Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’ve had a lot of questions recently regarding publishing blog posts to Facebook. It’s quick and easy to connect your blog to your Facebook profile so that every time you publish a new blog post, it will appear on your Facebook profile automatically (and will therefore be visible to all of your Facebook friends).  This saves a lot of time and effort – you don’t have to re-post your new content every time you publish!

Here’s how to do it:

1.  Log into your Facebook account.

2.  Go to the lower left hand corner of your screen, where there’s a little Facebook logo and the word “Applications”.  Click on the word Applications.  A big menu of all of your FB applications will pop up.

3.  Go to “Notes”.

4.  You’ll be sent to a screen that says “My Friends’ Notes”.  On the right side of the screen you’ll see a box that says “Notes Settings”.

5.  In that box, click on “Import a Blog”.

6.   You will then be sent to a screen that says “Import a Blog”.

7.  Enter the full URL (including the http://) of your blog (or the feed of your blog, if you use a Feedburner feed) in the Web URL field.

8.  Check the box beneath the URL field to acknowledge that the content is yours.

9.  Then click on “Start Importing”.

10.  Facebook will show you a Preview of the content that it thinks it should publish.  Click on the “Confirm Import” button on the right side of the screen to confirm the import process.

You’re done! Facebook will now pull your most recent blog posts into your profile (it may import several at one time at the beginning).  Then from now on, Facebook will check the RSS feed of your blog automatically every 2-3 hours.  If you’ve written a new blog post, if will import it automatically into your profile as a Note.

Please note – You may only import one blog at a time using this process, so if you’ve got multiple blogs, you’ll need to pick one.

Another note – You can use this same process to import your blog into a Facebook Page (if you have one for your business).

If you would like to delete a post from the Notes area once it’s been imported, just go to Applications > Notes, then hit the “My Notes” link close to the top of the screen.  There will be delete button next to the title of each Note.

Have fun, and happy posting!

I've been cooking more these days.  Since mid-2008, I had fallen into a major fast-food, white-flour, completely blah diet rut, and my health hasn't been that great.  So I decided that I'm going to learn to cook WELL, using great ingredients, being inspired by all the terrific food bloggers out there.

I really wanted to cook a fabulous soup.  I love soup.  So I did a quick search on one of my all-time favorite blogs, Gluten-Free Girl, to see if she had any soup recipes.  And I found this post about cream of asparagus soup cooked up by her husband the chef.  You simply MUST click on the link simply because the picture is so fabulous.  It will make your mouth water.  I mean, what soup have you ever eaten that's been THAT COLOR?  Go ahead, go look. 

The Gluten-Free Girl didn't offer a recipe for that particular dish – she usually does, by the way, and every single one of the recipes I've tried from her site and her book have been INCREDIBLE – so I found one in a book and fired up the stove.  And I created a big batch of the most gorgeous, luscious green soup you ever did see.   I peeled and chopped and seasoned and simmered.  And it was only when I was peering into the pot of finished soup, checking out the fabulous color I had created, that I paused and thought, "You know….I don't even know if I like cream of asparagus soup."  I had never tasted it before.  It just sounded and looked so good on Shauna's website that I had to try.  But I had no idea if I'd even like it.  "Well," I thought, "There's only one way to find out."  And I grabbed a spooned, dipped it in green, and slurped down a big spoonful. 

And my goodness, do I ever like cream of asparagus soup.  There was an explosion of asparagus flavor right at the front, followed by layer after layer of cream, spices (nutmeg), a touch of garlic, and more asparagus.  The flavor actually shifted in my mouth the longer I lingered.  Good god, was that delicious.   

So try something new today, whether in your online life or your "real" one.   And don't be afraid to buy all the ingredients and do all the chopping and simmering and blending and stirring before you know what the end result will be.

Because you never know what you're gonna LOVE. 

NOTE:  This teleseminar has been rescheduled!  It will now be:
Tuesday, January 27th
3 PM Pacific
4 PM Mountain
5 PM Central
6 PM Eastern

This
one's going to be PACKED with information!  You'll discover ten ways to
make money with your blog, including ad networks, guest blogging,
affiliate relationships and more. 

We'll cover the big
questions – How do you pick an advertising network?  How do you decide
what businesses you'd like to be an affiliate for, and how you'd like
to promote products on your site in a way that's not offensive to your
reader?  How do navigate the maze of potential advertising networks,
and decide which one is best for you?

You'll
get great PDF handouts with lists of ideas for making money with your
blog, as well as increasing your traffic so you can get the most out of
your money-making efforts.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009
3 PM Pacific, 4 PM Mountain, 5 PM Central, 6 PM Eastern 

The class will be 75 minutes long. 

Just $27 for the call, MP3 recording, and PDF handouts.
*If you can't make the call, you can sign up anyway – and listen to the MP3 recording any time you like!

Register now using your credit card or Paypal!

        Have you ever tried to comment on a Blogger blog and been perplexed by the fact that the blog makes you sign in with a mysterious ID or login or some sort before you can leave your two cents?  You may have seen a screen that looks like this (right). 
With this setup, you need either a Google or Blogger account or what's called an "OpenID" in order to comment, which I think is a bummer.  Every blog author should be encouraging good, thoughtful comments, so it's best not to put any roadblocks in the way of your readers.  NOTE:  Let it be said, however, that I am a fan of the "word verification" function often used to prevent comment spam. This is sometimes called a "captcha". 

        The reason this Google/OpenID problem is so prevalent is that this particular comment mode is the default option for any new Blogger blog, which means unless the blog author changes their comment settings in their Blogger account, this is what their readers will be faced with when they want to comment.  Of course, Google makes this the default because they want more people to sign up for Google accounts.  I understand that Google needs ways of getting more people to sign up for Google accounts  – everyone's got to make a living, even Larry Page and Sergey Brin – but I think this method of "encouragement" is a little insidious, especially because most new bloggers don't even realize this default setting is stopping their readers from commenting. 

The good news is that the comment settings in Blogger are easy to change.  If you're the blog author and you've got a Blogger blog, I highly encourage you to change these options and make it possible for anyone to comment! 

Here's how to go about it:

When you log into your Blogger account, go to the Settings tab, then click on "Comments".  Your screen will look something like this: 

In this screen, make sure that you've checked  "Anyone – Includes Anonymous Users" in answer to the question "Who Can Comment?".  Once you make this change, scroll all the way to bottom of this page and hit "Save Settings".  Check your blog again (you'll probably need to hit you refresh button) and make sure the change took effect by trying to comment on your own blog and seeing what happens.  It's always good to put yourself in your reader's shoes, so this is a great exercise anyway.

If you're a frustrated reader who would like to see this change on someone ELSE'S blog, write 'em an email note if they have their email address posted on the site, and send them this link so they know how and why to make this important change.

After you try this, drop me a line here and let me know how it went for you, and whether you've seen an increase in the number of comments you receive! 

Quick update (Sept.11) - A colleague of mine point out that some bloggers might not want anonymous commenters to be able to post on their sites, but unfortunately there's only one way to get Blogger blogs out of "Google-account-only" mode, and that's to open up comments to "Anyone".   Once you've set your comment option so that anyone can comment, people can either post anonomously or by listing their name and URL.  Most people will leave you a name (and a URL hot link back to their own blog, if they're smart about marketing), so I wouldn't worry too much!