This is a video response to Cathy Larkin (@WhyDoWeBlog on Twitter) who asked about Trackbacks during a #blogchat conversation.
What are trackbacks and when they would be used in relation to WordPress.org blogs? Watch the video and find out.
Trackbacks in WordPress Blogs – Click here to View FULL SCREEN
If you like this post, comment, share, and set it free!
Photo Credit: Seryo via Flickr Creative Commons
When I heard Beth Kanter and Allison Fine had created a book for non-profits,The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change, I had to pick up a copy. I’ve been following Beth on Twitter (@kanter) for a year and a half and had the opportunity to chat with her at the Twitterville launch party a year ago.
The Networked Nonprofit does an excellent job explaining the “What?” behind social media for non-profits. What is social media? How does it apply to non-profits and what is the larger picture?
It’s easy to get caught up in the technology and tools aspect of social networking. The Networked Nonprofit lays out an easy to understand view of the Web 2.0 environment without forcing readers to jump over technological jargon barriers.
Social media is all about networking, something non-profits understand very well. The book builds off of that familiar concept and uses it as a scaffold to approach topics like online engagement, transparency, and crowdsourcing.
I strongly believe that The Networked Nonprofit belongs on the nightstand of every non-profit manager and anyone looking to support non-profits.
You can order a copy or a set of The Networked Nonprofits books via Amazon (affiliate link below).
Photo Credit: Noah Sussman – License
Is social media a way to capitalize on our ability to connect and empathize with all humans or does it feed narcissism, materialism, violence, and aggression?
After being extremely connected to social networking sites for over two years, I’ve seen both.
My mother taught me a saying, (in Spanish called a “dicho”) that goes “Dime con quien andas y te digo quien eres.” This literally translates to “Tell me who you’re with, and I’ll tell you who you are.”
If our brain fires every time we see someone else go through a specific set of emotions, then it would matter who we’re around and how they respond to things. If we are around nasty and brutish people, then that is what we’ll experience.
I’ve had the honor of being connected to some amazingly positive people on sites like Twitter and that has helped keep me sane over the past two years.
This British Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) video examines the concept of an empathic society.
What do you think, is the video overly optimistic or is narcissism more powerful then the need for connection and empathy?
Thanks to Neil Kramer (@Neilochka) for posting a link to this video on Twitter.
It’s easy to get caught up in technology for technology’s sake.
A programmer creates a cool tool in isolation and launches it to the bewilderment of users, a credit card machine requires unnecessary steps to process a transaction, an electronics security device is ten times more cumbersome than it’s worth in security. These are all barriers that frustrate the heck out of customers.
I recently had a positive experience with a technology gizmo while shoe shopping. The shoe store attendant offered to measure my feet using a digital foot analysis tool. All I had to do was take off my shoes and step into the machine.
Once in the device, a wall-mounted screen displayed an outline of my foot, it’s arch area, and pressure points. This allows the attendant to get the correct shoe size, suggest better fitting shoe options, and later try to sell me on custom inserts.
I ended up trying on several pairs of shoes but didn’t find the right fit. But I loved how the store used a piece of technology to get me closer to a sale.
So if you notice that customers suddenly started abandoning online shopping carts, sending few Web inquiries, or are buying few products from your stores, make sure you didn’t introduce a cool new technology feature that is getting in the way of a sale. The best advice is to track the introduction of new technologies in your sales process and measure their effectiveness.
Do you know of a technology device or system that made a noticeable difference in your purchasing decision? Please share.
Twitter recently rolled out its new iPad mobile application. Go to the App Store to get the latest version. Here’s a review of 5 cool features.
1. The application is made for the iPad. The previous application was just the iPhone version.
2. See multiple “views” on one screen. The new app allows you to see snippets of more than one view at a time. This is basically a visual “breadcrumb.” Unfortunately, there are a couple of instances when things get “stuck” and it is difficult to close the active panel.
3. Article/image previews on tweets. Click on an item in your timeline and see the tweet with the article preview below. This saves a click and gives you a good idea if you want to continue and read the article.
With the release of Flipboard, there has been a movement towards visual browsing of tweets. This is a great next step for Twitter.
4. “Faux” attachments on tweets. Twitter still doesn’t allow for attachments but this “Attachments” screen simulates that action. On a new tweet, click on the paper clip and you get access to your iPad photo album. The Twitter app ties in third-party image hosting companies to accomplish the faux attachments.
5. Integration with services. The app also allows users to connect to third-party services like Posterous for image and video posting. Video posting? Apparently the Twitter app is ahead of the iPad development curve and is already listing different video services.
I was surprised by the way the app “knew” how to select my Posterous account since I never use Posterous on the iPad.
Review
The new Twitter for iPad app is a great step in the right direction – it uses the iPad’s space intelligently and it incorporates preview features like rich desktop apps. I tested some of the “gestures” mentioned in the Twitter blog post but they weren’t intuitive so they’ve got some work to do there. All in all, it’s a must download.
Did you see any other great features? Overall, do you like what Twitter has done?
I use Google Analytics to track activity to and from my blog. Unfortunately, there are a lot of holes in that process, especially related to Twitter clickthroughs.
Before I started using this Google Analytics tracking technique, 16.8% of my traffic was showing up as “Direct Traffic.” After I started tracking Tweet Button clicks and Feedburner subscription clicks, that number went down to 13.45% and a new “Other” figure emerged.
This is awesome because now I can examine the behavior of visitors who click on the Tweet Button. Do Tweet Button visitors stay longer, visit more pages, or take key actions? Now I can answer some of these questions when before it was a mystery.
Because a good chunk of my blog’s traffic comes from Twitter interactions, you can see that the TweetButton clicks are in the site’s top 10 Traffic Sources. I can also see individual stats related to these visitors such as Bounce Rates, Time On Site, Goal Conversions and more.
We’re going to address the last case with this next hack. In order for this to work, you won’t be able to use the standard Tweet Button plugin. We’ll have to add the button by hand.
<!–/Twitter tweet button–>[/php]
The main “hack” comes from the data-url parameter value where we add the Google Analytics formatted tracking parameters, just after the Permalink. This way, when Twitter shortens the link into it’s t.co format, the link value will contain the tracking information.
In the above example, “data-via” is the Twitter user name that will appear on the tweet as “via .” “Data-text” is the text I want to display with the link. In this case I’m displaying the post’s title. “Data-related” is an optional related account that can be displayed. In this case I’m showing my blogging Lab account, @niceblog. The “data-count” value indicates how you want the button to appear on the screen. I chose a vertical format. You can see all the options on the Twitter Tweet Button blog page.
I tried hacking Posterous and Tumblr blogs but the built in URL template tags kept blowing away the parameters once the Tweet Button was called. If you figure out how to do this please drop a comment and I’ll update this post.
We just learned how to tack on a Google Analytics parameter to Tweet Button clicks on a WordPress.org blog. This will help you connect the dots on your online marketing and analysis activities.
If you find this useful, I’d be interested in how and why you would use it. Are you a marketing manager, a small business owner, or a code hacker? I’d love to find out.