We Went Gold!

The Team
Photo-A-Day #1527

Our Relay for Life Team went Gold this year, that means over $10,000 in total donations. That is a first for this team. I twas an amazing thing to achieve and we couldn’t have done it without all the great people who donated.

Donations that came in from readers and friends BenSpark.com totaled $375.00. That is pretty amazing seeing as I started asking for donations a mere 10 days ago. What did I do to ask for donations? Twitter and this blog brought in the donations. People heard the call for donations and responded by either promoting the cause on twitter, donating or leaving comments of support. We are truly blessed to have such great friends in those we have met and those we have not. Soon I’ll be posting some thank you reviews about each of my $25+ sponsors and everyone on the $10+ will get some #followfriday love on twitter for the rest of the month. Everyone reading this blog should check out the blogs or twitter streams of these wonderful folks. I took a bunch of photos today too so here are some plus my video that I promised to show you, including the gaggle of teenage girls who try to get into the shot, and succeed.

The Mad Scientist
Last Year at the Relay for Life they had this guy there and he was phenomenal. He had all the kids so entertained. This year he held Eva’s attention for a good 20 minutes. And he hadn’t even gotten to the Mentos and Diet Coke yet.

Like the Pinwheels
Eva went over to the ADK (Teacher’s Honors Society and the team my mom walked with) and played with their pinwheels. She took the broken pink one there on the ground and played with it forever.

Why Relay
A wall where people could leave notes as to why they participated in the Relay

Breakfast
A dollar donation for 3 cupcakes that I could frost myself, a sweet deal. (I did not eat them all myself, I had one and shared the rest.

I Won Again
This time I won one of the team’s raffle prizes, the boys box of toys. Oh yeah there is a Transformers Activator, a G.I.Joe character and some Mr. Potato heads, it was a fun prize. Perfect for me.

I need to thank some really great people for their generosity. I’m linking up to their twitter names as Twitter was the way I spread the word and how many people responded.

More donations can still be received, only $125 away from our $500 goal!!

How to Add Your Blog to SocialSpark – WordPress Version

Many comments that I get from new I’m Not A Famous Blogger Crew Members and non-crew members alike have to do with getting their blogs added to SocialSpark and having them approved. There are a few places to get this information and while the information is sound I don’t think it covers it quite like this little tutorial will. So strap in because this SocialSpark Saturday post is Double Sized (I missed last week so I’m making up for it.)

Adding your Blog to SocialSpark

First off you need to sign into SocialSpark and mouse over the Account tab.

SocialSpark Home Page

Next you will get a drop down menu of options. Choose Manage Blogger Account and Click it.

Manage your Blogger Account

From here you are going to want to click on the Blogs field in the middle of the screen.

Manage your SocialSpark Blogs

This will bring you to a list of your blogs (if you’ve already entered any). There is a link “Add Blog” Click it.

Add a Blog to SocialSpark

Now you are on the add blogs page. There is much to fill out here.

SocialSpark Add a Blog Form

Click Submit at the bottom of the page and that’s it, you have now added your blog.

Are you ready to claim it and submit it for approval…

Sure you Are!

LET’S DO IT!

Claiming your blog

Assuming that you follow my instructions above and you added your blog to the SocialSpark network then you are ready to claim your blog. It is pretty easy to do this.

Get the SocialSpark Code

Take a Look at your blog status. You will most likely see three red X’s. This means that you have not claimed your blog. You can find out more about why you need to claim the blog by clicking the “?” next to Claim Your Blog. This is what you will see when you click the “?” next to Claim Your Blog.

Before you get your blog approved, we need to verify that you really are the owner. We have not yet verified that you own your site. Click the Get Code button to grab the code, place it on your site either before the closing HEAD tag or somewhere between the BODY tags. Then click Refresh here to run the verification script. Once you’ve claimed the site once, you can remove the claim code (Not ITK) from your site.

The Second red X means that you have not installed the IZEA Tool Kit (ITK), you’re going to need to do this as well. Why? Here is the explanation that you see when you click the “?” next to Install ITK.

The IZEA ToolKit (ITK) is a suite of tools that maximizes what you can do in the IZEA Network. After you place a piece of Javascript code on your website, we begin collecting statistics that gives you a RealRank and allows you to use other network features such as PPP Direct and SocialSpark Blog Sponsorships.

We need to take care of the first two red X’s before we can tackle #3. To do this we are going to have to tackle code. Don’t worry it is not difficult at all. Click the Get Code button. The screen will darken and a new screen will appear with three boxes of code. You should only see three boxes if code is missing from your blog. So the first time you install code you will see a box of missing code that has both of codes from the second and third boxes (So you don’t have to copy and past code from each of the boxes. That would be redundant.). Just install the missing code anywhere between the < body > tags in your blog html code.

Copying Code to Claim your Blog on SocialSpark

This might seem scary to some but it really is not. Working with the code is not that difficult. These instructions are for the self-hosted WordPress platform (honestly you really should have your own domain name and hosting and use WordPress, I cannot stress this enough.). Go to your dashboard of your blog. Click on Editor under Appearance.

My WP dashboard

This brings you to the theme editor where you can edit specific portions of the html of your blog theme. You are most likely looking for the header or footer files. The header has the open BODY tag and the footer has the close BODY tag. The code from SocialSpark needs to go after the open BODY tag and before the close BODY tag. Highlight and copy the code from SocialSpark. Go to your theme and paste this code. Then save the file and return to SocialSpark.

Editng my WP footer

Now you are back on the My Blogs page of SocialSpark and you are going to test to see if the code was added correctly (it had better be if you followed these directions). Start off by clicking the Refresh button. A spider will go out and check your code to see if the claim code is installed. If it is your red X will turn to a green checkmark. Please note that the ITK installed might not go to a green check right away. That is okay, give it a little while and click refresh again.

Checking my claim on SocialSpark

Once your blog status has two green checks like the one below you are ready for the last step. The most important step.

ITK is installed

Submit your Blog for Verification

Once you have claimed your blog and added the IZEA Tool Kit to it you are ready to submit for verification and approval… or are you? Review the qualifications for having an approved blog first. This is from the Terms of Service.

“”Verified Blog”.
A blog that has been Claimed, and also meets these additional requirements:

1. Blogs Only. SocialSpark only accepts blogs, and not websites, message boards, e-mails, IM or other similar services.
2. English or Spanish Only Blogs. The blog and all posts relating to SocialSpark Opportunities must be in the English or Spanish language.
3. Original Blog Content. The blog must contain original editorial content in addition to Opportunity-related or other paid posts. Blogs that exist primarily for payment will not be accepted.
4. Appropriate Content. Blogs submitted to the marketplace may not include or support: excessive profanity, violence, or racial intolerance, illicit drugs or drug paraphernalia, pornography, adult or mature content, or any other content that promotes intolerance, illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others.
5. Minimum Blog Age. Blogs must be live for a minimum of ninety (90) days, counted from the date of the blog’s first post, with at least twenty (20) pre-existing posts written in the 90 days prior to registration with the SocialSpark Marketplace.

SocialSpark will not accept certain blogs and Bloggers as determined by SocialSpark in its sole discretion.”

If your blog fits those qualifications and you are ready to go then it is time to submit your blog for Verification.

To do this you must click the Get Verified link under Blog Status.

Time to submit to verification

That’s it, you do that and you are done, now you wait for Customer Love to check out your blog, a manual process to make sure that quality blogs are approved, and let you know that you are approved to take opps in the system. Your blog status should look like this.

Success on SocialSpark

Now start earning some money!

I am an IZEA Insider and my crew is called the “I’m Not A Famous Blogger” Crew and I want YOU to join me. Here are simple instructions on how exactly you can join my IZEA Insider Crew on SocialSpark.