The Marketing Technology Blog

Some folks don’t realize it, but Wordpress has integrated the ability to publish other feeds with some out of the box features. I’ve written in the past on how to publish a blog’s feed to give a boost to a site’s keyword density for improved search engine optimization - but this is how to do it right within Wordpress.

Wordpress has embedded Magpie and RSS Caching within its available functions:

• fetch_rss — retrieve an RSS feed from a URL with automatic caching (included in rss_functions.php)
• wp_rss — retrieve and display an RSS feed as an unordered list (included in rss_functions.php)
• get_rss — retrieve and display an RSS feed as a list (ordering optional) (included in rss_functions.php)

IMO, the first method is the most useful because of the automatic caching. If you’d like to, for example, add a

<h2><?php _e(‘Social Media Events’); ?></h2>
<?php // Get RSS Feed(s)
include_once(ABSPATH . WPINC . ‘/rss.php’);
$rss = fetch_rss(‘http://eventful.com/rss/events/?q=%22social%20media%22&location_type=&location_id=&l=Worldwide’);
$maxitems = 5;
$items = array_slice($rss->items, 0, $maxitems);
?>

<ul>
<?php if (empty($items)) echo ‘<li>No items</li>’;
else
foreach ( $items as $item ) : ?>
<li><a href=’<?php echo $item['link']; ?>‘ 
title=’<?php echo $item['title']; ?>‘>
<?php echo $item['title']; ?>
</a></li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>

Edit your Wordpress template (Design > Theme Editor) and place the code above in your sidebar or on an events page. That’s it - now you have a live feed of events in your sidebar that you never have to update! This can really come in handy. I’ve done just that at I Choose Indy!, where I’ve published the Event feed from Smaller Indiana.

For more advanced users, you can put this in your single page theme and, perhaps, enter a search term as a Custom Field to add other bloggers’ posts on the same topics.

Recently, I’ve been on a bender to clean up my site and remove all the odds and ends that take away from the theming, and most of all - don’t add to the visitor’s experience.

One of the items I removed was the Feedburner stat widget. I wanted to put my statistics up by my actual RSS button (see this article on how to implement my RSS badge), but make it look natural.

The first step was a little lazy, I didn’t want to recreate the wheel. I searched for a Feedburner stats plugin out there and found a great Feedburner API Wordpress Plugin by Eric Davis.

One minor edit to the plugin was that I wanted to add a thousands separator (”,”). Within the function FB_GetCirculation, I updated the echo statement to add the number formatting I needed:

echo number_format($circ);

Activate the plugin and the next step is to put the stats in your sidebar of your template:

Circulation: <?php FB_GetCirculation($dates = 'last_month'); ?> Subscribers

Next, I’d like to recreate this plugin with Clicky Web Analytics so I can also tout the visitors to my web site, not just the feed subscribers. As well, I think the Feedburner plugin should cache the result - no need in hitting the API all day like it is.

The layout and design of my blog has been very deliberate and carefully tested. I don’t like many of the money making blogs that have dense clusters of advertisements and utilize interruption techniques when viewing pages. You’ll note my home page is clean with the content concentrated in the whitespace - where the focus is natural.

When Scott Whitlock contacted me a month or so ago, he asked if I had any time to help him develop a corporate blog for his local company, Flexware Innovation. I honestly didn’t, but I supplied him with a student, Stephen, who was a quick study and has built a fantastic blog of his own, Coley’s Corner.

Scott had Stephen’s help and even outsourced some of the blog construction with eLance, a very positive experience (follow the link to learn more).

Seeing Scott’s blog, ManufIT, was the ultimate compliment. Scott joked with how much he borrowed from my blog but he was gracious in the design, always asking if I minded. I’m more than happy to share! My objective has always been to get more people blogging, especially companies. If it takes giving away my layout, I’m more than happy to oblige. In fact, I think Scott has really enhanced the layout!

Scott is an inspiration as well. His company grew from a simple idea and is now a powerhouse in the manufacturing industry. It’s obvious that Scott has his eye on the future - ManufIT is a corporate blog about innovation in Manufacturing Software - while the rest of the industry is still poking around ancient technology.

Congratulations to Scott on his company, his blog, and a very heartfelt thanks for the ultimate compliment of reaching out and adopting many of the techniques I’ve been touting for a couple of years! Welcome to the blogosphere, Scott!

As the world is digitized and every word you say and act you do is bound to be caught on video, it’s important that you police yourself. This is key for businesses who wish to open their marketing efforts to blogging and social media.

While meeting a colleague at a baseball game and having them see you boisterous and drinking wasn’t a big deal in the past, online doesn’t have a boundary between personal and business life. If you have an online persona, that is your persona for work as well. Someone doesn’t distinguish you from a dating website to LinkedIn - you’re just ‘online’.

Online History is Already a Human Resource Tool

Employers are already utilizing Google to find and research employees. The last thing you want is to leave a trail, personal or business, that can impact how your company or a prospect will perceive you.

A few years ago, I worked at a company where an inappropriate classified was posted by an employee and it made the rounds. Though it didn’t have anything to do with the person’s work, it was noted within the office of the person’s management staff - a mark that was irreversible and would hurt that person’s ability to get promoted or assume other jobs within the organization.

A Video Record

I’ve been spending time on Seesmic, of late, an application that is sort of a mixture (and integration) of video and chat. One friend remarked tonight that he’s seen some really concerning behavior in people that he had respected otherwise.

The problem is two-fold: Seesmic is almost real-time, so people converse and sometimes get into heated conversations. The other part is that Seesmic bridges the gap between professional and business. Some folks drink while they converse… a few are even drunk. Other people have exploded over conversations on religion and/or politics.

The World is NOT Ready

It’s a wonderful thing that we have technology such as this where one can bare his/her soul and communicate so effectively with friends around the world. The problem is that the world is not prepared for this kind of transparency yet. A tool such as Seesmic can provide a ton of insight into a person’s thoughts on work, life… and provide some input on their stability.

Someone, who may have otherwise been a perfect employee, could get eliminated from opportunities after a hiring manager sat and reviewed hours of their online conversations.

Protecting Your Persona

There are a couple things you can do to protect your Online Persona and Reputation:

1. Avoid charged conversations on sex, religion, politics, etc. where you might inject opinions that may be misconstrued. Take those conversations offline.
2. Avoid being under the influence of any medication or alcohol online. You’re simply not in control of your emotions and actions.
3. Always keep in mind that everything you are doing is a record that your School, Work, Reporters, Government, and even Family have ready access to.

Minimizing Risk and Risk Removal

1. Some programs, even online ones, do offer deletion of your content. Read those Terms of Service and see if you are able to permanently remove video, sound, history, etc. If you ever do find yourself in a situation where you made a mistake, do your best to get it removed. By the way, the chances of you being successful are very, very slim.
2. Dilute it. If you have 1 conversation in 10 that shows you blowing your top on Politics, be sure to hold the next 1,000 conversations without blowing your top. Providing much more positive content online will minimize the risk of the negative content that someone might find. Again, this isn’t foolproof, but it can help.
3. Think! The best advice is never to get into a situation online that you might be embarrassed of later. Just avoid these situations altogether.

I am optimistic that someday we will be a community that is a lot more tolerant of (mis)behavior, recognizing that bad things happen to good people and good people make mistakes, too. But until then, be sure to keep a close eye on how you’re online persona is perceived.

I should add that this conversation was partly inspired by Dr. Thomas Ho, who’s blogged on the topic of creating an online persona.