Thursday, 31 October 2013

10 Popular Twitter Plug-ins for Your WordPress Blog

Those who have tried know how difficult it is to find Twitter plug-ins for WordPress. The problem is that even if you manage to find a few, they take a lot of space and don’t add enough value to your blog. In case you have been searching for some useful Twitter plug-ins, here is a list that will help you make a right choice.

1 – Tweet, Like, Google +1 and Share

http://wordpress.org/plugins/only-tweet-like-share-and-google-1/

This plug-in comes with five different icons that you can easily add to your blog. By using this particular plug-in, it becomes possible for you to add widget from Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter. People can come to your site, read your content and share it using the icons on different social media sites.

2 – IntenseDebate Comments

http://wordpress.org/plugins/intensedebate/

To make people write and comment on your content in your ‘blog comment’ section, you can make use of this particular plug-in. It is a useful plug-in for those who conduct a
campaign on social media to improve the number of comments on their blog.

3 – AddThis

http://wordpress.org/plugins/addthis/

Yet another impressive social bookmarking widget that works perfectly with Twitter. With this plug-in, it will become easier for your readers to share content via Twitter. It allows people to bookmark your entire blog or a particular element on your page. The interesting thing is that the plug-in doesn’t restrict people to Twitter, but it allows them to share stuff on hundreds of other social media sites and bookmarking channels.

4 – BuddyPress

http://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress/

This plug-in makes it easy for your visitors to log into your WordPress site and then leave their comments – it also makes it easy for people to participate in different social events. As it works as a community-sharing device, it is easy to use it with Twitter. People on your blog can also use the same plug-in to connect with other members of your blog.

5 – WPtouch

http://wordpress.org/plugins/wptouch/

This is one good way of turning your blog into a mobile-ready site – it makes it easy for people to read your posts on their mobile devices. Not only can they read your posts and check your content, they can also make comments using their mobile-ready widgets, like Twitter. It makes sharing your content via social media sites a breeze. What it means is that with the use of this particular plug-in, you can actually turn your WordPress blog into an iPhone app.

6 – Wordbooker

http://wordpress.org/plugins/wordbooker/

It works as a cross posting plug-in and allows you to post micro blog posts on your WordPress site and then cross post them using your Twitter profile. It also allows you to publish your blog post on your WordPress blog and Facebook at the same time. It saves you time and makes blogging a lot easier.

7 – Network Publisher

http://wordpress.org/plugins/network-publisher/

This is another good plug-in used for cross posting. It allows users to upload a blog along with making parts of that post appear on different social networking sites. For instance, you can change its options in a way that whenever you publish a post on your WordPress blog, the title and first few lines of that post will also go on your Twitter profile – you can also change settings to make parts of your post show on Facebook and other sites. It works automatically and makes it easier to share new posts with your audience.

8 – PodPress

http://wordpress.org/plugins/podpress/

You should make use of this particular plug-in if you always host Podcasts on your WordPress blog. It is possible to use this plug-in to create a feed that will tell you how many download have taken place since you have uploaded it. At the same time, it will inform social media networking sites whenever you host a new Podcast. It supports a range of video file formats, which is an added benefit.

9 – User Access Manager

http://wordpress.org/plugins/user-access-manager/

You can use this plug-in to determine how different users can access your posts. With its help, you can take full control of what posts, pages, and files people could see on your WordPress blog. It also determines how people get access to the Twitter functions you have added on the blog.

10 – Social Media Widget

http://wordpress.org/plugins/social-media-widget/

It’s a good plug-in developed to create a sidebar on your WordPress blog. It offers a list of social media widgets that you can select and add to the sidebar. It is also possible to use this plug-in to create links to different social media profiles and pages.


Original: 10 Popular Twitter Plug-ins for WordPress Blog

Tuesday, 22 October 2013

5 Quick Tips to Boost Your Linkedin Visibility

Living in the age of social media means you aren’t somebody until you can be found on professional sites such as LinkedIn. However, with more professionals and businesses creating an account on this social networking site, it’s becoming more difficult to get found by potential employers or customers.

So, what can you do to increase your chances of getting found on the most powerful and popular professional network? You can start by optimizing your account correctly which will give you a leg up in using LinkedIn to find jobs, customers and more. In fact, optimizing your account needs to be a priority as it’s what can take your profile views to
go from 0 to 1,000.

Here’s how to do it:

1.    Complete your profile

This one’s a no-brainer but, if you take a look at the profiles on LinkedIn, you’ll notice that so many of them aren’t completely filled in. So, take the time to fill out every single section as this can help improve your position on LinkedIn’s search results and rank higher over partially completed ones.

Not sure which sections to fill out or what information to include? LinkedIn provides a useful tracker that shows the percentage of fields completed and the areas where you would need to add extra information about yourself, your skills and experience.

2. Claim your Vanity URL

When you first create your LinkedIn account, your initial URL will include some random numbers and letters. Claim your vanity URL by changing it to your full name – for eg. linkedin.com/in/johnexample/. This helps you connect your LinkedIn profile to your name so you can get found easier by your real-life connections.

3. Optimise your profile using relevant keywords

When writing your profile description, make sure you optimize it by including the keywords you’d like your profile to be associated with in LinkedIn’s search results. Think of the search keywords a potential client or employers would enter into the LinkedIn search bar to find you. For example, if you’re a London-based web designer, focus on keywords such as “web designer” and “web designer London”.

4. Join and participate in relevant groups

Run a search on LinkedIn to find groups you might find interesting or useful. By joining and participating in relevant groups you can not only expand your network easily but also improve your profile’s visibility.  But don’t just join these groups. You also need to engage and contribute in a positive way in order to boost your level of profile activity. The more you engage, the higher the chances of ranking higher in LinkedIn’s search results.

5. Expand your network

LinkedIn is the perfect platform to connect with as many people as possible, whether they’re friends, former university colleagues, co-workers or potential clients. The size of your network is another important factor LinkedIn takes into account when displaying results. So, if you’re serious about improving your profile’s visibility on LinkedIn’s search results, you need to expand your network. Don’t stop at people you know. Take it one step further and reach out to new contacts, especially those who share your professional interests and skills.

How about you – what else are you doing to improve the visibility of your LinkedIn Profile?

Original:  Quick Tips to Boost Linkedin Visibility

Tuesday, 1 October 2013

Facebook Appeals to its Users with More Updates


Facebook is expected to launch a new feature in the near future that will allow users to “share” photo albums. Using this feature, the creator of a photo album can allow up to 50 users to contribute to an album. Previously, Facebook had restricted the control over a photo album to its creator alone. This makes the experience of sharing photos more social than it was before, and it also allows for a more streamlined photo browsing experience. For example, photos of a given event, such as a vacation trip or a wedding, can all be combined into a single photo album for everyone to contribute photos to. This is much better than the previous system, in which each user who had taken pictures at the event would have to create his or her own photo album. This system is also beneficial because it increases the exposure of photos from each
user, because the friends of other users that have contributed to the album are viewing them.

Through the introduction of this new feature, Facebook is attempting to stay on par with Google+, which already has a feature that allows its users to do this. Google+ lets all of its users who have attended a specific event upload pictures from that event. Currently, Facebook users who want to do something like this must use workarounds such as creating hashtags. This new feature will allow Facebook users the same ease of use as Google+ users when it comes to creating shared photo albums.

However, the implementation of Facebook’s feature is not limited specifically to events. For example, photographers can use it to collaborate with each other and increase heir collective exposure. For instance, multiple photographers can share a photo album and upload images with similar subject matter or photography technique such as high speed imaging in hopes of being discovered by users browsing the shared album that otherwise would not have seen their photos. With this new feature coming soon, it will be exciting to see the various creative ways Facebook users utilize it in order to make their photo sharing experience more social.