Blogivists HQ

So, by now, I’m sure you’ve heard of this new media stuff. You know, blogs, twitter, Facebook, etc.  We are always on the lookout for ways to enhance the power of these already potent social networking tools by linking and streamlining them, so we were glad when The Militaman asked us how to import blog posts into a note form on Facebook.

The process is really quite simple, and well worth the investment to get all your Facebook contacts driving up traffic on your blog.

1. Sign into your Facebook account. 

2. Then go to your profile page.

3. Next, find the row of tabs beneath the wall tab starting with “Update Status, Share Link,…” and click on the downward collapsible arrow to the far right. 

4. Select “Import”.

5. Once there simply copy and paste your blog’s URL into the prompt marked “URL”.

Facebook will now upload all your posts into a note form and automatically import any future posts, requiring absolutely no effort on your part.

Spam comments. They can be a big hassle.

Luckily, blogivists has a plugin that gets rid of them before they can even appear in your inbox. 

It’s called Spam Karma 2 and it’s pretty effective. In order get it working, one has to first activate the plugin. So let’s do that:

1. Within your control panel, click on “Plugins” (located on the right-hand corner of the page).

2. Scroll down to the “Spam Karma 2″ plugin.

3. Click on “Activate”.

And you’re done!

…it’s just a (somewhat) tedious process.

If you use Internet Explorer, you are probably aware that video does not show up properly on your blog. Even if you don’t use it though, your readers using IE still can’t see the embedded video.

After weeks and weeks of intensive troubleshooting, The Blogivists Team has figured out how to make video appear on the Internet Explorer browser. Finally!

So let’s begin…

On step 5 of the original tutorial, I mention that one can revert back to the “Visual” viewer after embedding in “HTML”. While, of course, you have the ability to do so, you should not. Not if you want your readers using Internet Explorer to be able to see your video.

For some reason, Internet Explorer will not display video properly if, after embedding video, you switch back to the “Visual” viewer. The very act, that of switching viewers, corrupts the code for Internet Explorer. So instead of seeing video, anyone using Internet Explorer sees a blank, white box. Strange, I know.

Note: this is not a problem for anyone using Firefox (or any other browser, besides IE). These people will see video properly no matter how the author embeds code. However, given that a large percentage of the population still uses IE, it’s probably smart to always make adding-video your last step.

Here’s the step by step:

• Complete all work on your post.
• Embed the video and then click “Save” or “Publish”.
  
• If for any reason you need to go back and edit features of an old post, copy first and then cut the video code, re-pasting it into its previous position after all editing work is complete.

There you go! Here’s a video tutorial to demonstrate getting past the IE conundrum:

So you’ve been missing lunches, neglecting your children, and ignoring your spouse all in a desperate drive to throw up one more post a day to win October’s Blogivist of the Month.

A blogroll is a list of blogs, typically located on a blog’s sidebar, that reads as a list of recommendations to outside readers. The list of links demonstrates a blogger’s interests, affiliations, and – moreover – connections.

Having a blogroll effectively tells your readers, “Hey! Here are some blogs that I like. Maybe you will too.” Furthermore, it communicates to those bloggers you put on your blogroll, “I really dig your site and think it’s worth mentioning to my readers.”

Found yourself on someone else’s blogroll? It’s definitely not something to take lightly; in fact, consider it a sign of respect and think about adding them to yours.

First Things First: Displaying Your Blogroll

In order to make your blogroll functional, you have to first add the “Links” widget. To do that:

1. Go to “Design”.
2. Click on the “Widgits” tab.
3. “Add ” the “Links” widgit (located on the left-hand side of the page underneath “Available Widgets”).

Good. Now the links you add will actually show up on your blogroll…

Adding Links

…so let’s do just that:

1. Go to “Write”.
2. Click on the “Links” tab.
3. Under “Name”, type the name of the blog or site.
4. Under “Web Address”, type the URL of the blog or site.
5. Click on “Save”.

Check out the video below if you’re still having trouble:

Adding Categories

Eventually your links may become too varied in scope. Say, for instance, you have a wiki (i.e. Ballotpedia) or a news sites (i.e. Drudge) on your blogroll. Those don’t exactly constitute blogs; so, you may want to separate them with categories.

1. While adding a new link, click on “Add New Category” (located underneath “Categories”).
2. Type in your new category. Your new link will be automatically be checked (and thereby, added to the category).
3. Save the link.

You can also categorize old links.

1. Go to “Manage”.
2. Go to the “Links” tab.
3. Go to the link you want to categorize and click on it.
4. Follow the same process as above, remembering to “Save”.

To see the last two processes, click on the video below: