Want to Hangout, Don’t want to share video — Do These Three Steps!

Last night I did a wonderful Google Hangout for an hour. Several people from around the world talking, with great fun and excitement, but because of the hour and limitations of hardware, a few did not want to have video.

What ended up happening is 4 of the 5 people who were involved in this hour-long conversation just had a big black box.

It was ok, but taking these simple steps to share a picture, even of some random scenery, would make the whole conversation better. Continue reading “Want to Hangout, Don’t want to share video — Do These Three Steps!”

How To: Kill off a Facebook Page


Today this question came in from a client:

With my learning curve, I accidentally set up two Facebook Pages for my Business and need to get rid of the one without my logo. Any suggestions?

We can go a step farther & give the way to do this, as of today.

Step 1. Log into Facebook from a computer
Step 2. Go to the page you want to kill

Step 3. Click the “Edit Page” – Currently in the upper rigth

Step 4. Go to Manage Permissions – you might start off here

Step 5: Click the Delete Page link

Step 6: Confirm you want to delete by pressing the button.

That is it. Hope this helps & thank you for clearing out a page from facebook that you will really not use, there are too many accounts in the world that nothing is done with.

Guide: Adding DCG image

We have helped groups, organizations, and businesses set up simple websites that have what we refer to as a FCG or DCG.

Here are the simple steps to make an image show up in the DCG/FCG.

Step 1. Make a post

The first step is simply making a post. Here is an example we will be using the rest of the time:

Step 2. Get into the Editor
With this site, if you are logged in you can simply click the edit button near the title.

This should bring up something like this:

We will mess with three items
1. Add an Image – where we find the URL to the image
2. Dynamic Content Gallery Metabox – where we need to paste the URL to the image in
3. Categories – you must make sure the proper category is selected, in this case it is FCG

Step 3. Go Find the URL

First thing is to click the “Add an Image” (#1) button. This should bring up a box, either upload the image, or find it in either the Gallery (if it is already in the post) or Media Library. In this case it is in the Gallery.

We want the box that reads “Link URL” to display the proper URL to the image.

To make this happen, we click the “File URL” button.

This will cause the box to be filled with the URL to the file. Like this:

Step 4. Copy & Paste

Simply copy and paste that URL into the Box (#2) … notice how the URL’s are the same in the next image:
NOTE: don’t click the “Save all changes” button, it is not needed, just click the [X] in the upper right.

Step 5. Check the Categories

The FCG or DCG will have a category that it pulls from. That means that the post MUST be put in that category for it to work.

Find the Best Website for You

Old JonathanNation.com

It is important to have a website that fits the needs, plans, and tendencies of you or your organization. Getting started with a website can be tough, reworking or restarting a website can be tougher. I have thought about starting websites for many years, and here is some of the advice I give clients today.

We are going though this same process with AllyNation.com

When thinking about a website, most people start off thinking about the pretty pictures or layout. A smaller percent start thinking about programs or code.

The better focus is the content & content generation.

Content is why you go to a website, and why you go back.

The core goal of any website is to either:

draw people in – build a fanbase

or

direct people to a place or action

A key to achieving either goal is to have fresh relevant content that is presented in a way that the audience wants it.

When working with a client or student, that is the basis of what I am thinking about:
– what content will be generated on a regular basis (production)
– how do we best present this content to the audience (organization)

There is one issue that has come up many times:

We don’t know what we will generate.

Another potential issue with established websites is:

Our generation does not fit a current website very well.

Here is a plan that will help you determine what content will be generated.

Best Website for You

This process can be used by any company, organization, or site; starting out or established:

1. set up a blog style page. This could be either the main page of the website, or a subpage.

2. post – post like your site was 100% complete with the best website you could have. As if everything on the site was done; Magazine or Newspaper style front page, all the subpages.

Do this for 1 to 6 months.

Key with #2 – make sure you tag each post. Use lots of tags, but the most important tags are the potential categories or overall themes of the site.

3. after enough posts, take the tags and see what the common themes were. If you are using a WordPress based site, this is very easy to do visually with the tag cloud.

4. start designing your site – this could be yourself, or you could find a professional who grasps that websites are tools and that content & communication with audience is the key.

After # months

At this point, you have some answers. You know how hard & how easy specific types of content are to generate.

You have an audience that you can get feedback from:

What are their likes? What do they want more of? Why do they come to your site?

The site should be designed with a balance of:

What content will be generated on a regular basis (and how best to display it) ?

and

What does our audience(s) desire ?

Old JonathanNation.com
This is what JonathanNation.com looked like as this article was posted.

The time it takes a developer to produce a final site could be hours, if you choose a core theme, like what StudioPress Premier Themes, or a long time – all depending on how much custom graphics and the abilities of the developer or development team.

One More Thing

This process can work for established websites too.

I found that the design for my personal site,  JonathanNation.com, was not fitting the content I produced, and was more of a distraction for myself then a great way to take what I did and spread the word.

I am now starting this process, with this very post.

We are also going though this same process here on AllyNation.com.