365 Things To Do Instead of Plagiarizing Content

Posted on April 29, 2010 by Jeff

Plagiarism: “the use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.”

Watch this video, it’ll blow you away… Don’t mind my shaky recording style, I hear it’s all the rage in Europe right now.

I’ve said on Twitter several times that if you’re going to steal someone else’s ideas, at least try to improve on the ideas somehow and make them your own, so that we can all learn from it. I guess this takes that to a whole ‘nother level!

After poking around on this copycat blog a little more (which has since been taken down), I noticed that there were several posts labeled “Day 1 of 365…” in a couple different areas of Washington County. Apparently the agent is using this as a home for the content of several similar Facebook pages. That explains my confusion as to why the Beaverton/Aloha page linked to a blog with content for Banks.

Now, I know that @DaleChumbley wasn’t the one that originally came up with the idea for a “365 Things to do in…” page, but like I’ve mentioned before, I think he’s one of a few that is doing it correctly, for the right reasons, and has the commitment to keep doing it. Sure, Dale took someone else’s idea and incorporated some of his own into it, but he didn’t straight up plagiarize the original content on the other pages (and their related sites) before his like this agent did.

So, what are your thoughts on this? Does it piss you off that there are people out there that can’t even think for themselves and are willing to blatantly steal the content you’ve worked so hard on creating? Obviously it does me…

Would you ever work with someone that did something like this? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below…

WordPress Plugin to Add Twitter’s @Anywhere Functionality

Posted on April 25, 2010 by Jeff

I just added a new WordPress Plugin that adds the @Anywhere functionality to the blog. So now every time I reference someone’s Twitter ID in a post or page, a couple things happen.

First, the username is automatically converted into an active link directly to the persons Twitter profile. A definite time saver there…

Secondly, if you mouse over the link without clicking, a hover box appears with the user’s basic details. Clicking the “more” link expands the box showing the user’s full bio, latest tweet, follower stats and even a +follow button, as seen in the image to the right.

Go ahead, check it out for yourself on my Twitter ID: @JBern

Cool huh?

WordPress Plugin to Add Facebook’s “Like” Button

Posted on April 22, 2010 by Jeff

If you’re looking for the easiest way to add Facebook’s “Like” Button to your WordPress blog, I’ve got a lil’ something for ya…

Our team at HomeQuest whipped up a quick WordPress plugin that allows you to install the new “Like” button functionality WAY easier than what I outlined in my post yesterday (Using Facebook’s “Like” Button in Your WordPress Blog).

So, if you want to add this to your blog, here’s the plugin to do it.

While you’re at it, check out Dustin’s post on adding Facebook’s “Recommendations” social plugin. It’s a pretty sweet sidebar widget that shows visitors recommendations based on what their friends have “Liked” from your site.

Using Facebook’s “Like” Button in Your WordPress Blog

Posted on April 21, 2010 by Jeff

Today at the Facebook developers conference, better known as f8, Facebook announced a new set of plugins (more like widgets) for your website or blog. One of the widgets is the new “like” button, which as you may already know recently replaced the “become a fan” button where visitors can become a fan of your Facebook fan pages. The thing that caught my eye on this new button was the ability to use it on blogs and websites outside of Facebook to promote your content back inside Facebook.

While the functionality is pretty much the same as the current “share this” Facebook plugin, I think this new version will actually perform better. My two main reasons for thinking this are that the plugin now tells you which of your friends have “liked” the content, and then it displays pictures of other people who have done the same. I guess it comes down to the fact that this plugin/widget just looks better in my opinion. Check it out:

In the setup options for the plugin, you can specify the width, number of rows, color, and whether you want it to display “like” or “recommend”, which ties in perfectly with the “recommend” sidebar widget as seen in the sidebar to the right of this post. This widget shows who has recommended or liked specific content on your site. Kinda like a “most popular” blog posts widget, that also posts the status to each users Facebook page.

Getting it to work on a WordPress blog

I found that using the stock code that Facebook generates doesn’t work for promoting specific posts on your blog. It sends over the title and URL of your blog to the persons Facebook page. So basically when someone named Bob clicks the Like button, they would see ” Bob likes XXXXXX on YYYYYY” where the X’s are the name of your blog, and the Y’s are the URL. This works, but isn’t ideal for promoting the awesome blog posts we all write.

So how do you fix this problem? Well, I had to do a little digging, but I finally came across someone who had figured it out. You just have to replace a snippet of the Facebook generated code with a piece that tells it to use the title of your individual blog posts in your single.php file. It took a couple tries to get it in the exact location I wanted, but I finally got it.

So, instead of going into detail on which code you need to change, I’m just going to give you the exact code you need to use:

A couple items to note:

You can change the width and height variables.

The basic “Like” button is available via a simple iframe(code above) you can drop into your site easily. A fuller-featured “Like” button is available via the <fb:like> XFBML tag and requires you use the JavaScript SDK. The XFBML version also allows users to add a comment to their “Like” as it is posted back to Facebook.

I tried using the XFBML code on one of my other WordPress blogs running the Thesis theme, using Open Hooks, and had no luck. I then tried the iFrame code above and it worked fine. However, by doing so it screwed up my original Fan Page box in my sidebar. But then I was able to use the XFBML code to replace that box with the new “Like Box”, so it all worked out in the end.

So what does all this mean?

Well, basically it means a couple things. You’re now going to have a better looking, more flexible way for readers to share your content with their friends on Facebook. Plus, you’ve now got more options for building community engagement (with the other plugins/widgets) if you are using a Facebook page along with your WordPress blog. Will this result in more traffic? I hope so. Will it promote better interaction with readers? I hope so. Only time will tell.

Want to see this plugin in action? Go ahead and click the “Like” button down below. It’d be much appreciated!

I’m Done with Social Media

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Jeff

Social Media is such a beat up term these days. It’s tired. Weak. In fact, I’m done with it.

I’m going antisocial!

Seriously though, I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately. Making some changes in the way I interact online. Creating some controversy around the “proper” way to follow and unfollow people, if there is such a thing. I was told I was being antisocial, an elitist, acting like a 9 year old and that my life was in ruin because I had done a mass-unfollow to clean up my Twitter account. Whatever…

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn… All these social media (yuck, there’s that term again) platforms are based around one thing. Community. A community that I build. One that I have control over. If I want to unfollow people, I can. There’s no rule saying if you follow me, I have to follow you back. But, if you engage me, chances are really good that I will bring you into my community. Call that line of thinking whatever you want, it is what it is.

So, what IS it?

To me, these platforms (mostly Twitter and Facebook), have become more collaboration tools than anything. Community based collaboration tools where I can reach out to my friends and followers to get questions answered, find new things to do, cool people to do them with, etc. Google used to be my answer for pretty much any question or problem I was having. Now, I turn to those I know and trust for opinions, answers and input. THAT is worth it’s weight in gold to me, whether I’m antisocial or not.

So, there it is… Community Based Collaboration Tools. The end of social media (for me at least).

Enter The Matrix of Facebook’s Algorithms

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Jeff

I was chatting with Dustin Luther the other day about his newly coined phrase “Networking Engine Optimization“, or NEO, which is basically the understanding of how to optimize your content to best take advantage of the algorithms built into the social networking platforms (Facebook’s post quality score, Twitter’s trending topics, etc.).

In case you’re not familiar with how it works, Facebook has a built in rating system for pretty much everything these days. Things like the ads it shows you, recommended friends, recommended fan pages or groups, and even your content quality and where it places that content. NEO is similar to search engine optimization, or SEO, in that you’re “optimizing” content to get better results. In SEO you’re after better placement in the search engines. In the case of NEO, you’re after better visibility for your content.

So how do you go about optimizing your content for Facebook? Well, that’s a good question… Like the Google algorithm, the Facebook algorithm is somewhat of an unknown. Let’s take a look at what we do know.

There are a couple of variables to the equation that Facebook gives us:

Active fans – The number of fans that have written on your wall, or somehow interacted with your posts (likes, comments or shares) over a 7 day rolling window.

Interactions – A total of all the interactions (likes, comments, or shares) from your active fans in that same 7 day window.

Post quality – A 5 star scoring system based on the percentage of your fans that engage when you post content. The number of stars is meant to compare the quality of your page to pages that are similar (roughly the same number of fans).

Now, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to get a better post quality score. You just have to create better content, right? Well, that’s part of the battle. Which part, we’re not really sure just yet. See, Facebook also recently implemented a new way of feeding content to it’s users. The default view on your main Facebook page is set to “top news”. This is where the algorithm comes in, and the need to optimize content. Your content is no longer guaranteed to show up in everyone’s “news feed” like it used to. Now, your posts are digested by some algorithm, and spit out containing some sort of ranking (this being the unknown part) which tells Facebook wether or not to display your content in the “top news” feed.

Basic stuff so far. Now, here’s the problem…

If you don’t create killer content right from the beginning, you may fall into the abyss. Your content won’t be seen because Facebook just isn’t showing it to people, unless they click on the “most recent” option to view everything. So how are they supposed to interact with it to increase your post quality score? It’s like a catch 22!

Since we obviously don’t have the answer to how to go about gaming the system and guaranteeing your content will be seen by everyone every time they log in to Facebook, here’s my suggestions (which happen to be pretty much parallel with what Facebook recommends) for how you can get the best interaction with your posts:

1. Make sure that your posts are relevant to your friends and fans.

2. Post engaging content – ask questions, create controversy, show some emotion!

3. Post consistently and frequently, but not to the point of being annoying. Post when you have something relevant and engaging (see above).

That should hold you over until someone at Facebook can shed some light on how to write a perfect status update. Which, I seriously doubt will ever happen.

Now, I would love to hear some of your thoughts and ideas on how you go about creating content for your business on Facebook, assuming you actually have a strategy and you’re not just winging it…

I am Jeff

Monthly Archives: April 2010