Uses For Shortcuts

The new shortcuts feature could save a company time when doing reporting and standardize what specific data gets tracked. For team members that aren’t familiar with an interface like this, an admin can set up certain shortcuts to be tracked by Marketers or even Administrative Assistants, without them having to know how or where to find anything but that tab in the analytics dashboard. Analyzing marketing data is crucial to any campaign so it’s vital that it be easy to navigate, easy to understand, and organized.

Create A Shortcut

Log into your GA dashboard in either the Standard or Custom reporting tab. You’ll see the new Shortcut button listed in the utility bar.

Select any metric you want to create a shortcut for and click the Shortcut button. Name your shortcut and click OK.

Putting Shortcuts To Use

Once your shortcut is added, you’ll be taken to the Shortcuts section in the Home page. Your new shortcuts will now be stored there for easy access. The shortcuts remember your customized settings, so you don’t have to reconfigure a report each time you open it. At this time, Real-Time, Intelligence Events, and Goals cannot be added to the shortcuts menu, but hopefully that will be a feature before it’s released from beta.

If you need to make any changes to the shortcut after it’s created, you can do that by opening the shortcut, making the changes necessary, then click Save in the utility bar.

Manage Or Delete Shortcuts

In the Overview page of the Home and Shortcuts tabs, you’ll see a list of your shortcuts. Each has a View or Delete button to manage or remove any outdated shortcuts. Shortcuts can also be emailed or exported like any other standard report.

Fastest Way To Access A Report

The menu in the left sidebar is an easy place to find all of your saved reports but if you have a lot of them, it may become daunting to click through all the sections to find the report you need. A fast and easy alternative is to type the name of the report you want to access. As you type, you’ll see reports auto-populate. Once you see the report you’re looking for, click on it to access the data.

Conclusion

There have been so many great additions to GA recently, making it user friendly without having to be tech savvy. Start making your shortcuts today, to save yourself time tomorrow.

The post Cut Your Research Time By Creating Shortcuts In Google Analytics appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

1. FancyTube

FancyTube converts the Youtube simple player into an advanced player, giving you a dashboard of customization tools. Once installed, the default options may be enough to get you started but if you want to dive into the dashboard and make a totally custom player, start by going to the wrench in the top right corner and select Settings. Next, click the Extensions tab and then click Options to open your FancyTube settings.

Player Settings

I prefer a large screen view to watch video but many times when you change to the full screen version, the pixels aren’t clear and it makes you feel like you’re sitting too close to the movie screen in the theater. Manually changing the settings is a hassle and even then, the resolution may not be clear. I like the idea of a window pane somewhere in between and FancyTube has answered that! In the Player Settings, you can set the Auto HD so your screen resolution is always at the proper resolution for your PC and adjust the Auto Size to Big so the viewing pane opens in a large (but not full screen) window for easier viewing.

Playback

The Playback section gives you some much needed controls for the player such as an Auto Replay button for those great videos you just love to watch again and again. Scroll To Video brings up your selected video front and center without all the clutter so you’re only viewing what you select. You might also notice there aren’t any ads in, on, or near my video thanks to the Adblock feature. Stop Auto Play allows you to start the video when you’re ready, not upon opening the page. Space To Pause allows you to hit the space bar to stop the video and White Player gives you the option to view the video with the white background or default to the black background.

Update: FancyTube is no longer available in the Chrome store

2. Magic Actions For YouTube

Magic Actions for YouTube has the common basic elements but gives a lot more custom features than FancyTube. If you want full control over your video experience, this extension is for you!

Volume Controls

One cool feature is the ability to adjust the volume using the mouse wheel. The settings allow you to choose the way the volume is displayed, the color it’s displayed in, and the step of the volume adjustment. When you hover your mouse over the video, it will display the volume bar as you’ve set it. Scroll the mouse wheel up to increase volume and down to decrease it.

Enable Cinema

I liked the medium size display window in FancyTube but Magic Actions blows it out of the water with a large size screen that is perfect for viewing any video. You can select the small or medium size if you prefer or check the box to open your video in full screen every time. Check the box to switch to cinema mode automatically when video playback starts, I promise you will love it! The awesome backlight of the cinema view combined with the HD large screen mode  transform your browser into a standalone custom movie viewer.

To change the backlight color, click the half moon icon in the top right of your screen. A drop down menu of color options will open. Select a color from the menu or choose the Custom Scheme to create your own backlight color.

Stop Autoplay

When you select the Stop Autoplay, you’ll not only have control over when the video starts, you’ll also be able to allow it to preload and have continuous play when it’s part of a playlist.

Comments Feature

When using YouTube, you may not care to see all the comments and icons from other users. Easily turn those off by unchecking the boxes under the Comments Features so all you see is the video.

Magic Actions For YouTube

3. Picture In Picture For YouTube

For times when you want to have a video playing in the foreground while working on other applications, Picture In Picture For YouTube is your answer. By docking the YouTube videos to the corner of your screen, you can browse between tabs and applications seamlessly. This is especially useful when watching tutorials so you can follow along in the application without having to pause and toggle screens.

Once you add the extension to Chrome, you’ll see the icon added to your YouTube menu below the video.

The first time you use the extension, you’ll be prompted to grant permission to launch. Once you agree, you’ll need to click on the PIP tab again to open your settings. This is a one time setup so future uses of the Picture In Picture will auto-launch the preview window. To customize your settings, simply check or uncheck any of the options shown.

Once you’ve configured your settings, you’re ready to start using the PIP option. By default, the window will be shown in the bottom right corner. If you want to change the position, click on the wrench icon in the top right of the PIP window and select the position from the list.

You can stack PIP windows on top of one another as well to have a library of material to watch as a playlist.

Picture In Picture For YouTube

Conclusion

Using these Chrome extensions can give you a whole new YouTube experience that is not only entertaining but also useful. Have you tried these extensions? Tell us what you think and let us know if you have a favorite YouTube extension not listed here.

The post 3 Must Have Extensions To Enhance Your YouTube Experience appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Setup A Child Account

Assuming you are holding the Administrator account for your Windows computer, you can setup a restricted a user account for your kids and limit their access to only certain parts of the operating system.

To create an account for your children, click on the Windows Start button and type in “Add User”. From the list, select “Add Or Remove User Accounts”.

When the window opens, click “Add New User” and enter the child’s name. Keep the default of Standard User and finish by clicking “Create Account”. The accounts can be customized for each child or made to cover a broader spectrum for all of the children. If you want one account for each child, repeat the setup step for each child.

Setting up Parental Controls

When in the accounts page, you’ll see the “Set Up Parental Controls tab” below the user names. Click that to open the Windows Live Family Safety options. You’ll need to sign in to your Windows Live account to set permissions or create an account before moving on. Click on the username that you want to monitor and you’ll see that the account by default blocks adult sites and turns activity reporting on. To change settings for the user or to make user specific settings, click on the Familysafety.live.com link, then click on Edit Settings under the user.

Setting Limits

Maybe you don’t want to block certain sites altogether but you want to limit the time your children spend on them. That’s easy to do in the settings for each category and it’s linked across Bing, Google, Yahoo, as well as other popular search engines to ensure the settings remain standard across all platforms.

Web Filtering

If blocking adult sites is too generic and you want to be more specific about the sites your child visits, setting up web filtering may be more helpful. There are several options to choose from like blocking file downloads, allowing your child to visit only sites that you put on an allowed site list, allowing sites that are only designated for children, and allowing or blocking social networking, web chats, and web mail. I will be using that next time I ground my teens to make sure there’s no way of them sneaking online to social media sites when I’m not home!

Blocking Sites

If you want to block or allow only certain sites, in the Web Filtering tab, click on Web Filtering Lists. Here you can enter the URL of any site. Choose to block or allow it, and choose what user it’s set for. You can also use the lists you create for other users or import a list from another user to help save time.

Activity Reporting

The reporting needs to be active for a short time before it will start to display usage report, so get it setup before you plan to start monitoring the user. Some may find this setting to be invasive but as a parent, you can never be too careful about where your children are going online or how much time they spend there. Within the Activity tab, there are several sub-sections where you can break down how the data is displayed.

Web Activity

The Web Activity tab will display the web addresses of sites the user had visited along with any actions taken on the site, when they last visited the site, and how may visits within a certain date range. This is a handy tool to have so you can see if your child is having trouble getting homework done due to distractions. It’s also handy if your child is doing a research project and forgets the site they were on. You can use this list to track that site down to be bookmarked for future reference.

PC Activity

To see a list of PC activities for a specific user, click on that tab and you’ll see a summary of how long the user was online during a specific date range, how many apps they used, any file downloads, and any games played.

Time Limits

Some of the settings are geared toward younger children but it’s the teenagers who push the limits and find ways around your rules or punishments. Let the time limits section of the controls help you to enforce those rules. The setting is turned off by default, so navigate to the tab and set a curfew for using the computer to allow only the times you want them to have access. Be sure to set secure passwords to your other user accounts so they won’t be able to go around the curfew by using your account.

Game Restrictions

In the Game Restrictions tab, you can use a rating system to determine the type of games that are okay for the user. Everything from Early Childhood to Adults Only games are represented here. Highlight the ones you want to enforce for the user and then save your settings.

If you prefer a different rating system, click on the tab to “Choose A Different Game Rating System”. A lengthy list of rating systems will be available to choose from. Below is just a sample of the options.

As with the Web Activity section, you can choose to block or allow specific games instead of relying on a rating system to be the judge for you.

Apps

If you desire, you can block or allow any apps running on your computer from a user. I didn’t see the use for blocking apps from other users until I realized the hidden benefit – the ability to block all web browsers. If I have restricted permissions for my child to use the computer but they try to when I’m not around, I could look at the activity log and see that they were online but they have already had their fun. By blocking the web browsers, they can’t get online at all, reinforcing my rule to not be online.

Multiple PC’s

If your household has multiple PC’s you should set up the Family Safety on all of them. You don’t have to enter all of the information again for each computer. All you have to do is associate all of the PC’s a child uses and the Family Safety software will generate a single report showing all of the activity and which PC it came from.

In the Family Safety link, click on Family Summary. At the bottom of that page, you’ll see Your Devices. All devices you want to associate to your account need to have the Family Safety software downloaded to them but there’s a link within that section that allows you to do so. Then you can add and remove PC’s from the list as needed.

Conclusion

Digging into the settings of your computer isn’t as scary as you think. With just a few minutes of setup and configuring each user’s permissions, you’re ready for an indefinite benefit. Monitoring your children’s computer use isn’t always practical and can be daunting. Using and setting the parental controls will give you peace of mind that anything your kids are doing online is already approved and the time they spend is only as much as you have allowed.

The post Use Windows Parental Controls To Limit And Monitor Online Activities appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Home Tab

Log into your Google Analytics account and open the Home tab. The Home tab is where you can see several new analytic options, including Real-Time reporting and Custom Dashboards. As you can see in the image below, the default dashboard has sections for measuring things I don’t use-like Conversions and Alerts. That real estate could be better utilized with metrics I need to see and measure. The same is probably true for you as well, so let’s see how we can make this a little more user friendly.

Dashboard Options

In the left sidebar, select the New Dashboards tab. A window will pop up allowing you to choose a Blank Canvas to create truly custom dashboards or you can choose a Starter Dashboard which will give you pointers to get started with customizing your dashboard.

Create A Blank Canvas Dashboard

A Blank Canvas dashboard is an excellent place to setup metrics to track your ad campaigns and other marketing strategies. The custom dashboards feature allows you to create up to 20 different custom dashboards so you can create as many or as few as your site requires. You’ll be able to see the results in a glance and all of your dashboards are accessible in the left sidebar for quick reference. To get started, select the Blank Canvas option and you’ll see the widgets window pop up allowing you to create specific widget sections for your dashboard. Starting with the Metrics tab, you can select one of many metric options to target specific goals for your site. Basically anything you can measure in Google Analytics can be set as a metric.

To make your metrics more user friendly and quick to read, add a dimension with a pie chart. The dimension also allows you to choose from specific metrics to more accurately measure your success. You can further filter the data by showing only additional specifications to exactly match your criteria. For example, if you had an advertisement you wanted to measure, you could choose the Social Actions metric and filter the data to show on a specific day of the week. The widget is automatically named based on the options you chose but can be edited to your liking and linked to the ad URL.

The same process can be done here to create Timelines and Tables to compare metrics like visits VS revenue and track non-branded keywords. If you want to change a widget or no longer need a certain widget or metric, simply open the widget with the gear icon and in the bottom right corner, click “Delete Widget”.

All dashboards will be different depending on the type of site. I don’t have ads or marketing since my blog is non-monetized so my example dashboard reflects the metrics a blog should be tracking and is to show an example of a blank canvas dashboard. If you’re site is for business, your dashboard should have metrics that track your marketing strategies that target your specific goals.

Once you have all the widgets you want on your dashboard, you might need to move them around to place them in order of importance or make comparing two metrics easier in a glance. all you need to do is simply drag them where you want them placed for better viewing.

What If I Don’t See A Metric I Want To Track?

If you want to add a widget that’s not in the widgets creator, go to the Standard Reporting tab. Select the tab from the left sidebar and then select the item you want to track. For example if you wanted to track referrers, go to the Standard Reporting tab and select Traffic Sources. Next, select Social and then Sources. You’ll now see the metrics for the social referrals sent to your site. To add it to the dashboard, Click the “Add To Dashboard” button in the top menu bar

A pop-up will open where you can choose the dashboard it will go on and what type of table or chart it will display the data in. Once you click Add To Dashboard, it’s added and the pop-up goes away.

Create A Starter Dashboard

If you’re new to Google Analytics or aren’t sure what metrics you need to track, using a Starter Dashboard will help you get off on the right foot. The Starter Dashboard is pretty much the same as the default dashboard with the added feature of creating widgets to make it semi-custom. If you like the default settings but want to add specific widgets to it, this template is for you. You can keep the default page the same and add specific dashboards showing just visitor metrics, and just content metrics for easy data analysis.

Conclusion

There are so may useful ways to setup the custom dashboards whether it’s for business and marketing purposes or just for a hobby blog. Take advantage of being able to dig deep into your analytics and measure, measure, measure so you can reach your maximum potential! If you’re already using custom dashboards, please share with other readers what you find most useful about the custom dashboard feature by leaving a comment below!

The post How To Create A Custom Dashboard In Google Analytics appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Movie Mode

To get started, you’ll first need to decide if you want to do a presentation, which looks like an animated power point presentation or a movie clip. When you choose the movie mode, you give it a name, description, and choose the style you want to use for the animation. If you click the arrow, you’ll be shown a few more options that aren’t so cartoon like if you want something more professional.

In the next step of making a movie clip, you’ll need to select the template for your clip. Depending on what your goal is for the clip, you can use the Event Invitation, or Spoken Word to creatively spread the word about an event or you can use the Blank template to make your own creation.

Now you’ll see your full dashboard where you can begin to create your design. If you chose to use a template, you’ll see your slides in the left sidebar, the editing tools in the right sidebar, your toolbar in the top of the screen, and the time manager in the bottom of the screen. If you use a blank template to create your own PowToon, all of these options will still be there but you’ll need to add more slides by using the + button in the left sidebar.

To edit the slides, click on the one you want to display in the center editing panel. To change the text of the template, click on the text so your text box will appear. Add the text you want and drag to the position you want for that slide.

To add Image Holders, Characters, Props, or Markers, drag and drop from the right sidebar to the desired position on the editing slide. You can also change the background color for each slide by clicking on the desired color.

When you add effects, the editing button will appear in the time bar. You can change the effect by adding sound, how it comes in and goes out etc from here.

To test your video, press the play button in the left sidebar. If there’s anything that still needs to be edited, press the Pause button then click on what you want to edit. To share it, choose one or more of the social media tabs and link your accounts. Your finished product will look similar to the one below.

Presentation Mode

In Presentation mode, things work pretty much the same way as in movie mode but you have the additional feature to add in pauses. When you’re doing a presentation, you often need to pause the slides to make a point about a certain statement or chart. To do this, slide your arrow to the time you want the pauses and click the Hold button at the bottom of the screen.

For this presentation, I imported music by using the import button in the toolbar and an image by selecting one of the Image Holders from the right sidebar. These can also be added in movie mode. Right now the only method for uploading images is from a URL but when the full version is released, you’ll have the option to add an image from your computer.  When it’s all finished it looks like the one below.

These quick clips can be used to promote an event for your company or promote some marketing material in a more creative and engaging way and can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Youtube directly from your dashboard. Think about how cool these will look on your Facebook Timeline or Pinterest and how much more they will be shared if you create something everyone just has to share! Go on and join the fun. Come back and leave a link to your PowToon in the comments section so we can see what you created!

The post How To Use PowToon For Social Media Marketing appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Mail Rules And Folders

Some email services have included rules to enable you to better manage your incoming mail. However, they are either too complicated for the average user or not specific enough for the business minded. Outlook.com allows you to create folders for your mail that will work with your mail rules. Automatically send your messages into specific folders to help you sort out your mail priorities and make reading and responding to emails easier. For example, you can send work mail from billing to the billing folder for later sifting, or send mail from your boss to a boss file for immediate action.

To create a new folder, simply click the “New Folder” tab and name it.

To create A Rule

Click on the gear icon and then “More Mail Settings”. This will open a large screen of options. Go to the Customizing Outlook section and select “Rules For Sorting New Messages”.

When you start out, you’ll have no rules created. Click “New” to begin creating rules for your inbox.

In step 1, choose the filtering option for the messages.

In step 2, choose the action you want the rule to adhere to. If you want to move it to its own folder, give the folder a name and click Save. Alternately, you can have them categorized, removed, or deleted before they even hit your inbox.

Mail Features

Junk

All messages can be deleted but if you mark a message as junk, Outlook will keep the sender out of your inbox from there on.

Sweep

This is probably one of my favorite features of Outlook.com since I have merchants who send multiple emails per day that are of interest to me. I scan them as they come in but I only take advantage of a few.If I didn’t empty my inbox for a few days, I would have an overload of junk email. It takes time to go through and mark them to delete but in Outlook, you can use the sweep function and move all of them to a specific folder, delete all of the messages from this sender (and check the box to block any future messages if you choose) and schedule a cleanup to keep only the most recent message from this sender or delete and move the messages.

SkyDrive

Sharing photos, documents or video just became a snap with SkyDrive functionality. No more worrying about attachment limits. The beautiful portal for viewing video and photos makes the experience nothing short of enjoyable.

Customize The Dashboard

The style of this email service is very minimalistic so to spruce it up, you can add some custom touches to your dashboard by clicking the gear icon in the top right corner. The drop down menu will show you the color options and the email display options. If you want to further customize your options, click “More Mail Settings” to see a complete list of custom settings including linking other email from other accounts.

Integrate Social Media To Outlook

You have the option to link your social media sites to your email in Outlook.com. When you do, the incoming email will have the person’s picture included in the top of the email along with their latest Facebook post and Tweets at the bottom.

You can also send a message or write on their Facebook wall directly from that email so it makes your email more efficient. Answer email, comment on posts, and even chat if they are online all from the same screen!

Business Integration

In addition to the social media functions, Outlook.com also has the ability to function as a business tool. Open, view and edit Microsoft Word documents, Excel or PowerPoint documents from within an email. If you have the need or desire, you’ll soon have the ability to have a Skype chat from the dashboard as well.

Conclusion

Don’t let the simple streamline appearance of this email interface fool you. It’s jam packed with useful tools and integration for today’s busy lifestyle. Join the preview and let us know what you think of the new mail experience. Will you integrate all of your email and social media accounts to the new Outlook.com?

The post Outlook.com Review: Does It Stack Up to Gmail? appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Access Real-Time Reports

To access the Real-Time feature, log into your Google Analytics page as usual and click on the Home tab from the menu options. In the top left sidebar, select the Real-Time option.

Overview

In the Overview tab, you’ll see all of the metrics in one complete dashboard. In the top section, you’ll see how many visitors are currently on your site and if they are new or returning, what source brought them there, what articles they are reading, and the pageviews per minute. This can help you determine the impact of the content you’re distributing. After releasing a blog post and sharing it in Twitter, log into your Google Analytice Real-Time dashboard to see the engagement. You can do that with all of your social media channels to see how much traffic certain topics generate. When the view counts slow down, you know it’s time to re-engage.

In the bottom section, you’ll see what keywords brought them to your site and the demographics of the visitor. This information will be extremely helpful when creating Ad-Word campaigns for marketing your site.

Locations

In the locations tab, you’ll still see how many visitors are on your site., but it will display in a color coded bar by country. Just below that you’ll see the breakdown by country and visitors from each as well as a map view. This is helpful information if you have an international business. Being able to see the average time a certain country interacts with your site, you can maximize your time on social media by posting content time specific to that location.

If you prefer to use Google Earth VS the map view, click on the tab and enable Google Earth to see your visitor locations displayed differently. I wasn’t able to get that feature to work but it is part of the interface. Hopefully the full release will fix that.

Traffic Sources

In the Traffic Sources tab, you’ll see what brought visitors to your site. This can help you determine what social media sites people are most engaged with. Below the number of visitors currently on the site, you’ll also see if the traffic is direct or organic.

Content

The content section shows you what content visitors are currently viewing and also has an option see the pageviews for the last 30 minutes. Knowing what content is being viewed will help you to determine if your latest blog post or contest are engaging to your audience.

With this kind of instant measurement, you can now have a better picture of your marketing efforts in the short term in addition to your long term results. It seems like a perfect addition to what already has great capability to help you manage your website and marketing. What do you plan to use Real-Time to measure?

The post How to Measure Social Media Impact With Real-Time In Google Analytics appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

1. Pin Websites To Your Task Bar

I’m sure many of you are like me in that you use a lot of the same websites daily and check them frequently throughout the day. Other email accounts are likely to be part of that so why not pin those sites to your task bar for easy access? It’s as simple as this:

Open the website in the IE address bar then drag the website tab to your Windows taskbar. The page will turn to a silhouette of a box and you’ll see “Pin To Taskbar” appear.  Release the mouse and drop the box into the toolbar and now you have a shortcut for your site right in your toolbar!

To remove it from your taskbar, simply right click on the shortcut and select “Unpin This Program From The Taskbar”.

2. Browser Running Slow?

Have you ever noticed a toolbar all of a sudden appear or noticed icons installed on your desktop that weren’t there yesterday? All kinds of add ons get downloaded in the background when you download applications. This can significantly delay your browser performance making IE run sluggish, not to mention clutter up your screen with unnecessary items. With IE9, the browser will identify the culprits causing sluggish load time and prompt you to manage them upon opening the browser. To manage your add ons, click the gear in the toolbar and select “Manage Add Ons”. From there, you can view the add ons and enable or disable them according to your preferences.

3. Lock In Your Preferred Search Engine

When you download applications, you may get more than just a new toolbar or desktop icon. Usually those applications also install a cut-rate search engine that you’ll never use. To lock in your preferred search engine, open the gear icon in the top of the toolbar and select “Manage Add ons -> Search Providers”. A list of search engines will be shown along with which ones are available, enabled, and the one that is set as default.

To prevent other search engines from taking over when you download applications, check the box at the bottom that says “Prevent Programs From Suggesting Changes To My Default Search Provider”.

4. Reopen A Closed Tab

One of my favorite features in FireFox is the ability to open an accidentally closed window. That feature is now offered in IE9 and can be accessed by right clicking on the tab and scrolling down to select “Reopen Closed Tabs” or “Reopen Recently Closed Tabs.”

5. Parental Controls

It’s very easy for kids to wind up on the wrong site by accident and even on purpose. For these reasons, setting up the parental control should be one of the features you dive into enabling first. To access the controls, click on the gear icon and select “Internet Options”. When the window opens, click on the Content tab and you’ll see the Parental Controls at the top.

Click on the “Parental Controls” tab to see the list of users for that device. Click on the account that you want to enable controls for to open the settings. If you don’t have a user assigned to the children, it’s easy to create one by clicking the link “Create A New User”.

6. Delete Browser Cache

Deleting cookies or cleaning up the cache on your PC is sometimes necessary, especially when login credentials have been changed. In the past, the only options were to delete all cookies or delete expired cookies but in IE9, you can also delete cookies or cache from a specific site without losing the cookies from all of your browsing history. To do this, open the website you want to clear the cookies for in the IE address bar and press F12. When the Developer’s Tools window opens, click on the Cache Tab and select the option you want use.

7. Select Download Location

If you manage multiple sites or even use the same computer for work and recreation, you’ll want to have separate download locations for files so they are organized appropriately. To override the default setting of the downloads going to one folder, click on the gear icon and select “View Downloads”. In the bottom left of the box click on the Options link then click on Browse. Select the folder to be used for the download and click on Select Folder tab..

There you have it! Several great tip for customizing Internet Explorer 9 to make your everyday online experience as practical and productive as possible. What other tips can you share about IE9? We’d love to know!

The post 7 Ways To Customize Internet Explorer 9 appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Setup

Navigate to the Google Schemer site and log in using your Gmail credentials. Next, join Schemer by either of the two red “Join” boxes on the login page. Enter your home zip code and click “Create My schemer Account”.

The next step in your setup process is to select your favorite interests from the list. Schemer will generate suggestions for you based on those interests so make sure you have a good variety of topics selected.

You can also add more categories from the left sidebar to have a wider assortment of activities to choose from. If you don’t want to add the category to your favorites, you can still view and add the schemes in it by clicking on the topic. Schemes aren’t just for vacations and eating out. You can also learn a new language, learn to write code, or clean up your PC.

Within each category, you have additional choices like which location you want to view that topics schemes for and in the More Like This section you can narrow your topics even further.

Find Stuff To Do

Once you select all the topics that interest you, you’ll see a lot of really cool suggestions for places to eat and activities to do. When you come across something you’d like to try, click on the title of the scheme to open the details page. You’ll be able to see how many people want to do that scheme, how many have already done it, and any comments left by people who have been there. There’s also a Google map of the location and great sharing feature so you can ask people on other social media sites if they have done that or been there.

If you want to add it to your schemes, click “I Want To Do It“. It will now be added to your schemes list and the box will be shaded blue so you’ll know you already added that to your schemes. If you’ve already done something in the list, click the check box.

Want A Night In?

Schemer isn’t just for going out on the town, it can also give you suggestions of things to do at home based on your interests. Do a DIY project, build a campsite in your backyard, or learn a new skill. With Schemer, there’s always something to do!

Your Schemes

Once you have selected schemes, you can view them in My Schemes so the next time you are looking for something to do, simply pull up your list and get on with the fun! If there’s something you know about going on in your town, add it to the schemes list and let others know about it too!

Accomplices

Life is always more fun with accomplices! The social part of Schemer is based off of Google+ Circles so have your Circle friends sign up for a Schemer account to make your experience more fun.  If you don’t have any friends in the accomplices tab yet, don’t worry you have options! In the Home tab on the bottom right sidebar you’ll see a section of Google+ users who are also Schemer members that you can add to your accomplices, or use the option to invite friends from Google+ to join you in schemer.

Clicking on an accomplice tab will open a window showing if you have any schemes in common and anything you’ve done together. You can see their schemes and either rally everyone together to do that scheme, add it to your schemes, or mark it as done if you’ve already done it.

Another great place to find schemes is in the Schemer Gallery. Those are featured partners of Schemer and generally are bigger brands from retail or television that offer some fantastic scheme ideas.

Privacy Settings

Locations

To adjust your settings, click on your profile picture in the top right of the screen and select Settings. Here in the settings tab you can add or edit locations you plan to visit, would like to visit, or live close to so you always have a variety of options. It’s not limited just to where you live.

Email Notifications

Email notifications are sent based on your setting choices so take some time to look through the default settings to see if you want to change anything. You can always come back here later to adjust it again if needed.

Profile

Since this is a Google product, your Google+ profile will be your Schemer profile as well. To manage those settings, click on your profile image in the top right of the screen and select Profile. You’ll see a dashboard of who you inspired with your schemes, who inspires you, and your top schemes. You’ll also be able to set your privacy here by clicking the Edit button under your profile picture. This setting determines who sees your profile so if you don’t want to be publicly seen, go into your settings and adjust them accordingly.

To me, Schemer is like Pinterest but more specific to your location and personal interests tossed with a little social media interaction. I have found it to be most helpful in planning a weekend getaway or coming up with ideas to do with my kids while they are on summer break. It’s my new online bucket list! Are you using Schemer? Tell us about it!

The post Are You A Schemer? appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

1. Lock Screen Security

As you start to use the Kindle Fire to its full potential, you’ll start to fill it up with personal and work information like contacts, emails, and documents. If your Kindle was lost or stolen, not only would your personal and work information be compromised, but the new user could easily add more content from Amazon with your credentials. It’s a good idea to create a security login to lock your screen. Go to the top menu bar and press on the “Gear”. Click “More” and then “Security” to turn the Lock Screen Password on or off. To turn it on, press “On” and then enter your password.

Keep your password in a safe place! If you forget your password or enter it wrong 4 times in a row, you’ll lose anything you loaded onto your Kindle and will be required to register it all over again.

2. Enable/Disable Screen Rotation

Sometimes I read while lying down and the screen on my Kindle will turn causing me to be distracted. While that feature is good for some things, I like to keep things steady while reading. If you’d like to disable the screen rotation, click on the Gear in the menu bar and tap on the “Unlocked” tab to “Lock” it. If you want to disable the lock screen, repeat the steps until it says “Unlocked”.

3. Read More Than Books

If you use your Kindle Fire for business, you’ll find the feature to copy documents to it a necessity. There are several ways to do this such as connecting your Kindle to your computer with a USB cable or by emailing them to the Kindle email address assigned to your device. There’s an easier way to do this using Send To Kindle if you have a Windows PC. Simply download the app to your computer and right click on any documents to be copied and choose “Send To Kindle.”

5. Change Font Size

I wasn’t using my Web feature very much on the Kindle because I found it hard to see the screen. Sure, I could enlarge sections or zoom in to see things better but then I would tap on something that would take me somewhere else and I would just give up altogether. I recently discovered that there’s a setting in the Kindle Fire that allows you to choose the size of the font displayed while browsing the Web. To make your text Large or Huge, open a web page and at the bottom of the screen, tap on the little icon that looks like a piece of paper. Tap the “Text Size” option to open the menu and select the font size you want.

To change the font size of text in books, tap the “Aa” button at the bottom of the screen and select the size that’s best for you. In the same settings box, you can adjust the line spacing, margins and background color to make it easiest for you to read your material.

6. Do You Have The Latest Version?

There was an update released to update your Kindle so you’ll want to make sure you have all the available features. To see if you have the latest version, tap on the “Gear” icon and then select “More”. From there scroll down to the “Device” tab which will display your memory, battery life and other important device information. Under the battery life, you’ll see the “System Version” listed and as of this article, the version should be 6.3. If your version isn’t up to date, tap on the “Gear” again and then tap “Sync”. This will download the latest version to your device.

6. Add Or Remove From Carousel

In the latest version you can remove any book or Add To Favorites directly from the carousel by long pressing on it.

7. Parental Controls

If you have children that use your Kindle Fire, you may want to set some parental controls to disable certain functions. Press the “Gear” tab and then “More” to open the menu and scroll down to the “Parental Controls” option. Tap the “On” button to enable the controls and assign a password to access the controls. This will allow you to set controls for many things which include turning the web browser on or off, password protect purchases (so you don’t get a surprise credit card bill for games or apps they downloaded!) and setting content types to block them from accessing Books, Apps, Docs, and more. Once you block any features, they will be unable to select them from the menu on the main page.

8. Dig Deeper

If you like to know the details of the books you read, the Book Extras feature will be something you’ll want to check out. In “Book Extras” you’ll see a “Plot Summary”, the “Characters” of the book, along with “Glossary” terms, and more. To view the Extras open a book and then tap the piece of paper icon. Tap “Book Extras” to see all the supplemental material about your favorite books and authors.

I’d love to hear what tips and tricks you have found using your Kindle Fire. Share them by leaving a comment!

The post 8 Useful Tips For Kindle Fire appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Install and Configure The Plugin

Open your WordPress dashboard and download the plugin. If you don’t have a Facebook app for the website, you’ll be required to create one before you can proceed. If you’ve followed my previous post on creating Facebook apps in under 5 minutes or you already have an app, you can skip down to “Post And Page Settings”.

For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to walk you through the steps of creating a Facebook app from within the Facebook For WordPress plugin. Navigate to the Facebook Developers page and in the top right corner click “Create New App”. Name the App and click “Continue”.

You’ll now see a screen displaying your “APP ID” and “APP Secret”, which you will need below. Scroll down and enter your contact email, domain, and category. Next copy and paste your URL into the “Website With Facebook Login” section and select any other tabs there that fit your needs. When you’ve selected all your options, click “Save Changes”.

Go back to your WordPress dashboard where you’re configuring the plugin and enter the App ID, App Secret, and App Namespace (optional) then click Save Changes.

Post And Page Settings

Select how you want to use the Facebook For WordPress Plugin by ticking the boxes of features you want to enable for your site. Each category has a description of the functions it can perform so you can make the best decisions for your usability.

A few of the features are straight forward such as the “Recommend” and ”Subscribe” tabs. Other tabs have unique features that will take your Facebook experience to a new level. “Social Publisher” will allow you to select who’s Timeline your post can appear on and can also be done for Pages. To set that up, tick the box to allow that setting and click the link to connect your Facebook and WordPress accounts. You’ll need to allow the app to access your account and from there, you can select which Facebook Page these posts will be published to.

The “Like” option is not just a “Like” button with this plugin. If someone “Likes” or “Shares” your post, a story appears in the user’s news feed along with a link back to your site. This is a great feature for getting more traffic to your site and to ensure your content is more widely spread.

The “Comments” tab allows comments of your article to be visible in the article and they will also now appear in the Facebook feed. To see how all of the changes will look on the website, click on “View Site” in your WordPress dashboard. You’ll now see the Facebook Like and Send icons in the locations you selected in the Like section during setup. I chose to keep the default setting displaying them at the top and bottom of my pages to ensure they are seen!

Widgets

To use the functions of your “Social Publisher”, open a new post in your WordPress dashboard. As you scroll down, you’ll see the new widgets for the Social Publisher in the right sidebar. Enter the name of Facebook Pages you want the article to appear on and click “Add”. Do the same to mention friends and to post the content directly to their timeline.

The tool is super simple to use but adds a ton of features to get your content shared more efficiently. The plugin is already being used by many tech savvy blogs including TechCrunch who have seen the value in this great tool. Be more engaged with your content and your Facebook community to expand your reach! If you’ve already been using this plugin, let us know what you think and what you find most useful about it.

The post How To Connect Facebook to Your WordPress Site (A Configuration Guide For The Offical Facebook Plugin) appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

1. Traffic Pattern

Viewing your overall traffic pattern will help you determine if your efforts are paying off. If your traffic is steady or increasing, you’re on the right track. If it’s not, you can then dig deeper into your analytics to see the weak spots and make adjustments to improve the traffic to your website.

To see the overall trend, log into your Google Analytics dashboard and click on the “Overview” tab. Then click on the “Date Box” in the upper right corner and change the dates to cover the last two years and click “Apply”. If you haven’t had Google Analytics enabled for tracking your website that long, just use the start date and current date to see your growth pattern. Check the “Week” view to see a broader pattern over time.

Under that graph, you’ll see a pie chart showing you the breakdown of your traffic by the number of “New Visitors” and “Returning Visitors”. This helps you to see if your marketing efforts are bringing in new traffic as well as engaging returning visitors.

2. Bounce Rate

Your bounce rate is the percentage of people who view only one page of your website before leaving. The goal is to have a low bounce rate- around 50% or lower by creating content that keeps visitors engaged. If your bounce rate is high, you’ll want to examine some reasons why. It could be a lack of proper solicitation to the site, content, or the layout of the landing page. Websites that have a variety of content may also have a higher bounce rate since some viewers are coming to the site for a specific topic.

The stats chart (next to the pie chart I mentioned above) has the “Bounce Rate”, “Pageviews”, “number of Page Views”, “number of Pages Per Visit”, and the” Average Time on Site”. Those numbers will help you determine if the traffic coming to your site matches the reader’s expectations. Be sure to promote and link your site properly so you get quality traffic. Below you’ll see the bounce rate for my blog is pretty high. That is a direct reflection of not adding content regularly and letting the site sit stagnant. In doing some digging for this article, I also see a link bringing traffic to my site is causing a lot of this bounce. It will need to be removed from the website by the user. It’s a good idea to scan for these things routinely so you can be sure your analytics reflect accurately to your content.

3.Traffic

Your traffic should come from a variety of referral, direct, and search sites and be fairly evenly distributed. You don’t want to have all your eggs in one basket in case that site was to suddenly drop traffic to yours. If your direct traffic is too high, then you may not be getting enough new visitors which would indicate that you’re getting repeat visitors that aren’t spending as much time on your site since they are just viewing what’s new.

If your Search Engine traffic is too high, check the bounce rate as well. Make sure whatever search term brought them to your site, matches the content being searched. To rectify a high bounce rate based on search term, you’ll need to tag your content better and make sure the content is relevant to the top search terms sending people to your site. You can see what those search terms are by going to “Traffic Sources” then “Sources”, “Search”, and “Organic”.

4. Content

Knowing what content your visitors are reading will help you determine what topics are popular so you can write more on that subject. The “Content Report” will give you a list of what visitors are reading most. Go to “Content, Site Content,” and then “Pages” to see your content list.

You’ll want to look for pages with a high view count and low bounce rate to determine a quality article. Those are good quality articles that should be promoted more through permalinks or as featured articles.

5. Social Media

A newer feature to Google Analytics is “Social Sources”. It’s a handy tool to measure referral traffic from various social networks. Of course you can dig through your “Referral Traffic” tab to find those counts but it’s much more convenient to see them all in one place!

You can go a step further and see what links those social sites are referring by clicking on the name of the site. You’ll be shown a list of links that are bringing in visitors from that social site. This helps you to focus your time and energy on what works and take steps to increase the traffic referrals from others that are lower. If it’s a blog or review that mentions you, use the opportunity to stop and say thanks to those who are spreading the word!

I hope you found these tips for using Google Analytics helpful. Let us know what metrics you like to keep track of or any useful tips that weren’t covered here!

The post 5 Things You Should Be Measuring In Google Analytics appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Sign Up For My Tweet Place

Navigate to the home page and click the Sign Up Free button. Sign in With your Twitter credential and allow the app to access your account.

My Tweet Place Dashboard

This is where you can manage your Twitter accounts.

Tweets

Just like the main Twitter page, My Tweet Place has a status box in the left sidebar to enter your tweets. You can send them now or click on the Later link to schedule them for another time. Scheduling tweets for intervals of time will keep your feed fresh and build your Klout score while you are resting peacefully.

Just like the Twitter interface, you can add images or video with the links under the status box. As an added bonus, My Tweet Place gives you a built in URL shortener and the ability to translate a tweet to a different language. Having these tools built right into the interface make sending tweets more efficient.

Manage Interactions

From within the My Tweet Place dashboard, you can see your Mentions, Retweets, Inbox, and Sent items, all of which are interactive. Choose to Mention, Reply, Retweet, or Direct Message another user by clicking on the letter for the action you want to take. When you click on the letter, your action will appear in the status box in the left sidebar.

View A User Timeline

If you like to follow a specific user’s tweets, you can easily see those by clicking the “View User’s Timeline” in your Profile section. You can read all of that user’s latest tweets and do the usual Reply, RT, or Direct Message them. In addition to that, within each tweet, you can Favorite the tweet, Add To A List or even Translate the tweet to another language.

Dashboard Tabs

The features in the main dashboard are extremely useful but there are also tabs in the top menu bar that will allow you to customize your experience even further.

Accounts

If you have multiple Twitter accounts that you need to manage from My Tweet Place, log into the Twitter account you want to link and then click on Accounts. There will be a drop down for you to click and then Allow Access to your Twitter account like you did for the original account.

To send tweets from different Twitter accounts, either select the username from the drop down menu or click on the profile photo of the account.

Manage Followers

You can manage your followers right from this dashboard as well. By clicking on the “Manage” tab in the top menu bar, you’ll be able to contact any of your followers, read their profiles, and even follow or unfollow them. When you click on a user’s name, their profile will appear in the right sidebar profile box. From there, you can read more about them, follow or unfollow, and even view their timeline without even leaving the dashboard!

Within the Manage tab, you can also see who isn’t following you back, view Searches, Lists, and Favorites.

Timelines

I’ve already shown you a few ways to view timelines in the Manage tab but you can also view timelines in it’s own tab or by using keyboard shortcuts. You have the option to view timelines of the Public, your Friends, Your Own timeline, or Watch A User’s timeline in this tab.

Automation

Here’s where we get into the nuts and bolts of managing your Twitter account while you sleep!

Autofollow

Too busy to keep up with new followers and follow them back? Autofollow has you covered. Enabling Autofollow will help you keep your follow/following ratio in check, which again helps build you Klout score and also keeps your Twitter account current.

Manage Scheduled Tweets

There are many apps and online tools that allow you to schedule tweets but having it right here in your dashboard saves time and allows you to manage every aspect of your Twitter life more efficiently. In the Scheduled Tweets tab, you can view all your scheduled Tweets and edit or delete them.

Feeds

Finding ways to shave time off of tasks is key in today’s fast paced world. One way to cut the time spent on posting new articles to your feed is to set your URL to automatically post to Twitter when it’s published. Simply enter the URL you wish to add to the feeds list and you have one more thing working while you’re sleeping or even on a vacation.

So now you have a new app to experiment with and help you to rest in peace knowing you are not missing anything. Let My Tweet Place handle some of the work for you and see how your Twitter community grows. The steady stream of scheduled tweets, automated following, and all of the time saving features in this Twitter app make it a win-win for me. Let us know what Twitter apps you find helpful or if you’ll take the challenge to try out My Tweet Place!

The post Tweet Place Manages Your Twitter Account While You sleep appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Set Up Facebook Videos

You first need to run the update for RealPlayer if you haven’t already done so. When the Library opens, click the “Facebook Videos Library” in the sidebar. Login with Facebook and allow access to your account. Note that if you have security features enabled on your Facebook account, you’ll need to disable them to allow RealPlayer to search you and your friend’s Facebook feeds to collect the videos.

Build Your Video Collection

You’ll now see a “Fetching Latest Videos” message appear as RealPlayer gathers up to 40 videos for your collection. You’ll be surprised at what you might have missed in the Facebook feed when you see how many videos are populated. I know I was!

Video Options

To play a video, just hover your mouse over the image and click the Play button. It will play right inside the RealPlayer Facebook Videos Library in a new window. You have the option to watch the video in a medium screen (as is) or click the full screen toggle button to expand. When that window opens, you’ll also have the option in the top right corner to share the video in other social media channels or embed the video.

If you find a video collection from someone that has videos of particular interest to you, you can subscribe to their YouTube channel by clicking the “More” button in the top right corner then click “Subscribe”. You’ll need to be logged into your YouTube account to subscribe but it can be done right from that window as shown below.

To download and save a video, click the “Download This Video” button that appears in the top right corner once the video is playing.

Interact With Your Friend’s Videos

You can do more than just view videos in the RealPlayer Facebook Videos Library. You can post comments to a friend’s wall by clicking their name below the video they submitted. Their Facebook page will open in the RealPlayer next to the video where you can post your message and close out the window when you’re finished. The window can also be moved around by dragging it.

The Facebook Video collection refreshes each time you open it. If you want to refresh the collection while still in RealPlayer, just visit another area within the RealPlayer dashboard, then return to the Facebook Video Library.

This is a great way to keep up with videos from your news feed all in one place and a great addition to RealPlayer. I have it installed on my desktop, how about you? Will you try this out?

The post How To Use RealPlayer For Viewing Facebook Videos appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Although Facebook and other social media are measured by Klout, Twitter is the primary source for determining your influence and Klout score because all of those interactions are public. Other social media interactions can be private or aren’t counted by the Klout measurement tool so they can’t be added to your score. Your social network profile will display as either a Curator, Broadcaster, Taste Maker, Celebrity, Syndicator, Feeder, Thought Leader, Pundit, Dabbler, Conversationalist, Socializer, Networker, Observer, Explorer, Activist, or a Specialist.

Create A Klout Account

If all that sounds like a fun way to track your social media influence, go to the Klout sign up page and log in with Facebook or Twitter. Your Klout score and activity will automatically be generated because the data is collected whether you have an account or not.

What Does It All Mean?

You may open up your Klout metrics and not understand what it all means. This section will touch on all of the important metrics you should be looking at on a regular basis. To get started, click on the Klout logo in the top left of the screen, you can link any of your social media platforms that are currently tracked by Klout by clicking on the grey icon and filling in the user information. The current platforms are limited but more will be added soon.

Just below that are some influencers in your network. Here, you can K+ an influencer who has influenced you or has written or shared content of interest. A K+ increases their Klout score. You can expand that list by clicking “View Your Network.”

Your Profile shows your Klout score, a bio, and who you influence. Icons for all the social media platforms that are linked to your account are also shown. Make sure you link all the social media platforms that represent your brand presence and sign up for any additional ones that make sense especially if Twitter isn’t your primary social media platform. Doing so will help you boost your Klout score.

Below your profile, there’s a menu of options to view metrics in. You can view everything from Score Analysis which shows metrics for your influence, your 90 day activity, Amplification, and network Impact.

Your “True Reach” shows the number of people you influence. If your Klout score and True Reach are out of whack, take a look at some ways to boost your score later in this article.

Your “Klout Score Analysis” is also listed so you can see the ups and any downs of your score.

The “Topics” tab shows a list of topics you influence. View the recent buzz of current topics being discussed in your network and share them or use the “Influencer” list to find brand advocates from the list of people you influence. Continually adding content to the influential topics list based on what’s being talked about online will increase your score for those topics.

Boost A Low Klout Score

If you’re new to Klout or just have a low score and you want to work on improving your score, there are a few things you can do. Your Klout score is based on a 90 day windows with the most recent activity bearing most of the score. If your score is low, what you do over the next week will dramatically increase your score.

Up to 12 social media profiles can be linked to your Klout account. Take advantage of those increase opportunities by linking all of your social media accounts to your Klout and signing up for any new ones that can also increase your score especially if Twitter isn’t your primary social platform. Having influencers with high Klout scores RT or @mention you will increase your score as well.

The jury is still out on whether or not your Klout score is an accurate measure of your influence since it’s an unknown algorithm. With that said, everything about your Klout score should be used to build upon and strengthen your marketing strategy and should be weighed against your other data and analytics, not taken as an end all be all of how your brand is seen by the public and social media circuits. What do you think about your Klout score? Is it an accurate metric for marking influence across social media?

The post Does Your Klout Score Matter? appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Digital Blasphemy

Digital blasphemy has a huge collection of high resolution, very colorful cover photos for your Facebook Timeline. If you’re not into the humorous or cute covers and haven’t found a site with a large artist type collection, you have to check out Digital Blasphemy.

All of the images are free and can be used as wallpaper for your PC, and mobile devices. Just click on the device you plan to use the image for and it will open the image in a resolution for that device. Just right click on the image and select the “Save As” option to a folder of your choice.

Covermyfb.com

This site has a huge library of really cool digital art in a wide array of categories. I chose a few as examples below.

In addition to searching the library for selections, this site also has some customization features. You can create your own cover or convert any image to a cover with just a few clicks. If you convert an image to a cover, you’ll want to choose a high resolution photo with more of the shot at the top of the frame otherwise, it gets cut in half.

Spiritual Digital Art

If you prefer some serenity and spiritual influence on your Facebook Cover, you’ll enjoy the Spiritual Digital Art website. Each image is named and has a descriptive meaning to help you pick the right cover for your mood or spiritual being. The images are available as wallpaper or Facebook covers and can be downloaded by clicking on the image and scrolling down the page to the zip file.

Cross Cards

CrossCards.com has a nice selection of Christian based covers for your Timeline. Choose from simple statements or full scriptures each with beautiful images to brighten your day. When you find a cover you like, simply click “Download Now” and right click to save to your computer.

Cover Photo Site

Maybe you’re not into digital art but you still want something more upscale and beautiful than what you’ve been seeing on some of the Facebook Cover sites. The Cover Photo Site will give you a great alternative to what you’ve seen with it’s beautiful high definition photos designed for Facebook Timeline Covers. They have a huge gallery to choose from in each category so whether you are dreaming of a vacation or just need to bring the outdoors into the office, these covers are sure to appeal to your senses. To make one of the images your new cover, simply click on the image and then click “Upload To Facebook”.

Cover Photo Finder

Cover Photo Finder is a really cool cover gallery of digital art and photos designed for your Facebook Timeline Cover. Though the gallery isn’t viewable by category, it has stunning photography that keeps you engaged as you browse. The interactive cover example allows you to see an image as it would appear on your Timeline before you download it. To upload an image, you must first be logged into your Facebook account and then click the “Upload” button in the top right of the example cover.

I hope you enjoyed the previews of these six cover sites. Head over to each and upload a cover that fits your style and mood! If you have a site to add to this list of top quality Timeline cover designs, feel free to leave a comment.

The post 6 Of The Most Amazing Sites For Facebook Timeline Covers appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

1. PinReach

To get started with PinReach, sign up on the registry page. There are three ways to sign in; Use your Twitter or Facebook account or if you prefer, use your email address. If you use a social site to connect, you’ll need to allow the app to access your account.

Simply enter the Pinterest username you want retrieve stats for. Don’t worry if you don’t know your username, the image will show you where to find it when you’re logged into Pinterest. Press “Create” to generate the analytics.

You’ll now be directed to a neat dashboard of your Pinterest analytics. The first section will be your “Pinterest Score History” which shows how many viewers were on your account and viewed your boards. I have been a long time Pinterest user so I’ve become an intermittent Pinterest user and as a result, you can see my view count is pretty low.

The next section shows your “Repin” counts and if you hover over the colored dot, it will display what the pin was and how many repins it has.

Similar to that is the “Popular Boards” section. It displays the most popular board repins and counts. If you hover over the column, you’ll see the board name and the repin total. The board shown here with over 4K repins is a Pinterest community board. This is a great example of the potential reach and growth that’s possible with having a community board.

In the “Boards” tab, you’ll see a summary view of all the major stats for the individual boards from most popular on down.

The “Pins” tab gives a beautiful display of the most popular pins with a color image and a repin count in the lower corner.

In the Influential followers tab, you’ll see who repins your content most along with how many times they repined it. Use this section as a good place to start recognizing or thanking people who spread your content.

2. Pinerly

Pinerly is a new analytics tool that is currently by invite only. To get an invite, you enter your email address to be put on the waiting list. The more people you share the Pinerly link with, the sooner you’ll get your invite. Once you receive access to Pinerly, follow the directions in the email to register your Pinterest account and gain access to the Pinerly dashboard.

Pinerly works differently than some of the other analytic tools; You need to create a Campaign to begin tracking your analytics. You do this the same way you create any pin by uploading an image either from a website or from a file.

Enter the URL and description then click “Pinerly It” to enable the click-through tracking. This isn’t creating an advertisement, it looks just like any other pin with the added ability to easily track click-throughs, repins, and likes.

The “Pinalytics” tab will show you real time information and compare your campaigns against each other. The comparison is helpful to see if a campaign has little or no clicks. If so, you can make adjustments to the images, description, time, and board it was posted to until you achieve your goal for that campaign.

The “Suggested” pins tab is excellent for finding new and creative pins direct from the dashboard. There are 7 categories to choose from with new pins added to each regularly. Pinning new content from various sources will help your Pinfluence scores increase and keep your visitors engaged.

The “Follow” tab features a place to follow interesting pinners from 19 different categories! You’re sure to make some great connections and find some great new content to share on your boards! P.S. I told you Pinterest isn’t just for women!

Future features of this platform are set to include scheduling your pins so you can post at peak hours automatically, not just when you have time. Pinerly is a great source for analytics and so much more!

You now have some great tools and ideas for using them to your business advantage, so head over to the links and see which analytics tool will best fit your style and start measuring your Pinterest success. Do you use Pinerly or Pinreach? Tell us about your experience!

The post How To Use Pinterest Analytics For Your Business appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

1. WooBox

Woobox is  one of those really cool tools that does it all. The main feature of Woobox is to show your Pinterest boards and pins as a tab on your Facebook page. Creating Facebook Tabs is easy but this tool makes it one-click-easy to draw your Facebook fans over to your Pinterest page. Just click on the “Install Pinterest” tab in Woobox and allow the app access to your Facebook account.

Next, you will associate your account by entering your Pinterest Username. The Page Mode can be set to display “All Pinboards” or “Pins From A Selected Pin Board”. In the “FanGate” section, you can enable one of the features to require visitor’s to Like your page before they can view your Pinterest tab.

Once it’s set up, you’ll see it displayed as any other tab under your cover photo with the Pinterest logo.

To see the viewers perspective, click on the tab to open your boards. The first view will show all of your boards just like they are displayed in your Pinterest account. Each of those boards can be clicked and viewed independently so the boards and individual pins can be repined.

You can further analyze your Pinterest interactions by click on the “Stats” button.

It will display the current tally of Views, Visits and Likes. Once your app has been active to collect information, you can choose to Export The Stats From The Last 90 Days as a spreadsheet.

2. Pinzy

Pinzy isn’t a marketing tool but it can help you see what the competition is posting. It’s a handy Chrome extension that allows you to view the thumbnail images on Pinterest in full size just by hovering over them! No need to click through just to see the enlarged photo.

To use it, just hover over any pin and you’ll see the image enlarged. I love this tool because I don’t have to click through to see if it’s something of interest. I don’t use Chrome often so hopefully Pinterest will roll this feature out as part of their website soon!

Update: Pinzy is no longer available in the Chrome store.

3. PinAlerts

PinAlerts is a great tool if you use Pinterest for business. Within seconds of setting up your account, you’ll receive an email of the pins that were added from your site that day and be notified when anyone pins something from your website thereafter. Register and verify your email then enter the domain you want to receive alerts from. Select the interval you want to receive alerts and press “Create A PinAlert”.

You can add multiple domains to receive alerts on and manage all of them from within that dashboard. Use the alerts to thank the people who are repining your content and ask them to follow your other boards.

4. PinPuff

PinPuff calculates your “Pinfluence” measuring your popularity on Pinterest and the value of your pins. Simply register by entering your email address and Pinterest username and PinPuff does the rest! This could be very useful if you’re using an eCommerce site or planning to do some advertising as the first section gives you the “Pin Worth” and the “Cost Per Click” your content would generate.

The next few sections show the scores for your “Reach”, “Activity”, and “Virality Scores” along with some encouragement or suggestions to improve the scores.

A summary of all your board stats can be found at the bottom and your total Pinfluence Score along with your top boards in the right sidebar.

There are so many neat tools being developed everyday as Pinterest gains momentum and catches on around the world. Try these tools out and let us know what you think. We’d also love to know what tools you use and love! Leave a comment!

The post 4 Awesome Pinterest Tools To Expand Your Web Influence appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Do You Make The Twitter Grade?

Tweet Grader is a free tool by HubSpot that gives you the opportunity to check the power of your Twitter profile compared to other Twitter users. Your score is based on an algorithm of certain criteria predetermined by Hubspot. To see your TweetGrade, just enter your Twitter name and press Grade to see your score.

You will see your Twitter Rank, Follower Count, who you Follow, and your Grade along with a short bio of your account. If your score is low, take this opportunity to check these things for accuracy and make some adjustments until your score is in a more comfortable range.

Under your bio, you’ll see your Follower History. If you click the link there, it will show you a chart of your Follow and Following history.

Use the “Tools” tab for more neat features like seeing a list of you top Tweeters!

What’s Your TweetEffect?

TweetEffect is a neat tool to tell you which Twitter updates made people follow or leave you. All you have to do is enter your Twitter username and select “Tell Me About My Effects”.

When it’s done retrieving your results from Twitter, you’ll see a short summary of your activity.

How Far Do Your Tweets Reach?

TweetReach- shows how many people have viewed your tweets, how many have retweeted, and who your highest exposure is from. Just like the other tools, simply enter your Twitter username and Search.

The report will generate a tally of how many accounts your last Tweet reached. The bottom half of that report will show a week in review chart of your Tweet History, over how many days and how many contributors. The pie chart is a handy visual that displays how many replies and retweets you received form what you shared.

If you scroll down a little, you’ll see the report for your “Top Contributors”, “Most Retweeted Tweets”, all Contributors, and your Tweet Timeline. This report will allow you to see where you fall short and thank those who are contributing to your Twitter success. I can see that my report could use some diversity so I’ll be working on getting my content shared by more contributors.

What Do Your Twitter Analytics Tell You?

Twitalyzer is a probably the most important tool in this article. It’s designed to give you insight on your Twitter Ananlytics that are easy to read and follow. To get started, just enter your Twitter username and Twitalyze!

The first page you will see is an overview of your activity with some metrics giving you an idea of where you fall in the Twitter world of users. I’m a fairly recent Twitter user so my scores will likely be much lower than yours if you have been using Twitter ongoing.

If you click on “Check Out Our Metrics Dashboard”, you’ll see a dashboard full of different metrics that will help you determine where you need to focus more energy and allows you to see what’s working well.

As you can see in the image below, the dashboard metrics are showing me what the Potential Reach is and the number of people I am Effectively Reaching as well as my Klout scores. Those will give me a guideline to where I could focus more energy and time.

With these 4 tools, you are sure to be TwitterTastic in no time! Don’t just put information out in cyberspace, track where it goes, who sees it and is anyone even listening to what you’re saying? If so, great! Use the Twitalyzer tool to help you gauge your progress and if not, use the tools to help you improve in areas that are scoring low and one day you’ll be glad you did!

The post Are You TwitterTastic? 4 Tools To Determine Your Influence On Twitter appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Know Your Audience

You can’t effectively market your business without knowing who your target audience is. In your Facebook Timeline dashboard, you can use your Insights data to help you identify your audience and from there, begin to break your advertising down by the demographics. Then use the Facebook Targeting Tools to help you deliver the ads according to those demographics. If you have a physical location, you will want to use the Geo Targeting option to target the people in your local area for in store promotions. Demographic Targeting by Job Title, Age or Gender as well as Likes and Interests Targeting can help you create target specific ads for a better ROI.

If you want to use the targeting feature by Job Title or Interest, you would enter it into the “Precise Interest field”. When you begin typing your keywords, Facebook auto-populates a list of related keywords with that audience’s population so you know how many people that particular ad will reach.

Engage customers

Now that you know how to target your audience with an Ad, the next task is to decide where to display it. You have several options for this and it’s best to mix it up putting some in your news feeds, as a custom tab or in a message. You can even place them on a new fan’s page as a thank you response when they Like your page. Their friends now see it in their feed as well so it has a far reaching effect.

Nobody likes to be brow-beat by a sales pitch day in and day out, so don’t use your Facebook Page solely for that purpose. Keep your fans and customers engaged by posting informative articles about your product or how your product helped solve a problem. Display photos, videos and polls that keep the fans engaged with you and other fans of the page. Social Fresh is a good example of this method with varied posts of polls, articles and images. All are brightly colored and customers are always engaging in conversations and debates with each other and the brand here.

 Create An Ad

We have walked through all of the technical aspects of using the Facebook Targeting Tools to get the most ROI with your Ads so now we’ll put all of that together to actually create the Ad.

1. Design Your Ad

Navigate to the Facebook Ads Page and click “Create Ad”.  Decide on which Timeline it will go, where you want it displayed, then choose the image and text to be displayed. Make sure you use bold colors that will stand out from the blue and white background of Facebook.

2. Target Your Audience

Using any of the desired targeting tools, enter the demographics you want to target with this ad. Facebook will generate an Estimated Reach of your ad based on the information you selected so you’ll be able to see the demographic reach at a glance.

Set A Budget

It’s now time to set your budget for the ad but first you need to decide if you are optimizing for “Likes” or “Clicks”. The option to optimize by Likes isn’t available to everyone just yet so you may not have this option right away. Your budget can be set as lifetime of the ad or by the day. You set how long you want the ad to run by selecting the dates in the “Campaign Schedule” and Facebook will auto-populate the CPC based on your targeting and budget allotment.

Review Your Ad

The last step is to review your ad for accuracy. You will see a summary of your target audience, your CPC and the total budget along with the duration of the ad. If you need to make any changes to the ad, now is the time to do so by clicking “Edit” otherwise click “Place Order”.

Manage And Refresh Your Ads

You’ll want to monitor your ads to determine the effectiveness of them. Within the Ad Manager, you’ll be able to see which ones have the highest click through rates, lowest cost per click, etc. The Advertising Performance Report and Demographic Response Report can be accessed in your Ad Manager by going to the Reports tab. Tracking and adjusting your ad content and target may be necessary as you first start out and these reports can help you determine what’s working and what’s not. It’s also recommended to refresh your ads weekly to prevent your click through rate from dropping. That can be anything from changing text or simply changing the image of the ad.

Now it’s your turn to go create an ad for your business! Come back and share your experience of creating and using Facebook Ads with us! We’d love to hear how it has impacted your business and marketing strategy.

The post A User’s Guide To Facebook Ads appeared first on Make Tech Easier.