Plug your blog into Facebook

While spending some time with Deb Cram at Seacoast Media Group yesterday, I walked her through how to plug her smgphoto Twitter feed into her Facebook profile. I realized later that we have many bloggers -- and a few Tweeters -- around Ottaway that also have Facebook accounts who could benefit from the same tutorial.

At the very least, it will help you share your blog with friends and family in addition to anyone else you're connected with on the social network.

Here are the steps to follow (Note to those reading this via the e-mail post to our onlineeditors listserv: You'll want to click through to the Ottaway Online Editors blog to see the screenshots embedded in this post):

1. First, grab the URL for your blog's RSS feed. In the case of our Mzinga blogging platform, there is an XML button at the bottom of each blog's entry page from which you can grab the URL. Right-click on it and in Firefox select "Copy Link Location," or in IE select "Copy Shortcut:"
   
2. After logging into Facebook, choose Notes from the Applications toolbar:
   
3. Once at the Notes page, click on the link to "Import a blog" under the heading "Notes Settings:"
   
4. Paste your feed URL into the "Web URL" text field, and click the square box to affirm to Facebook that you have the right to post the feed. Finally, click the "Start Importing" button:
   
5. Voila! Instant RSS success!
   

There are other, more elaborate ways to accomplish the same goal, especially if you are active on Twitter. You can create a Twitterfeed account, and plug that same RSS feed into Twitterfeed so it will update your Twitter followers when you post a new item. In turn you can add the Twitter application to your Facebook profile, and allow it to update your Facebook status every time there is a new item posted to Twitter.

But if you're not yet feeling that adventurous, just sync up your Facebook Notes with your blog feed, and you'll be on your way to being a practitioner of viral marketing and content distribution.

More media-related Twitter observations

Check out the widespread Twitter adoption at the Austin American-Statesman.

Came to my attention via Steve Buttry, a tweeting editor in his own right.

As I've written before, Twitter success is about doing much more than blasting headlines at followers. There is a place for that, and there are users who appreciate that. So I'm not suggesting our newspapers fold up the tents on the accounts that were created for that purpose.

Twitter use, though, is much more about community conversation and making connections on the platforms the audience is already on.

I've not yet spent a lot of time clicking through all of the Statesman staff's Twitter profiles, so I'm not sure how successful they are achieving engagement and making connections. The first glance is mighty impressive, though.

By the way, speaking of tweeting editors, Ottaway's Bob Hunter and Paul Pronovost have been dabbling in Twitter recently, too.

(Also, in other Statesman news, check out their recent ad that shows how their Web site is a better breaking news option than local TV news. Came to my attention via Lost Remote.)

The blog is alive! Now, let's go tweet.

The Ottaway Online Editors blog is back! Ready or not, here we come in the name of audience development and other business causes. To that end, we've also invited Kari Richards to join us in blogging here, focusing on best practices regarding e-mail audience development. Look for her posts soon.

So with the formalities out of the way, on with the blogging! This post has actually been sitting in my Drafts folder for a month, so it's time to push it into the spotlight.

Check out BusinessWeek.com's slideshow "Tweet From The Chiefs" (maneuver through it via the thumbnails at the bottom of the introduction) and imagine the local possibilities. What personalities and dignitaries in your market are on Twitter? What are they saying, and how are they using this social media tool? Publicity? Customer service? Conversation? Chances are, it's some combination of those things and more.

Of course, better start by making sure your brand is represented and polished on Twitter. So far, we're doing pretty well along those lines: CapeCodTimes; HVMG; MailTribune; ThePoconos and PoconoRecord; Recordnet and 209Vibe; and SeacoastOnline. There appear to be accounts for sharpmag and southcoasttoday, too, though no activity yet.

Then experiment with ways to use the accounts in addition to pumping out breaking news. Engage readers, subscribers and advertisers. Promote your Twitter presence, so you can converse with existing members of those groups, all while drawing in more readers, subscribers and advertisers.

Next, encourage individual reporters to participate in locally based Twitter conversations by starting their own accounts and "following" the personalities that you've highlighted in your slideshow. Have them search for others using Twitter's search functionality (examples: https://twitter.com/tw/search/users?q=cape+cod or https://twitter.com/tw/search/users?q=stockton). Seek out brands that have physical presences in your market, too, such as Comcast, Whole Foods, Panera Bread (not much activity yet), and Starbucks. Peruse the Social Brand Index for more.

Once reporters get a feel for the medium, please encourage them to interact. Social media usage is only as successful as the relationships that are built on it. Reporting on a one-way conversation has never been as compelling or as thorough as what's derived from shared dialogue. One-way relationships rarely work out very well.

And isn't that the essence of what we're trying to accomplish as a company and throughout the industry? Jobs-to-be-done interviews, customer-focused product development and consultative selling are in the end a means of building better relationships with our communities and facilitating open and ongoing dialogue.

Social media tools like Twitter can only help.

May I be alerted when a story is updated?

As I was checking out this story from recordonline.com this afternoon (received via HVMG's Twitter profile... thanks, HVMG!), it occurred to me that there was no way -- short of revisiting the Web site or keeping the page open so I could refresh it periodically -- to stay updated on the story in an automated, user-friendly way.

Thinking out loud (well, virtually out loud) here, but as a user I'd love to opt into an alert when an ongoing story I've caught in midstream is updated. Ideally I could choose from either e-mail, IM or text alert options, and maybe even an RSS feed specific to that story that I could quickly subscribe to it in my Google Reader.

It would function in much the same way as when you receive e-mail when your blog posts have received comments, or when your posts on forums have received follow-up comments.

I've not seen this functionality anywhere. Have you?

Social media cuts both ways

I very much enjoyed Matt Kinsman's article about online self-promotion on a numbers of levels, not the least of which is a perspective added near the end that pertains to us as new media managers when we are hiring:

It cuts both ways—not only should potential employers be considering your online presence, you should evaluate theirs, including LinkedIn and Facebook profiles of would-be managers.

I hired Yoni Greenbaum last year after we got reacquainted via LinkedIn. He utilized that channel to network through me to follow a lead on another job, and I steered him toward my opening instead.

You'll have to ask him to confirm, but the connection definitely would not have happened had I a.) not been on LinkedIn; b.) not been connected to someone he was seeking to meet, and c.) not had additional online profiles that aided his decision-making, such as this very blog, not to mention my personal blog, and other online presences.

How many of you -- personally or professionally -- are on LinkedIn? Facebook? Flickr? Twitter? YouTube? A blog? If a talented, web-savvy candidate were considering you and your organization for employment, what conclusion would that candidate reach about your organization's Web savviness and commitment to trying new platforms and technologies?

It really amounts to a Golden Rule corollary: Portray for yourself what you might look for in potential employees.

Check out: Is there good traffic reporting online?

Following on my Twitter-related post from yesterday, give a read to Yoni's ideas for online traffic reporting.

It really is all about leveraging the strengths of the available platforms, isn't it?

Twitter your br(e)aking news

Some may recall the idea I've floated in various conversations about how Twitter could be an effective tool for commuter traffic updates online?

Steve Outing expands on the idea in his latest E-Media Tidbits post: The Twitter Disaster

Amen, Steve. The end game, in my mind, is placing our content on the platforms where our current and potential audience prefer to consume us. This is something I've been advocating since 2005, by the way, but is all the more true in the social networking, Web 2.0 world in which we're operating as we head into 2008.

This will seem like sacrilege, coming from a person whose success is measured by the audience metrics of our Web sites, but when it comes to content distribution, driving traffic back to our core newspaper.com sites is a secondary benefit (not that there's anything wrong with that benefit, mind you). The more important result is that by pushing our content in ways that makes it easiest for many different audience segments to consume it, we've performed the ultimate "job-to-be-done."

If I put on my user hat for a second, I'll repeat my point from an earlier post that Twitter has become my primary means of following news updates from New York Times and ESPN, not to mention our own Pocono Record. I wish more sites were on the bandwagon.

Little League pages

I happened to be at Seacoast yesterday as they launched their Little League All-Stars landing page, and now notice today that Hudson Valley has done the same. Anyone else got a similar page they want to share?

As Howard Altschiller and I were discussing Twitter, he used that as one mechanism to announce the page launch: http://twitter.com/seacoastonline

(And as a reminder, make sure you're linking to new pages from your Site Maps, so that Google/Yahoo/Ask/MSN/AOL can pick them up when you next get crawled. You should enter these new pages into the Google Site Search spreadsheet on Google Docs, so when your user searches on your site for that topic, it gets featured as a Suggested Page at the top of the results. Still confused about the latter? Give me a shout.)

More Twitter

Not that you were wondering, but here's who I'm following on Twitter, so far:

Biz Stone (Twitter founder)
Boston Globe (set up, but not yet in use)
Boston Herald (hasn't been updated since May)
C.C. Chapman (podcaster and new media marketing guru)
Mary McCauley (web developer at Pocono)
ESPN
JetBlue
Nashua Telegraph
New York Times
Opinion Journal
Pocono Record
Boston Red Sox
RocketBoom
SeacoastOnline
WSJ.com
Yoni Greenbaum

In the case of NYT and ESPN, Twitter has supplanted my RSS reader as the means by which I most frequently interact with their content. That's especially true of the New York Times. I still have their Media & Advertising feed in my Google Reader, but their latest news now pops up on my IM via Twitter, and I am finding myself clicking into the stories from there almost daily now -- visiting their site much more frequently than was the case before.

Are you on Twitter? If so, who are you following? Come to the Ottaway Online Editor's blog and share your list in the comments below this post.

Twitter / OpinionJournal

Hey, speaking of Twitter (as we were on the noon call today, look who else is using it: OpinionJournal.

Twitter / redsoxcast

Check out the Red Sox Twitter page. Play by play, which you can follow online, or receive each "Tweet" as a text message.

Comes courtesy of new media guru C.C. Chapman. Wouldn't you know I learned about his blog post via his Twittering.