iAmplify's Marketing Blog: 3/1/09

Over the next several weeks, we are going to post some tutorials surrounding blogging and social media platforms. We know that these platforms can be especially helpful to our expert's marketing efforts, but we also realize there is so much information out there that it's hard to know where to begin. So it is our intention to aggregate some useful information and links to help you navigate and put these platforms to use.

The first platform we are going to talk about is Blogger. Blogger is one of our favorite blogging platforms not only because we use it, but because it supports our media player widgets. It is also one of the most popular blogging platforms out there.

Below are some helpful links to get you started as well as some tips on how to set up your media player widgets. I've also included links to more advanced tips so you can optimize your blog once you are fully set up.

Getting Started

Blogger has quick tutorials that will help you get started creating your blog. The steps are easy and the interface walks you through the process.

1) How do I create a blogger account? Basic Instructions on how to sign up: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=41348

2) Getting Started Basics: http://www.blogger.com/features#gettingStarted

3) Getting started video tutorial- this tutorial walks you through the basic steps visually:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnploFsS_tY

I wanted to give special attention to the Layout Guide that Blogger links to in their getting started steps, because this will be one of the places where you can add a permanent widget placement to your blog.

You can do this by adding a Page Element which I will detail below.

How to add a Page Element (how to add a permanent placement for your media player widget):

Go to the Layout/Page Elements tab in your blogger account.

You can add several page elements to your blog page or sidebar by clicking Add a Page Element. This will open a pop-up window. Click Add to Blog in the proper element section to add it:

· Link List: Add a link list to your blog with the ability to add a link list title, select the number of items to display and sort your link list alphabetically.

· Labels: Add a list of all the labels you've used on your posts. Click each link to see a page showing all the posts with that label. You can change the title of the list, and sort it alphabetically or by frequency of use.

· Picture: Add a picture from your computer or the web. You can also add a title and caption to your picture and shrink the picture to fit into your blog perfectly.

· Text: Add text to your blog (such as a welcome message or footnote) with our rich text editor.

· HTML/JavaScript: Add third-party functionality or other HTML/JavaScript code to your blog.

· Feed: Add content from a site feed. Enter the feed URL, then click Continue. You'll then be able to add a title, select the number of items to show (up to five) and display the item dates and/or authors by selecting the appropriate check boxes.

· Logo: Add one of our stylish Blogger logos to your blog.

The HTML/Java Script page element is the page element you want to add to your blog layout to add a permanent placement for your media player widget. For an example of how this looks please view our blog at: http://iamplife.blogspot.com/. You’ll see that I’ve added a permanent placement on the right that is called iAmplify’s Featured Download. This is a permanent element on the blog, but I change out the featured widget and description weekly.

You can also add a media player widget to any blog post. To do this, you just need to switch to the Edit Html tab in your blog post and past the embed code into the Html.

*Please note that you must use the embed code format. Blogger does not allow Javascript.

More Features

Blogger details some additional features like developing your community, getting feedback from your community, new post notifications, open id and converting your blog into different languages.

http://www.blogger.com/features#moreFeatures

Advanced Features

In the Advanced Features sections, Blogger details how to post on the go, group blogging, and adding third party applications.

http://www.blogger.com/features#advancedFeatures

Featured Blogger Tips & Tricks

There are millions of blogs that are dedicated to blogging tips and tricks. I’ve looked through several of these blogs and Bloggerbuster.com is by far the best I’ve found.

Look at these two posts:

200 quick tips for using blogger

The complete list of blogger tutorials

I’ve pulled out some of the tutorials I found useful:

Remove “nofollow” tags from your blogger template to spread some link love

How to use a background image for your blog

Create “wordpress” style pages for your blogger blog

How to hide the blogger nav bar

How to add background music to your blog

Create navigation buttons to enhance your blog

How to add icons beside your navigation links

What makes a great blog header?