Get Started With LiveFyre

LiveFyre is a blog commenting system that allows you to integrate social media with your blog’s comments. People will be able to sign into their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google ID accounts to post comments. They can also “like” or “share” your comments using their Facebook accounts and can also follow you using the same accounts.

Basically, LiveFyre uses existing social media logins and allows you to post to social media from your blog’s commenting system.

Here’s how to use LiveFyre.

 

Step 1: Install LiveFyre

 

Go to your plugins panel, click “Add New,” find LiveFyre and click “Install Now.”

1-Install-Now

Click “Activate Plugin” when it’s installed.

2-Activate

Step 2: Creating Your LiveFyre Account

 

In order to use LiveFyre, you’ll first need to create an account. You’ll be prompted to “confirm your blog configuration” after installing the plugin, which basically just means they want you to create an account.

Click the link that shows up after installing the plugin.

3-Confirm

Click on “Create New account.”

Create new account2

Enter the login details for your account.

4-Create-New-Account
Upon creating your account, you’ll need to go back into your blog, click the “confirm” link again and sign in.

LiveFyre will then import all your existing contacts.

6-Importing
Once finished, all the old comments on your blog will be imported into LiveFyre.

Step 3: Using LiveFyre

 

All the comment boxes on your site will now turn into LiveFyre comment boxes.

To post a comment, just type in your comment as usual. When you click “Post comment as” however, you’ll need to sign into a social networking ID before you can post the comment. This will allow people to post with their real identities, connect with friends as well as reduce spam on your system.

7-Post-a-Comment

This is what the login screen looks like:

8-Sign-In-Window
In order to follow a conversation, or to post to Twitter or Facebook, they’ll also have to sign in with those IDs respectively.
That’s how to install LiveFyre, create a LiveFyre account, use the commenting system and link it to an existing social network.

 

Get Started With Intense Debate

Blogpost

Intense Debate is a WordPress plugin designed to facilitate active discussion and, well, debates. By default, anyone who posts a comment will be subscribed to receive emails about future comments (easy to turn off if you don’t want to.) It utilizes threaded discussions, so anyone can reply to the whole topic or to an individual poster.

Here’s how to sign up for and use Intense Debate.

 

Step 1: Join Intense Debate

Go to: http://intensedebate.com/signup

Fill out the form to start the signup process. Make sure to check the “I want to install IntenseDebate on my blog or site” box.

 

1-Join-the-Debate

You’ll need to verify your email address. Click the link emailed to you, which will then return you to the IntenseDebate site to continue the setup process.

Enter the address of the blog you intend to setup.

2-Enter-URL

Click the “Wordpress” button.

3-Click-WordPress

That’s all the installation you need to do on Intense Debate’s site. Next is setting up your WordPress blog.

Step 2: Install and Activate

Find the Intense Debate plugin using the plugin search at Plugins > Add New in the left hand side menu bar. Click “Install Now.”

4-Install-Now

Then click “Activate Plugin.”

5-Activate-Plugin

Step 3: Setting Up Intense Debate on Your Blog

Intense Debate won’t immediately take you over to the setup procedure when you activate the plugin, so you’ll have to find the plugin in your “Settings” menu.

 

6-Go-to-Settings
Enter the login details from the signup process in the beginning.

7-Login

Step 4: Importing Your Comments

If you want to import all your previous comments from your blog into Intense Debate, click “Start Importing Comments” on the next screen.

If you import all your comments, you’ll need to wait a few hours for Intense Debate’s servers to index all of them.

If you don’t want to index comments, just click “Skip Import.”

8-Start-Importing-Comments
After the import process, you’ll see the successful installation screen.

9-Installation-Successful

Step 5: How to Use Intense Debate

To post a comment, just type a comment in the box and click “Submit Comment.”

10-Post-a-New-Comment

By default, Intense Debate will subscribe you to all the replies to your comment. This is designed to help get people back to your site more often and get people more engaged.

But if you want to change your subscription options, just click the dropdown menu before hitting submit. You can choose to get no notifications at all, or get notifications for every single comment.

11-Subscribe-To

To reply to a specific post rather than posting a brand new comment, click “Reply” under any comment.

12-Reply-to-Specific-Comment

This will start a threaded discussion. Anyone can respond to your message or the original poster and “talk” to you directly, rather than post to the whole thread.

Anyone subscribed to the discussion will also get notifications, which will likely spawn even more replies and more conversation.

Here’s a brief example of a threaded conversation.

13-Threaded-Debate

Congratulations! You’ve setup Intense Debate, both on the Intense Debate site and yours. You’ve imported your old comments and learned the basics of how to use the threading and subscription system.

Get started with Disqus

blog

Disqus is a blog commenting platform that’s used on hundreds of thousands of blogs. Its top features include threaded comments, so people can reply directly to someone else’s comment directly rather than all comments in general. You can also reply by logging into a social media ID, like Facebook or Twitter.

You can also use Disqus’s notification system to let people know when they’ve got a response to a comment. They can reply to the comment right in the email response.

Here’s how to sign up for and use Disqus.

 

Step 1: Sign Up for a Disqus Account

Go to: http://disqus.com/profile/signup/

You’ll see the signup page. Choose to sign up with either your Facebook, Twitter, Google account or an email address.

1-Choose-How-to-Signup
Fill out the sign up form, or fill out the connect authentication.

Step 2: Adding Your Website

Once you’re logged into your account, click “Add” under “Your Sites” to add your blog to your profile.

3-Add-SiteFill out your website’s basic information.

4-Register-Your-Site

Click “Continue.” Here you will get to choose your platform.

5-Quick-Setup
At this point, your site’s profile is setup on Disqus. The next step is to setup Disqus on your blog. You will setup instructions depending on the platform of your choice. If you choose WordPress, this is what you will get.

5.5-Quick-Setup-Tumblr

Step 3: Installing Disqus on Your Blog

Go to “Plugins” and “Add New.” Search for Disqus, then click “Install Now.”

6-Install-in-Wordpress

Click “Activate Plugin.”

7-Activate-Plugin

You’ll be asked to configure the plugin. Click the link.

8-Click-Configure-Plugin

Enter your username and password that you chose on the Disqus site.

9-Enter-Username-and-Password

Select the website profile you want to use. Assuming you just setup one site, there’ll only be one option.

10-Select-the-Website

When you hit next, the installation process is complete and Disqus will be running on your blog.

 

Step 4: Using the Disqus System

To make a comment, just type in a comment as you would in any other system.

11-Normal-Comment

Click the “Like” button to like a post. You’ll also be able to share the post on Facebook or Twitter if you choose.

12-Like-and-Share

To add an image to a post, just click the “+ Image” button. A file selection box will pop up and Disqus will automatically resize the image to fit its format.

13-Add-an-Image

To reply to a specific comment rather than the whole thread, click the “reply” button below every comment.

14-Reply-to-Comment

This allows people to reply to specific replies and create whole sub-discussions in an orderly manner. Here’s what an original post and two replies looks like.

15-Threaded-Comments

You can subscribe to receive all future comments by email or RSS. Just click on either button on the bottom of the Disqus box.

16-Subscribe-to-Comments

You’ll see a confirmation box.

17-Subscription-Successful

Congratulations! You’ve learned how to setup a Disqus membership, how to add it to your site and how to use the plugin to post comments, reply to specific comments, post images, like and share on social media as well as how to subscribe by email or RSS.

How to Use Feedburner for Blogs

RSS feed

Feedburner has a ton of built-in tools designed to help blog owners share their feed better. Whether you want to ping other services when you post or allow other blog owners to share your feed, Feedburner makes it easy.

In this guide, we’ll walk through all of FeedBurner’s tools that allow you to publicize and share your feed more effectively. To start, you’ll need to already have created a feed in Feedburner.

Accessing the Publicize Tools

To access the publicize tools, just click “Publicize” along the top navigation.

 1-Click-Publicize

To navigate to the specific tool you want to use, just click one of the services under the Services navigation bar on the right.

 

The Headline Animator

The headline animator will create an RSS feed box that’ll automatically put the newest headlines in. You can place this box on a website for example and every time someone visits, they’ll see the headline of your newest post.

 3-Headline-Generator

Just set your options for how you want the box to look. A preview of how your box will look will appear towards the bottom. Click Activate to generate the code for the headline box.

BuzzBoost

Want to share more than just the headline of your post? BuzzBoost makes it easy. Just fill out your options, then click Activate. The JavaScript code can then be pasted onto any website to create a RSS feed box with anywhere between 1 to 15 posts.

 4-BuzzBoost

Email Subscriptions

A lot of people would rather get their blog posts in their inbox, rather than having to visit your blog all the time or learn to use an RSS reader.

That’s easy, with email subscriptions. Just activate it, then once people are signed up they’ll automatically get your blog posts by email.

5-Email-Subscriptions

Ping Shot

Instead of having other services refresh your feed, constantly taking up your bandwidth, you can just tell Feedburner to send those services a “ping” of data whenever you update your blog.

All you need to do is click Activate.

6-Ping-Shot

Feed Count

If you want to show off how many subscribers you have on your RSS feed, all you need to do is publish your Feed Count.

Select your button and text color and select whether you want a static or animated button. Then click Activate to generate the code.

7-Feed-Count

Socialize

Want to automatically post to your Facebook, Twitter or other social media accounts? Feedburner allows you to easily link other accounts to your feed.

Anytime you post on your blog, the post will also automatically be posted to the account(s) you specify.

8-Socialize

To add more accounts to post to, just click “Manage Connections.” Under formatting options, select how you want your posts to look, then click Activate to link the accounts.

Additional Tools

The tools we’ve just covered are the most important tools for publicizing your feed. In addition, there are also a few more tools and options you can change in the publicize options.

  • Chicklet Chooser: Select a slightly different button to take people to your RSS feed.
  • Creative Commons: Choose the type of copyright your feed is protected under.
  • Password Protector: Require a password for people to read your feed. Note that this will deactivate the email subscription option.
  • NoIndex: Deny search engines access from your feed.

 

These are all the tools available to you in FeedBurner’s publicize tools. As you can tell, it’s easy to  publish and use your RSS feed in many different ways, whether it’s on your website, your Facebook page or even a friend’s software.

Blogging with Twitter Feed – A Tool for Content Syndication

RSS feedIf you regularly post your blog posts to Twitter and Facebook, why not have someone else do it for you instead? Twitter Feed will take your RSS feed, visit it every 30 minutes or so, find updates and automatically post them to Twitter and/or Facebook for you.

You can customize it to just post the title, the description or both. You can even include a thumbnail image on Facebook. It’s easy to setup and maintain and can save you a lot of time if you blog regularly.

Here’s how to setup Twitter Feed. Before you start, please have an RSS feed already setup, as well as a Twitter account and a Facebook account that you’re logged into.

Step 1: Click Register

Go to http://www.twitterfeed.com. Click “Register” to begin the setup process.

1-Click-Register

Step 2: Complete the Registration Form

Fill out your email and password, then click “Create Account.”

2-Registration-Form

Step 3: Enter Your RSS Feed

You’ll immediately begin the setup process. Enter your RSS feed into the topmost box.

 3-Enter-RSS-Feed

Step 4: Advanced Settings (Optional)

Click the “Advanced Settings” dropdown box to change the update frequency, sorting, level of detail to each post and so on. Click Step 2 when finished.

 4-Advanced-Settings

Step 5: Select Service, Twitter

Select whichever service you want to link to your RSS feed. Here we’ll start with Twitter, then show Facebook.

5-Select-Service-Twitter

Step 6: Authenticate Twitter

Click the “Authenticate Twitter” button to verify that you’re the owner of the account.

6-Autenticate-Twitter

If you’re already logged in, Twitter will prompt you with an authorization box.

7-Authorize-Twitter

Once authenticated, click “Create Service” to continue.

 8-Create-Service

Step 7: Select Service, Facebook

If you just want to connect Twitter, then just click “All Done!” instead. If you want to add Facebook as well however, click on Facebook to repeat the process.

 9-Select-Service-Facebook

Step 8: Authenticate Facebook

Facebook will go through a similar process. Click “Connect with Facebook” to begin.

 10-Connect-with-Facebook

Click on “Allow” to grant TwitterFeed permission to post to your wall and pages.

 11-Allow-Facebook

Finally, select which page or wall you want Facebook to post to, then click Create Service.

12-Select-Page-or-Wall

If you want to post to multiple Facebook pages, create another RSS link.

Step 9: Complete Setup

Click on “All Done!” on the services page once both Twitter and Facebook are setup.

13-Click-Done

Finally, your setup completion page will be displayed.

 14-Setup-Complete

Any time you post a blog post, within about 30 minutes Twitter Feed will read the post and post it on your Facebook page/wall as well as your Twitter feed. It’s that easy!

Adding Social Media Updates to Your Blog

social network 2

One of the best ways to add some spice to your website is to add in a social media feed. Your social media feed will help feed the content and updates that you’re posting through social media into your main blog.

The feed will appear as a widget that displays on the side of your screen. You can generally choose how big or small you want the feed to be, so you can customize how much attention to direct to the feed.

Here’s how to add social media updates to your blog.

Twitter Widget

To get started, go to the Twitter widget section.

https://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets

Click on “Create new.”

1-Add-to-My-Website

Then choose the “User Timeline”.

2-Profile-Widget

Enter the username that you want to generate a feed for. This can be your own username or someone else’s.

3-Enter-Username

A preview of the feed will appear on the right. Once the feed looks right to you, just click “Create Widget” to copy and paste the code onto your website.

3.1-Grab-code

Facebook Widget

To access Facebook’s activity feed, go to:

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/

Then click on “Activity Feed.”

4-Click-Activity-Feed

Scroll down, then type in the domain of the site whose feed you want to display. The feed on the right will show you what your feed will look like.

5-Facebook-Activity-Feed

Click “Get Code” on the bottom once you’re ready to post it to your website.

6-Facebook-Code

Google+

Google+ doesn’t have a built-in widget creator. However, there are several outside tools you can use to add this functionality.

These options include:
Widgetplus.com
Widgplus.com
Wordpress Plugin

Here’s how Widgplus widget looks. You can access it here:

http://widgplus.com/

Start by entering your Google ID. This is the string of numbers you see in your URL when you access your own profile.

7-Enter-Google-Plus-ID

Then specify the settings you want to use to generate the Widget’s feed.

8-Look-and-Feel

The embed code will be displayed above the customization box. Copy and paste it onto your server.

9-Embed-Code

Adding a Pinterest Widget

Pinterest doesn’t have a built-in widget system. However, there are a number of different WordPress plugins you can use to create a Pinterest widget on your WordPress blog.

To get started, go to your plugins search field and type in “Pinterest widget.”

10-Pinterest-Search

The most popular and highly rated one at the time of writing is the “Pinterest Pinboard Widget.” Choose one plugin and install then activate it.

11-Install-Plugin

Then go into your WordPress widgets (under “Appearance”) and drag and drop the widget. Then configure the widget to look exactly as you want it to.

12-Drag-and-Specify

Your Pinterest widget will now appear in your sidebar!

Adding a social media widget to your site can really help add interactivity and help cultivate a sense of consistency within your brand. It’ll help join your social media site and your website together into one community. If you’re going to take the time to build up content in social media, why not link it up to your main site?

How To Drive Over 10,000 visitors to your Blog from Facebook

How would you like to know how you can drive over 10,000 visitors a month to your blog just from Facebook?

I would like to share with you a strategy I learned from Chris Farrell at the DotCom Expo 2012 in Connecticut.

There are 3 simple strategies that you can implement in your blog today!

Please let me know what you think below, and if you have any other ideas. Thanks!

StartRankingNow – Working from Home Really is a Viable Option

With the economy leading companies to downsize, too many people are finding themselves in a situation where they do not have a 9 to 5 job to go do every day.  On the surface, losing your corporate job may seem like a stroke of bad luck; but if you look just a little deeper, you just may find that the opportunity to work from home is a very viable option.

“Work from home”.  In the past, those words could make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.  Ok, maybe it wasn’t quite that bad for everyone; but at the very least, those words conjured up visions of stuffing envelops or making perfumed jewelry.  Bottom line, most work from home opportunities turned out to be little more than a way for companies to make money off of motivated individuals.  At one point in time, work from home opportunities meant multi-level marketing, a businesses many people just didn’t want to be a part of.

Don’t let these words scare you anymore.  With the steady advancement of the internet, there are multiple ways anyone with a little motivation and some ingenuity can break into business for themselves and be able to legitimately work from home.  Let’s take a look at ways to earn money using the power of the web:

  • Blogging – A blog, for the most part, is easy and inexpensive to start and maintain.  The most valuable investment you will make in a blog is time.  Blogs can be specific, dealing with topics from business to fitness.  They can also be very general, acting as a sort of online diary.  The main point is that a blog that is interesting will gain popularity and a following of readers.  When a blog has a large following of readers, it becomes attractive to advertisers who will “rent space” on your blog page.It may take some effort for someone who isn’t an avid blogger to learn the ins and outs of how to blog effectively and how to get your startrankingnow blog noticed.  It’s not really as simple as posting a blog and the world instantly sees it.  “If you build it, He will come” does not apply to any internet website!

    Blogging also has immense benefits for small ecommerce businesses as it provides a way of marketing your online business in a way that sets you up as an expert in your field.

  • Ecommerce – Electronic commerce is a way of doing business electronically, typically utilizing the internet as a platform from which to launch.  Most ecommerce falls under the category of e-tail, which is online retail sales of an item or niche items.Thanks to easy to use drop shipping programs, the cost and convenience of really getting your own online store up and running has become a much simpler process.  When drop shipping is implemented in a work from home ecommerce business, products are not paid for until they are purchased by your customer. This eliminates the need for a large up-front investment as well as any inventory control.  More and more people are finding the benefits of drop shipping.

These are just two options that enable people to get into a small business of their own.  If e-commerce or blogging is just not your thing, hopefully this article has given you the starting point to find how you too can work from home.