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Hello, I’m MaAnna with BlogAid and in this video, I’ll show you the new social share
buttons plugin I’m using called Sexy Bookmarks and why I like it, plus new features that
it offers for Google+ users.
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This video was made in early July of 2011, and this plugin is in beta right now. So,
what you see in this video may change very quickly, but it will still help you get setup
quickly and understand what all the configuration settings are.
I’m on the BlogAid site where I’ve already installed and configured this plugin so you
could see how it looks when it’s running.
This is at the end of a recent post and you can see the row of social share buttons I’ve
elected to display.
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When you hover your mouse over them, they pop up and display the social bookmarking
site that their associated with.
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You’ll also notice underneath that it states Get Sharaholic for Firefox, which is the parent
company for this Sexy Bookmarks plugin.
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The other thing I want to point out is below, and it’s the Facebook and Google +1 features,
which is one of the reasons I chose this plugin. Now, both of these functions are part of the
plugins beta features, and may or may not be fully stable yet.
So, let’s go to the training site I use to make these videos and I’ll show you the
settings for these new features, and a thing or two that is not working well in the beta
version.
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I just installed the plugin and I’m on the configuration page for it.
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At the top, you’ll notice a red box that states the plugin needs to be configured,
and to go to its configuration page. Well, that’s where we are. You’ll also see this
red box any time you update the plugin and you’ll need to resave its configuration.
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The other thing you’ll see here is that the load time is not optimized. It explains
that condition will be fixed after these configuration settings are saved.
Since this is a training site on my local host, nothing has been shared from it.
And the next thing down is a free trial of a premium feature for more advanced analytics.
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I’m going to scroll down so you can see all of the networks that have icons available
that you can use.
To the right are three links that will allow you to select All, None, or the Most Popular.
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What you select will determine which icons have checkboxes under them and will be used.
These are the ones that are checked by default when you activate the plugin.
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You can rearrange the order of their appearance by clicking and dragging them around.
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I’m going to scroll down so you can see the two new features in the beta version.
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The first one is to add the Facebook Like and Send buttons, as well as a Google +1 button.
You’ll want to set all of these to Yes.
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Now,
notice at the bottom in red that it states you have to turn on the new mode to have these
beta features work. I’ll show you how to do that in a moment.
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The next new beta feature is a bunch of functionality settings.
You can choose to show how many times your post has been shared on several different
platforms. One that caught my eye is Google Buzz. Hopefully they’ll update this for
the +1 button because right now, it shows the count on it by default and you can’t
change it.
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The Tooltips are the little text bubble that pops up when you hover over one of the icons.
You can select the color of the bubble and the color of the text. Let’s go back to
BlogAid to show you that.
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You can see that I’ve set the bubble color to the same blue as the rest of my site.
Now, let’s go back to the training site and the configuration page.
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You can also track performance, which is a good idea.
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And you can set the links to nofollow, which is also a good idea to help improve your SEO.
If you don’t, in online marketing terms, it’s known as leaking link juice. So, be
sure to set it to nofollow.
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Since clicking the icon will take folks to their social site, it’s a good idea to have
it open in a new window.
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And last, you can choose to display or not the little text link that pops up under the
icons that will help advertise the plugin.
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The next module is to turn on the Beta version. So, set it to Yes. This is how you get the
new Facebook and Google buttons to appear.
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The next module lets you set how you want your shared post to show up in Twitter.
There are several strings that you can use, but perhaps the best is already here. It shows
the title of the post and then a shortened link.
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Down here you can choose your link shortener. I use bitly, so I chose that. And, if you’re
not already using something like Bitly to help track your shortened links, it’s a
good idea to get it and look at the stats in it once in a while to see what folks are
clicking on most.
The User ID is the same user name you sign into bitly with. So, go sign in to bitly and
look in your account settings to get your API key. If you use another shortening service,
you’ll probably find your API key in your account settings there too.
Okay, go back up here and put your Twitter handle in, instead of Sharaholic.
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The next module lets you choose how the plugin looks on the page.
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If you click the Custom Mods checkbox, you’ll get a huge red warning box that basically
states, if you don’t know how to code, don’t use this feature.
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The next one lets you choose whether the little icons pop up when hovered over if you have
more than one line of icons.
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The next one lets you choose the spacing. You can play with this and see how the icons
lay on your page. Which option looks better will be determined by how many icons you use
and how wide the content area on your site is.
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The next one is whether or not you want to use one of these background images. I had
a little trouble with this working the first time around. I didn’t want to use a background
image so I unchecked the box. But, it didn’t save that way. I eventually switched off the
new mode, saved the settings, and then switched the new mode back on. That was the only way
I could get the background image not to appear.
So, if you do want to use a background image, just select one and you should be okay without
having to jump through extra hoops.
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The next module is for compatibility settings and one of them has already changed since
I first loaded this plugin a couple of days ago.
If you see the icons loaded twice on your page, check this first box.
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If you want to load them in the footer of your site, check this second box.
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If you’re using the new Facebook button features, be sure to check this third box.
Now, that’s the new thing that just got added. The buttons were working for me before
this was here, but it may be browser dependant. So, be sure to check the box.
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The last module, is for where you want to place the icons.
You can have it above or below the content or both.
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If you click the manual mode, you’ll see a link for more instructions. But, most folks
either place these above or below the content.
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With this next drop down, you can choose any combination of showing the icons on your pages
or posts or index. What that means is that it will show on every page, or on single posts,
or in the index listing of all your posts, which is your blog page.
Because I want folks to use it mainly for my blog posts, I elected to have it show on
my posts and index.
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You can choose to have it show in your RSS feed, which I set to yes. If you’re not
already following your own RSS feed, you need to because you’ll want to see how your posts
show up to others who subscribe.
I noticed that it had text links on my feed when viewing on my iPad, and not all of the
same options were there and they were not in the same order. Most notably, the +1 link
was missing. So, that may improve as they work the kinks out of the beta version.
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And you can choose to hide it from mobile browsers, for folks viewing your site on their
phone, which I checked and why these links show as text icons on my iPad.
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When you’re finished, click the Save Changes button.
That red box at the top will disappear and so will the red dot by the optimize feature.
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I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial on the Sexy Bookmarks plugin. Be sure to visit BlogAid.net
where you’ll find more WordPress video tutorials, site and theme reviews, ebooks, articles and
other free downloads.