Jul 28th
2010

Quick Guide: Creating a Plone 3 theme product on the file system

Posted in: Plone

Plone logo

Creating a Plone 3 theme product on the file system can be notoriously daunting for beginners. A lot of documentation exists, but it is somewhat fragmented and can be confusing. I’ve been designing and skinning themes for Plone for quite sometime now and thought it would be nice to have a quick guide on how to create Plone 3 theme products on the file system.

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Jul 1st
2010

How to effectively use Twitter as a marketing tool

Posted in: Marketing, Social Media

Twitter logo

Twitter can be used as more than just a platform for saying what’s on your mind. I talked about the power of real-time search with Twitter in a previous post of mine.

Simply having a Twitter account will do nothing for your company or brand. In order to use Twitter effectively and gain the benefits it can provide, you need to engage with your users and give them a reason to follow you. What’s great about Twitter is that anyone can do it and most importantly, it’s free. Conan O’Brien knows this all too well.

The topics covered here are based on “How to Use Twitter as a Marketing Weapon” by Guy Kawasaki who gave a great talk at UCLA Alumni Day in May.

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Jun 1st
2010

Get more out of Google Analytics with Site Search and Event Tracking

Posted in: Usability

Screenshot of Google Analytics

Google Analytics comes with two very useful tools that aren’t enabled by default: Site Search and Event Tracking. When used, these tools can help give more meaningful statistics about users on your site.

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May 11th
2010

Keeping users engaged with Facebook social plugins

Posted in: Marketing, Social Media

Facebook logo button

At UCLA Happenings, we are constantly trying to improve our site and keep our users engaged. A while back we integrated comments for every event via Facebook’s social plugins. Facebook also makes it very easy to integrate these plugins with little work. In most cases, only a few lines of HTML code need to be added and you’re ready to go. We’ve seen activity and usage steadily grow as many users have begun actively engaging with our site.

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Apr 20th
2010

Online review ratings: 5 stars or like/dislike?

Posted in: Social Media

YouTube recently rolled out a newly redesigned layout to the cringe of many users. However, what was interesting was their new review ratings. They’ve moved from a 5-star ratings system to a like/dislike system that most users have probably seen on Facebook.

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