With a regularly updated website and an RSS feed (see “How to set up an RSS feed”), it’s easy to use social network sites to get that new content spread further than the site alone. News suppliers can link their existing social network profiles (on Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.) with a free updating service like Ping.fm which also supports micro-blogging sites such as Twitter.
Ping.fm allows simultaneous posting of updated content to multiple social network accounts. For example, a post to Twitter automatically updates the poster’s status on Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. It supports over 32 social networking sites: an intrepid news producer or blogger can sign-up with all of them, using his or her Facebook profile as the template for all the profiles on the other sites (time can be saved simply by focusing on the most popular sites.
The next step? Sign up for a free “twitterfeed” account and configure it to send newly updated blog content to the Ping.fm account – it will take about five minutes.
Getting it running
Every time that updated content is published on the website, twitterfeed will be informed by the RSS feed and will automatically pass the post subject to Ping.fm, along with a link to the fresh content. All the contacts on the news supplier’s social network and microblog accounts will then receive the new post, courtesy of Ping.fm.
Alternative tools
News management can be hugely enhanced with a Content Management Service (CMS), including the highly popular WordPress service – which is used by a 14.7 per cent of the world’s top one million websites as their CMS of choice – enables swift and easy time-stamping, editing and new content posting. And it doesn’t have to be used for the whole of the website – it can be easily configured to handle only those sections containing regularly updated news content.
WordPress is literally crammed with features that make it much easier to define the promotional message. There’s a neat web template system that allows users to arrange and rearrange widgets in the blink of an eye – no laborious HTML or PHP editing is needed with this software. Along with that, there is a multitude of advanced customization capabilities, including a raft of handy plug-ins, as well as a clever link management system. Search engines love WordPress’s clean permalink structure, and it can assign multiple, nested category designations to content as the user sees fit. Automatic filters make formatting a breeze. For example, they’ll happily convert regular quotes into smart quotes. In addition, it’s also compatible with most mobile operating systems – Android, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 are all on board.
Other CMS tools with similar features include Drupal, Joomia and Movable Type (just type into a Google search).
Super-enhanced content management
Here at Purecontent we further enhance the value of CMS by providing a human promotional service. By using our tried and tested expertise in optimizing search engine results, we ensure a positive reaction from content consumers.
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