Tag: social media

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I just updated my two tutorial posts on adding custom sharing services to Sharedaddy, which is now bundled with Jetpack for WordPress:

These are by far the most popular posts here, so I thought I should give them some long overdue attention.

I’ve added the missing variables and have added Tumblr as a sharing service to the list. This weekend I hope to go through the rest of the requests and add them into the post, as well as clean up some of the markup, which doesn’t play as nice with my new theme so it looks kind of ugly right now.

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UPDATED 3/16/14: I’ve closed comments on this post; most services that aren’t in this list don’t support this kind of connection. I hope you find the instructions and examples here helpful regardless.

UPDATED 3/26/11: Sharedaddy is now distributed as part of Jetpack, so I’m taking the opportunity to add some additional services to this list. Please continue to contribute if you have any other services that you’d like to see on this post.

In my previous post, I described in detail the process necessary to add a sharing service to the WordPress.com Sharing tools (also known to self-hosted WordPress users as the Sharedaddy plugin). Even if your favorite social network or sharing site isn’t available, odds are likely that you can find a method to add that service as a custom sharing button.

For the tutorial, I used Delicious as an example service because it’s a service I’ve used in the past, had a good URL structure that’s easy to demonstrate, and had nice screens that helped my instructions to be easier to follow. (It also had a nice site-provided 16×16 icon that we could use to mark the sharing service.)

This is a collection of various common sharing services that aren’t included in the Sharing tools defaults. It provides the necessary information so you can plug them in to your Sharing options. Remember, the three things you need to define a sharing service are:

  • A name for the sharing service (used for the text label)
  • The URL needed to send a link to the sharing service, which can use up to five variables, which are:
    • %post_tags%
    • %post_title%
    • %post_full_url%
    • %post_url%
    • %post_excerpt%
  • And the URL of a 16×16 icon that can be used for the service.

(If you need a refresher on how to add custom sharing services, please see the previous article.)

I’ll provide the Sharing URL format—including the variable placement—and a 16×16 button icon you can use for the service. Whenever possible, I’ve tried to pull the icon from the sharing service itself to avoid any licensing issues. This means some of the icons are ugly. If you would rather, are there a few very nice sharing service icon collections available, but you’ll have to credit the author if you use them.

Since a good number of WordPress.com blogs have used GetSocialLive in the past, I think that’s as good a place to start as any. I’m only going to include those for version one of this post; if you would like another service or you have one that should be added to this list, please leave a comment and I’ll be happy to include it in a revision. I’d like this post be be a kind of “encyclopedia” of these services for people who are using ShareDaddy.

Filling Out the GetSocialLive Services

Of the services included in the GetSocialLive tool, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Twitter are already provided for use in Sharing Settings—so you won’t have to worry about those. As for the rest:

Delicious

http://delicious.com/save?url=%post_url%&title=%post_title%

Blinklist

http://blinklist.com/blink?u=%post_url%&t=%post_title%

Technorati

http://technorati.com/faves?add=%post_url%

Yahoo! Buzz

http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzz?targetUrl=%post_url%&headline=%post_title%

Newsvine

http://newsvine.com/_wine/save?u=%post_url%&h=%post_title%

Services I Use, So They Get Preferential Treatment and Are Higher on the List

Evernote

http://www.evernote.com/clip.action?url=%post_url%&title=%post_title%

Hacker News

http://news.ycombinator.com/submitlink?u=%post_url%&t=%post_title%

Instapaper

http://www.instapaper.com/hello2?url=%post_full_url%&title=%post_title%

Other Services

Do melhor

http://domelhor.net/submit.php?url=%post_url%&title=%post_title%

FARK.com

http://www.fark.com/cgi/farkit.pl?u=%post_url%&h=%post_title%

Google Buzz

http://www.google.com/buzz/post?message=%post_title%&url=%post_url%

Menéame

http://meneame.net/submit.php?url=%post_url%&title=%post_title%

MySpace

http://www.myspace.com/Modules/PostTo/Pages/?u=%post_url%

Orkut

http://promote.orkut.com/preview?nt=orkut.com&du=%post_url%&tt=%post_title%

Pinboard

http://pinboard.in/add?showtags=yes&url=%post_url%&title=%post_title%

Posterous

http://posterous.com/share?linkto=%post_url%

Tumblr

http://www.tumblr.com/share?v=3&u=%post_url%&t=%post_title%

But Wait; There’s More

If you have a sharing service you either want to add to Sharedaddy’s custom option, or have added and already know how it works, please feel free to leave a comment on this post and I can get it added to this list.

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This is a series of 15-minute talks. Three talks, then a 30 minute break, then three more talks. Separate notes for each talk. Lots of people in here; people sitting in the aisles and standing in the back.

Ten Cool Things That Can Happen in Convergence This Year – Or Not

  • Social becomes the thread
    • The place where we get everything delivered and filtered (what most people think of when they think of Facebook)
    • Facebook is just the beginning (100MM people using the Facebook mobile, now on Xbox, DSi, Internet-enabled TVs, etc.)
  • Location matters
    • Gowalla/Foursquare
    • Our current location becomes part of our interactions – where we are and what we are doing
  • Entertain me now
    • Cloud-based entertainment repositories
    • Any platform, any time
    • Streaming, satellite radio, Slingbox, etc.
  • Birth of the frontchannel
    • Interaction while watching something – social interaction
    • MLB application for iPad
    • More rich experiences around live events
  • Commerce atomizing
    • Commerce experiences no matter where or what we are doing
    • Raves and reviews about products everywhere
    • Clothing modeled on a picture of you in real-time
    • Socially-enabled coupons that are trackable amongst friends and give rewards to the hand-out-er
    • Commerce apps in Facebook and iPhone apps – things like image recognition for book titles in the B&N application – every store becomes a B&N store
  • Life is a game
    • Game theory and mechanics are now integrated into more and more of our physical activities
    • Facebook friends and competition on numbers – Twitter followers
    • Miles run on Nike+
    • Badges/mayorships on Foursquare and pins on Gowalla
    • Loyalty programs
  • Interactive products
    • Increasing conditioning on having interactive interaction with physical things
    • Augmented reality
    • Barcode scanning things
    • QR codes
  • Your reality will be augmented
    • Not quite the holodeck, but more immersion into heads-up display things
    • From jet fighter HUDs to the first-down marker when watching TV
    • Fashionista
    • Lego – hold out box to kiosk and watch it be built on TV right there in-store
    • Project Natal
    • Bing AR maps – TED talk
  • Digital is the new paper
    • Tablet computers will usher in a new era of publishing
    • More interactivity and web-enabling
    • Digital publications changing how we interact with content – print-level design to things that are interactive and have things like video and social interactions
    • Connected advertising – buy things right from the ads
  • Rise of the connected things
    • Have we converged? When my bathroom scale will tweet my weight, we’re converged (this actually does exist).
    • Nike+, Sync, Poken

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Josh Bernoff on why traditional marketing and social media marketing are at odds with one another:

The problem is simple. Marketers don’t understand channels where you have to talk and listen at the same time. Like one of those maddening not-full-duplex speakerphones where you can’t interrupt somebody, this is what drives customers nuts. Think about it. None of those talking channels allows a response. None of those listening channels encourages actual feedback from the company.

The marketing industry’s idea of a two-way communication is to put an 800 number or a web address in an ad and take orders.

Like any shift in thinking, it’s already started with motivated individuals who wish to make a difference. It’s only a matter of time before this kind of thinking begins to permeate the culture of successful organizations.

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Chris Brogan on company presence management:

Let’s say you build a pretty decent stream of conversations on Facebook. Maybe it’s your junior comms person and they’re just drumming up excitement for a new product that the people want. Everything’s going great, and there’s an active group, and people feel like they’re being treated like humans. Know who comes next?

Marketing. In some companies, they come crashing down from the hills like angry Mongol raiders, set on converting people from interested community members into hot leads to purchase. They start asking to push materials down the community channel. They ask for lists. They push for opt-ins for email marketing.

Is it the right move? Not as listed above. Not if that’s not how you set the presence up to begin with. It will feel like horrid bait and switch. People will flock away pretty darned fast if you switch them over into convert mode. They’ll also hate you if you just pull up stakes and run after the product is launched. If they’ve committed to talking with you at those points of presence, they want you there for the long term.

Be wary of this. Think further out than a single campaign. If you set up the direct line, you have to be willing to answer it for more than the short term.

I don’t always agree with Brogan (or even the rest of the article), but on this I think he’s spot-on.

The most important thing for you to do with social media and interactions is to talk with your customers and to listen to them. Give them the “direct line,” as Brogan says elsewhere in the article, and then embrace that method of communications. It shouldn’t be a single point of contact for all your customers, but instead a network of people who are invested in their work who are passionate about serving people and connecting with the people on the other side of their work.

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For decades, the overriding construct of good marketing and public relations was that you had to tightly control the message your company was broadcasting to the world. Commercials, press releases, and other materials were carefully meted, checked, and rechecked to make sure everything was “on message”.

In the 00’s (the “aughts,” if you’re wondering how to pronounce that), we like to call these things “talking points.” Even though we are still in an environment where the method by which we share information is changing on a frequent basis, companies still like to make sure that everyone is toeing the line. After all, you want to make sure that everything is portrayed in the most positive light possible, right?

The problem with this approach is that in this post-Cluetrain, post-information-revolution age, control is an illusion.

Companies don’t have control anymore.

The control has passed to the consumers. To the rank-and-file. Your company might try to stay on-message, but look at the statistics. People don’t trust “official” communication now. They see it as too closely managed, too dishonest and impersonal. They want to hear from someone they trust.

Your customers have already taken the conversation to places you possibly haven’t thought. Are they on Facebook? Twitter? A forum somewhere? Email lists of their colleagues? You’re not going to reach them by elbowing in on their turf with an impersonal, robotic corporate mouthpiece and a few posts somewhere. They don’t want subversion; they don’t want to be crushed. They might even be avoiding you.

They want you to participate. And they want you to participate—as in you, the person who is reading this. Not your company. Not some official place for them to gather information. They want to hear from people on the inside, from people very much like them. They want to “get to know you” and to build a relationship of trust.

Sometimes, they want to lavish praise on you. Sometimes, they want to dump on you. They want to share their opinions, and they want honest, personal responses and discussion. The reward for your participation in this conversation is that you earn a measure of trust and can then share with them things that interest you—and those are very likely the things you are working on. (At least, they should be, or you should find a different job.)

They’re in the driver’s seat now.

What are you going to do about it?

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Michael Hyatt tells a story of meeting with another publishing CEO regarding blogging:

He asked, “How do I get started blogging?” My heart lept (sic). I knew he would have an instant audience. I, for one, would love to read what he had to say. I imagined all kinds of things I could learn from him.

Then he dashed my hopes. “Who do you use to ghost write your blog?” he asked.“Excuse me?” I choked.

“I mean, who do you use to write your blog? Could I possibly hire him or could you recommend someone that is really good?”

Honestly, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The guy obviously did not get it. I blurted out, “I don’t use a ghost writer. I write every word myself.”

He then said, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that. I don’t have the time.”

Without thinking, I said, “Then you shouldn’t do it at all.”

The worst thing you can do with blogging or Twitter or social networking of any kind is to set it up and then make someone else do all the work for you (the second-worst is to begin something and then let it lay fallow). Engaging with people on the Internet and within social media spheres is about making personal connections, not about being a company mouthpiece. Read through Mike’s quote up above: he recounts his anticipation of another CEO from a large publisher actively blogging about what he finds interesting and what he can share about the industry and his unique position.

He’s then very disappointed at the impersonality of his peer’s request. Why? Because he was looking to make a connection. To learn and grow within the industry by reading what someone else has to say—and to engage in conversation.

Continue reading “We Need Blogging Ghostbusters”