button For WordPress Plugin.

Facebook Like Button Plugin | Download The Plugin

Further Instructions

Simply download the plugin and install it on your server. Activate it from the WordPress Admin, then configure it under the Settings tab. If you have any questions on how to configure the plugin, please leave a comment.

]]> http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/adding-a-facebook-like-button-to-your-wordpress-blog/feed 0 How To Create A Custom Tab For Your Facebook Page http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/how-to-create-a-custom-tab-for-your-facebook-page http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/how-to-create-a-custom-tab-for-your-facebook-page#comments Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:15:35 +0000 admin http://www.cardeo.ca/?p=2727 Ever wonder how to make a custom tab for your Facebook page? In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to do just that using the the Static FBML app. Adding a custom tab is actually quite easy, I’ll have you up and running in no time.

Getting Started

Before we get started, I’ll assume you have a Facebook page. If not, you can setup a new Facebook page for your business, service, band, etc… over at Facebook.com/pages. Click on the + Create Page button and follow the on screen instructions. Once you have your page setup, we’ll move onto adding the Static FBML app.

Static FBML App

The Static FBML app allows you to add a custom tab to your Facebook page. The content for the tab can be designed using static HTML. Make sure you’re logged into your Facebook account and navigate to the Static FBML page. Once you’re there, click on the Add to my page link, which is located under the profile image (top left corner).

Once you click the Add to my page link, an overlay should appear with a list of all your Facebook pages. If you only have one page, it should appear on it’s own. Click the Add to page button next to the page you want to add the tab too. Once you add your page, click the Close button to hide the overlay.

Adding The Tab To Your Page

Head over to your Facebook page and click the Edit Page link under the profile image (top left corner). On the edit page, scroll down to the Applications section and locate the FBML – FBML application. Click the Edit link under the FBML Application section. This will load a new page with two fields: Box Title and FBML.

Box Title is the title for your tab. Enter the name for your tab here. I’d recommend trying to keep it short and sweet. In the FBML section, paste the HTML for your custom tab. You only need to paste in the code that would appear within the <body> of a regular HTML page. See below for a basic example:

<h2>This is a sub-title for my tab</h2>

<p>This is some copy about my tab</p>

<p><img src="image.jpg" width="300" height="300" alt="tab image" /></p>

Once you are done entering your code, click the Save Changes button. To head back to the Edit page, click the (edit) link near the top left corner of the page. Once you get back to the edit page, you’ll notice the FBML – FBML application title has changed to Your Tab Name – FBML. That’s a good thing, it means it worked :)

The last step is to add the new tab to your page. To do this, on the edit page click on the Applications Settings link under your new Tab application. An overlay will appear with two options: Box and Tab. Box adds your tab to the Boxes tab on your page. I’d recommend removing that from Boxes. The second option, and the one you need to tweak, is the Tab setting. It should read available, click the (add) link next to available and you’re done. Head to your page and you’ll see your new custom tab.

Adding Multiple Tabs

If you’d like to add more than one tab, it’s quite easy. Go back to the Edit page, and head down to the FBML application section. Click the edit link which will load your current custom tab. At the bottom left corner of the page, there is a link titled Add another FBML box. Click this link to add another custom tab. You’ll notice it adds a new box to the list in the bottom left corner. Simply click the edit link next to the new box to edit it. Once you are done, you can add the second tab the same way that you added the first one to your page. That’s it, that’s all, feel free to leave questions in the comments section.

]]> http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/how-to-create-a-custom-tab-for-your-facebook-page/feed 1 Watch Facebook’s F8 Conference Online http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/watch-facebooks-f8-conference-online http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/watch-facebooks-f8-conference-online#comments Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:17:12 +0000 admin http://www.cardeo.ca/?p=2930 If you missed it, Facebook had it’s F8 Conference today. The conference is geared at Facebook developers, and they made some big announcements. Make sure you check out the live stream of, Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote speech.

Social Plugins

The big announcements centered around the new Facebook Social Plugins. Notably, the Open Graph and the “Like” button for external websites. The focus is starting to shift, make sure you keep up to date with all these new Facebook developments.

]]> http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/watch-facebooks-f8-conference-online/feed 0 Adding A Google Buzz Share Button To Your WordPress Blog http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/adding-a-google-buzz-share-button-to-your-wordpress-blog http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/adding-a-google-buzz-share-button-to-your-wordpress-blog#comments Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:21:48 +0000 admin http://www.cardeo.ca/?p=2619 There’s a great little tutorial over at savedelete.com on how to add a Google Buzz share button to your WordPress Blog.

“The Share button is actually a Google Reader Button and if you have added Google Reader in your Buzz connected sites, then only it will share the item in your Google Reader + Google Buzz.”

Check it out

]]> http://www.cardeo.ca/2010/adding-a-google-buzz-share-button-to-your-wordpress-blog/feed 0 It’s getting easier to connect with Facebook http://www.cardeo.ca/2009/its-getting-easier-to-connect-with-facebook http://www.cardeo.ca/2009/its-getting-easier-to-connect-with-facebook#comments Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:16:47 +0000 admin http://www.cardeo.ca/?p=1924 Facebook released a couple of great updates to the Facebook Connect program this week. The first was the announcement of a new translation tool that you can use on your own website. This could be big news for companies that operate international websites in multiple languages.

The second was the release of Facebook Playground, that aims to make it easier to add Connect widgets to your own website. You can now setup Facebook Connect in three easy steps with the Connect Wizard. Once you’re setup, you can add the following widgets to your website by cutting and pasting code snippets:

Facebook Connect Markup and Publishing

» Social Markup: Login Button, Profile Picture, Name, Friends
» Publishing to Facebook: Stream Publish

Facebook Connect Widgets

» Share Button
» Comments Box
» Fan Box
» Live Stream Box

I’ve implemented a number of the widgets over on my Vancouver Canucks blog if you’d like to check them out. I love how Facebook is making it easier and easier to add these new Connect features, keep them coming!

]]> http://www.cardeo.ca/2009/its-getting-easier-to-connect-with-facebook/feed 0