What’s in a Title
I wrote a post a few weeks back about the KB Advanced RSS Widget. (Yawn) It got almost no attention at all.
This is too good to let it pass. If I were speaking at a blogging conference this would be one of the tools I would emphasize as a “GREAT TOOL” for your blog.
Twitter and Hashtags
I could be a Tweet
I’ve set up an RSS Feed for a Twitter Hashtag #rebl using the KB Advanced RSS Widget. It allows me to strip off any number of leading or trailing characters I choose. In this case I’m stripping of the first 5 characters to remove the hashtag from the feed.
I can implement this on any blog using this widget and a hashtag.
If I want to feed daily information about current numbers of closed transactions to my blog I can tweet with a hashtag with that information in it. The blog will pick up that tweet and display it in the widget in my sidebar.
How to set this up:
- First, make sure no one is using the hashtag by doing a twitter search
The search button is at the bottom of the Twitter page. - Once you know it is empty you should be clear to create and use that hashtag
- While on that search page to the right you will see: “Feed for this query” Click on it
- Copy the url that appears at the top something like this will appear:
http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=%23rebl
- Once you have installed the KB Advanced widget go to the widget page and add the widget
- Open the widget and where it says “Feed:” paste the line of code from the Twitter Feed query
- In the bottom window “How shall you format your feed” you can trim the first characters by adding this code
<li><a class=’kbrsswidget’ href=’^link$’ title=’^description$’>^title[opts:ltrim=5]$</a></li>
You can see this at work in the sidebar.
I currently have this set up on 4 different blogs.
You can also see one issue with using hashtags. You don’t control who uses one. It turns out there is a hashtag REBEL# used in Brazil. Someone with a TYPO put in #REBL instead of #REBEL .
What can I do? I can leave it there. I can change the hashtag and retweet. I could notify the “tweeter” he has the wrong hashtag, but since the author in this case might not speak English . . .
This is a great way to filter the content Twitter content to your blog. Most Twitter feed options feed your entire twitter stream. Even the goof off tweets you send to your friends. This will allow you to specify exactly what is being posted to each individual site and the hashtag itself will not show up.
Targeted content by Micro-blogging to your blog is as easy as sending a tweet.
Related Posts :
Post Tags: micro-blogging , Twitter
TinyURL For This Post: http://tinyurl.com/9aekfk
Twitter seems to be the new way of getting online for business purposes as well. As if I needed any other reason to spend more time in front of the computer, haha.
Robert Eskiw – Edmonton Homes For Sale
@Robert Eskiw – It is being promoted as such. It is another one of those web marketing opportunities that can be used or abused.
Right now it seems there is growth in those abusing it more than using it.
Used as outlined in this post it can be very effective for communication pertinent and timely information.
I have no idea what Twitter does or is for. I have read so much about how useful it is, but no-one looks at each others posts or links, otherwise someone would have answered me when I address them. How does it show itself to be useful? When I check my stats I see it once or twice. I dont get it
@Paramount Investments – Twitter is a tool.
Primarily a communications tool. It can be used for personal communcation, marketing communication or networking.
In this post I’ve outlined how it can be used to quickly disseminate specific information to a targeted audience.