Roadside Advertising in a Digital Age – Walker, MN

It was a pleasure to present a workshop on using location based services and social media to engage with your audience at the Scenic Byways Conference in Walker, MN on October 28,2009. I have made this presentation dozens of times and each time new information is added and old information discarded. This time the feature information set was Everytrail.

You can access this presentation through this link:

Roadside Advertising in a Digital Age Presentation

EveryTrail is a website (Everytrail.com) that allows people to share their hiking, walking and driving paths and what they saw along the way. EveryTrail has an iPhone app that allows one to capture their path and photos they took along the way to the website. The website allows one to share through facebook, twitter, and various blogging sites, and even save the route as a Google Earth file (*.kmz) or as a file to upload onto a hand held GPS unit (*.gpx).

I was able to download the app, learn how to use it in 5 minutes, record a 2 mile walk and pictures I took  along the way, transfer the content onto the Everytrail website, and finally share the journey with my friends through facebook and twitter. And doing all this did not take time away from what I regularly do in a day.

Follow up on “Connecting your Blog to Twitter”

It has been a couple of weeks since I wrote a little ‘how to’ on connecting you blog to twitter.

The day I published that article my blog had 310 views. Before that my views hovered at zero but since that day I have started to generate some traffic to my blog.

A few of the visitors also took the time to leave comments while another few did a pingback (explained below)

In addition, the day I wrote that entry I also connected my blog to twitter. This tells me that people are searching twitter on how to best use twitter.

So was it worth it? So the answer is an astounding YES, do twit about your blog and connect your blog to twitter.

But here are a few more pointers.

Make sure to give your blog entry appropriate tags. If you are initially writing your entry from MS Word then the best way to do it is after you post your blog from your WordPress Dashboard.

With your pointer hovering over the entry you want to assign TAGS to select QUICK EDIT (in red)

Then add the tags appropriate to your entry. Remember that TAGS makes it easier for other to find your entry.

 

Lastly – It may be a good idea to connect your tweets in twitter to also show up in your blog. Twitter is a micro-blogging platform for when you have just a little to say (less than 140 characters worth).

Here is how to do it:

1. Click on My Dashboards and select your blog (As you can see I have multiple blogs on one account)

 

1. On the sidebar click on Appearance and select Widgets

   

2. From the Widgets available. Drag the Twitter widget to the left margin

    

   

    

3. It will look like this when you are done. Just add your twitter name and click SAVE

    

   

    

4. This is what your tweets will look like on your blog

    

   

Connecting your Blog to Twitter

Bloggers like to think they are not talking to themselves. Some of us actually are though. The last posting showed how connect with a network you probably have already established through facebook. This posting will show you how to connect with your network in Twitter (if you have one – most of us don’t) and also offer some advice on building a network on Twitter.

There a lot of people on Twitter and it has had an incredible amount of press coverage. Lately the service has been barraged with denial of service attacks but hopefully it will figure a way out of it or the attack will subside. Twitter is great venue from which to build an audience from people who we do not know yet but whose interests may intersect with ours. Also realize a number of people are using twitter to do searches of connect as it is generated – a real time search if you would have it. When you post your blog it may take search engines like Technocrati or Google Blogsearch a while to index your blog but with Twitter, as soon as you tweet, your message is indexed and searchers can find your tweet using keywords you used.

The method for communicating in Twitter is through short and direct messages less than 140 characters. So imagine it like the 5 second commercial to generate interest in your blog. So you have to tailor your messages carefully making sure to include keywords that people may use to find content that matches yours. You can do this manually and you can automate this task. Use a desktop client like twhirl to tweet manually and use twitterfeed.com to automatically tweet whenever you publish an entry on your blog.

It’s very easy….here is how to setup your blog to automatically generate a tweet on twitter.

1. Go to www.twitterfeed.com
2. Click on Register Now
   1. All you need to register is an email address
3. Next setup your “Feed” – This is what the setup screen looks like:

1. When you click on Connect your feed to your Twitter Account you are directed to your twitter.com logon to allow twitterfeed to connect to your Twitter account.
   1. Sign in and click Allow

1. Give your feed a name – you can set up multiple feeds through twitterfeed so give a name to indentify this one
   1. If you have more than one blog this feature is helpful
   2. Also you can have comments made on your blog feed back to your twitter account.
2. Next type in your RSS Feed URL
   1. My blog’s URL is http://entelectul.wordpress.com/
   2. My blog’s RSS Feed URL is http://entelectul.wordpress.com/feed/atom
3. You can mess around with the Advanced Settings but since this a ‘basics’ tutorial I am not going to go into it.
4. Click Create Feed and you are done!
   1. Please note that when you add feeds, it takes Twitterfeed about an hour to initially process them. However once that’s done your feeds should be published within minutes from then on.
      Once your feeds are up and running, your dashboard will show you stats on how many people have clicked on each post. You’ll be able to compare posts and see just how Twitterfeed is helping to build your traffic.

Linking your Blog to Facebook

So you are now blogger but how to people find your writings? You can wait for them to search you out but if you are like you already have a network of friends on Facebook. So What I am going to cover in this blog is how to publish your blog on Facebook.

There are several ways you can do this. The first is to manually post on your profile every time you make a blog entry. You can post the link to your latest entry and a catchy headline. Easy enough and I am not going to bother with a graphic tutorial.

I myself like to automate. So the first method I am going to illustrate is a handy little WordPress application that fits inside facebook. Here is how.

1. Login to facebook and go to on the bottom left of the window and select Browse more applications.
2. Now search for WordPress
3. In the results select :
4. When you click on it you be directed to the application’s facebook page. You still haven’t acquired the app yet.
5. To install the app click on on the left side of the page.
6. You will be asked to allow access. … Click on Allow
7. You will get this window with hopefully your blog title pre-populated

   

8. Adjust settings on this page accordingly and then click on
9. Your blog postings will show up on your Facebook profile and your friends will be notified and will be read your entry right from Facebook
10. You can also use this application to create blog entries right from Facebook and have them post on your WordPress account.

Blogging from Microsoft Word to WordPress.com

OK, I have a full blank screen from my favorite text editing program, MS Word. The session here will be focused on how to blog from MS Word, an environment I am used to, to my WordPress.com blog which I like. I am evaluating here is for simplicity. Keep in mind WordPress.com is a hosted service. If you want to host your own blog using the WordPress technology, go to WordPress.org for the files and documentation

Also let’s add a picture to see how they are handled in the transfer and ‘publish’ process. I simply added the picture by doing a copy and paste operation.

People Migrating to Pakistan after Independence

 

Videos I think are more complex because they require a player and should be added from the blogging service.

Step 1: Obviously this is to write the blog.

Step 2: Click the little Windows Icon on the top left corner of the window and select

PUBLISH > BLOG

The MS Word environment now takes on a new look as a new document window is opened. We could have started the blog from the PUBLISH window but the point I want get across here is for effective writing of any kind one must write in an environment They are comfortable in. For me that is in a dark room by candle light on a piece of paper. But obviously I can’t blog from paper and unless I scan my papers and post them as pics or PDFs. That is a solution but not a searchable solution and you are blogging because you want to interact with your audience through an electronic medium.

Step 3: Give a title to your Blog entry on where it says: [Enter Post Title Here]

Step 3: Setup your MS Word to Publish to your Blog.

    Click on Manage Accounts to setup your connections. The following window opens……Click New

 

    

    

    On the New Blog Account window

    Choose WordPress

    The click Next

    

    

    Blog Post URL – enter the URL someone would need to read your Blog. My Blog is at http://entelectul.wordpress.com/

    So the Blog Post URL for me is http://entelectul.wordpress.com/xmlrpc.php
    Then type in the Username and Password you would use to login to your WordPress blog.

    Now click on Picture Options because you make want to include images in your postings.

    

WordPress has this really handy feature where I it will host your pictures. Sounds obvious but Google Blogger and Movable Type do not have this feature. You have to store pictures on your own server.

Click OK and Word will try to establish a connection with your blog account. For me it worked seamlessly

The last step is to PUBLISH
which I will do here and you can read my entry at http://entelectul.wordpress.com/

Remember to save your blog entry to your PC as a backup copy.

 

 

    

    

 

            

Mapping Main Street

I love the collaborative opportunity the web offers! Especially the chance to document the world’s lesser known attractions. Mapping Main Street is a wonderful example of such collaboration. An -impediment to such a project is the ever proverbial digital divide. It has been long since many areas in rural North America got broadband speed internet.  Still missing are ways to take advantage of it. My work with the Extension Service in rural areas aims to educate those new to the internet about how to leverage it for their purposes. That is why I love this mapping main street project.

I only wish I could also carry out in other parts of the world. Especcially my hometown in Pakistan.

Roadside Advertising in a Digital Age

I have an idea!

It started out with a GPS receiver I received from my mother as a gift. I like to play with gadgets. So naturally I started palying with this gadget, I found the obvious that GPS unit if you put the destination address and the origination address this device while guide you turn by turn in how to get there. So while allowing the GPS unit to guide me to a a destination in grater MN i tried out some of its more innard features. At a gas stop I felt like having coffee. So why not go inside the store and have the coffee there? Well that coffee does not sit well in my stomach. I need a name brand coffee or coffee from a dedicated coffee shop. For all I know the coffee at a gas station is made from gas.

Anyways I pulled up the POI feature in the GPS and started searching for coffee shops around me . I didn’t find anything nearby however, when I resumed my journey I soon came across a coffee shop. It was in a small town off the main highway. But why was it not in the GPS’s computer?

This is the origins of the Roadside advertising in a digital age program; instruction on how to put your point of interest into the databases that run the GPS units. I also noticed on how I was using google maps to find places around me for goods and services. So the second question was how to put yourself on digital maps like google or mapquest.

Technology is changing so fast that the GPS unit and the PC was quickly transplanted by smartphones, like the iphone. Now digital maps are available on handheld device that could access the internet and were GPS enable. This was a fusion of the internet capabilities of the PC with the GPS capabilities of the Garmin. People using iphones are searching on Google maps for goods and services nearby. In Addition an number of dedicated applications have sprouted for the iphone that search for restaurants, parks, tourist points, you name it. This concept of the dedicated app has cross pollinated in the balckbery world and was the core behing the T-mobile’s google android phone .

Then I saw an application in apple iphone’s app store

This open up a new dimension in advertising one’s POI. Not only do you have to be aware of digital maps but also stand alone apps that cost a buck on the iphone, android and black berry. These apps have a GEO component to them but other equally or more important components are customer reviews, photos, and rich descriptions, including hours of operations and major products carried.

The internet revolution came requiring every business to have a website. Then the website had to be on the top of the list of certain search criteria in search engines like Yahoo and Google. The current reality is that you have to available on as many platforms as your customers’ would locate you with. That includes traditional media such as magazine, billboards and commercials as well as modern high tech advertising venues.