How to Use This Site

How to Use Social Media Today

To use the community features of this site, you need to create a login. Once registered, you can feed your existing blog posts to the content flow of Social Media Today and create posts directly on the site. You can also create your own profile, view other member profiles, leave comments, and connect directly with other members.

Below are simple instructions for getting started. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to e-mail us at socialmediatoday@socialmediatoday.com

• Upload a photo
• Add profile information
• Add your blog to our incoming feed
• Create a post
• Add bookmarks
• Add connections
• Send a private message to another member

Upload a photo

Uploading an image for your profile (or avatar) is especially important because, without it, your posts cannot be considered for posting on our site. Your avatar also appears in comments placed on articles.

Once you are signed in as a registered member:

1. Click Manage My Community on the top-left of any page.
2. Under "Admin," click the Change personal photo link.
3. Click the Browse button, select an image from your computer, and click Open. Since the image displays as a thumbnail, a headshot is ideal. It's also better to use a portrait (width smaller than height) image rather than a landscape to avoid distortion.
4. Now click Save. Image uploads take a few minutes to update in the system so your selected image will not appear right away.

Once you have uploaded your personal photo, your posts can be considered for publication on Social Media Today.

Add profile information

After you've uploaded a picture of yourself, provide some professional information about yourself to connect with others.

1. Click My Profile on the top-left of any page.
2. For each information heading, click Edit to open a series of text boxes and fill in as much as you like. Recommend fields are:
3. Work Focus: Company, Title, Industry, Professional Interests
4. Contact Info: City, State
5. About Me: Skills, Affiliations, Personal Interests
6. After filling out information for each section, click Accept at the top of the box to save the changes.
7. For each heading, you can click Permission to specify which other members may view your profile. The default setting is Community, which means all members of Social Media Today will have access to the information. If you prefer, click Nobody or My Connections, and then click Accept. 

Add your blog to our incoming feed

You can add your blog feed to Social Media Today to have your posts automatically sent to our content managers for approval. Please note that posts approval is not guaranteed and you must have an avatar image uploaded to your account to be considered.

1. On the home page, find the Resource Center heading in the sidebar column and click the Autopost link.You must be registered and logged in for this link to be active.
   
2. On the bar under "Manage Autopost Links," click Insert RSS URL to open the "Add Autopost" page.
3. In the "RSS URL" field, paste the URL of your RSS feed. Note: This is not the domain address of your blog but a separate "feed" address.

• Feeds for Blogger accounts can be found by appending /feeds/posts/default?alt=rss to the site address
• Feeds for Wordpress accounts can be found by appending /feed to the site address
• Information about feeds for Typepad accounts can be found here: http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=86

4. In the text box, you can add additional information about your feed or your site to appear at the end of every post on this site. To add a dynamic link to the original post, click the Add URL button.
5. Scroll down and click Save.
6. Click Read Now on the "Autopost" page for the feed you just added to pull all current posts into the system.
7. After a few seconds, go to the very top-right of the page and click the My Posts link to see your current posts from the feed(s) you’ve added. Your posts will not appear on the home page unless they have been approved by the moderator.

Once the feed is established, the system will automatically pull in your latest posts which will be reviewed by an editor.

Watch the screencast

Create a post

In addition to providing an RSS feed, you can post content directly to our site.

1. Click Create Post on the navigation bar below the banner.
2. Type a title of your post in the Title text box.
3. In the main text box, write or paste your post and add formatting including headlines, styles, and links. If you wrote your post in Microsoft Word or another word processing program, please follow these steps to make sure your post appears correctly on the site:
   • When you write your post, leave out all formatting like text size, color, and style (bold, italics, etc). Also leave out links and images as these may not display properly on the site.
   • Save your document as "plain text" to a location on your computer that you can find.
   • Open the file with a plain text editor like Notepad (for PC) or TextEdit (for Mac).
   • Copy the text out of the plain text editor and paste it into the text window on this page.
   • Add styles and formatting using the online controls (hover over each button to see what it does).
   Leave tags and categories blank; our community managers add these attributes to make sure your posts are easy to find.

5. If you are finished with the post and are ready for publication consideration, scroll down and click Save. If not, click Save as draft and your post will be saved under your profile for completion later.

Add bookmarks

Bookmarks are links to other sites that are associated with you or your profile. These links could point to your website, company, LinkedIn profile, or Facebook page (or all of them).

1. Click My Profile on the top-left of any page.
2. Under "Bookmarks" on the right of the page, click Edit Bookmarks, and then click Add Bookmark.
3. In the "URL" text box, provide the URL or web address for the link (including the "http://").
4. In the "Title" text box, enter an appropriate display name for the link.
5. In the "Description" text box, type a short description of the bookmark to tell others  about the site.
6. Click Save.

Add connections

You can connect with other members of Social Media Today to create a network of members you want to communicate with. When a member accepts your invitation, they are listed in your Connections list.

1. Click My Profile on the top-left of any page.
2. Under "Connections" on the right side of the page, click Edit Connections to open the "Manage My Connections" page.
3. The "Manage My Connections" page displays your current list of connections. Under "My Connections" in the left sidebar, click Add Connections.
4. From the drop-down box, select the search method you want to use - Email, Alias, or Username - and enter the appropriate information in the text box. When complete, click Search.
5. The photo, name, and information of the members that matched your query displays in the search results. Alongside the name are two options: Invite and Send Message.
6. Click Invite to open the "Connect with…" page.
7. Type the digits shown in the orange text box and click Send.

When the member you are connecting with opens "My Network," your photo and name will display under Invitations, in the "People that want to connect with me" section. They will also receive a private message and an email. When they accept your connection, their name and photo will appear in your "Manage My Connections" page.

Send a private message to another member

Private messages on the site are non-public notes sent between members.

1. Click Manage My Community on the top-left of any page.
2. To send a message to a current connection…

1. Under the My Connections heading on the left, click Manage My Connections.
2. Find the person you want to send a message to and click Send Message.
3. Fill out all the necessary information and click Send. The recipient will receive an email telling them they have a message on the site and can access your message in their inbox.
   

3. To send a message to someone who is not a current contact…

1. Under the My Connections heading on the left, click Add Connections.
2. Search for the member using the Email, Alias, or Username option.
3. In the results that appear, find the member you want to message, and click Send Message.
4. Fill out all the necessary information and click Send. The recipient will receive an email telling them they have a message on the site and can access your message in their inbox.