Tag Archives: DIY

How to Add Your Blog to SocialSpark – Blogger Version

After writing the How To Add Your Blog to SocialSpark WordPress version and the How To Add Your Blog to SocialSpark Typepad Version I figured that a How To Add Your Blog to SocialSpark Blogger Version was in order. And as I look through the blogs of members of the I’m Not A Famous Blogger Crew I see that many of them use blogger/blogspot. So I hope that this helps out.

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

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 Blogger. Start with signing into your Blogger account. You should default to your Settings Screen. From Settings click Layout.

blogspot_09_00

You are now looking at the layout of your blog. You might be tempted to create an HTML/Javascript gadget and put the ITK and Claim code there. DON’T DO IT! You’re going to have to delve a little deeper. Click Edit HTML.

blogspot_09_01

Now you are in the Edit HTML area. You might be tempted to post your code in the code box right away. Again you have another step. You need to click Expand Widget Templates. That way the complete code of your blog is now in the Edit Template Box.

blogspot_09_02

Your screen will refresh and that lets you know that you’ve Expanded the Widget code and you should now see a check mark in the Expand Widget Code box. Click the scrollbar and scroll to the bottom of your code.

blogspot_09_03

Now you are at the bottom of the code box, paste in the code from SocialSpark directly above the < / body > tag. Then click Save Template.

blogspot_09_04 copy

Now go back to 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.

Oh My Gosh!

Oh My Gosh!
Photo-A-Day #1576

Somewhere along the way Eva picked up the phrase Oh My Gosh! She is very emphatic as she says it too. We’re not sure who actually gave her that one but she is loving it and she was entertaining quite a few people at our friend Jen’s party tonight.

Today was a busy one for us. We started out with a little Blue’s Clues as this is Eva’s new favorite thing. Thank goodness for Noggin on Comcast on Demand. I’ve gotten into watching Blue’s Clues too. I love it when Eva says “Ska-doo”. We watched for a bit and then I mowed the lawn. Finished that up and we walked down to the North Attleboro Farmer’s Market that happens in our town every Saturday from 9-12 in front of Community School. I really like that there is a quick little place that we can go to on a Saturday morning as a family and purchase very fresh vegetables and other foods. There is a blog too for the Farmer’s Market, way to use new technology to help with a traditional style program.

On the way back we stopped at a new market in town. They have great falafel and gyros. Allison stops there for those once in a while and I like to see new businesses in town succeed. While there we picked up a gyro and also some Turkey Hill Ice Cream. This was a Limited Edition flavor that is something that is so simple that it should have been made so long ago. A mocha based ice cream with cookie dough and cookies and cream, fantastic! I had some of that tonight and yeah it was fantastic. Does Turkey Hill have an opening for a blogger taste tester? I’ll throw my hat in the ring!

Then it was time to get some things done for Affiliate Summit East. I was in dire need of Business Cards so the other day I tried making some online at FedEx Kinkos. I saw that I needed to get a rush on the cards in order to get them to me on time for the conference. So I figured that I go to an actual FedEx Kinkos shop and see if I can get the business cards printed today. The local FedEx Kinkos near me does not print anything. Nothing. They have a kiosk where you can design your own business cards and other things that are sent to a place where they print them all and ship them to you or to the store. So I went to the kiosk and tried to upload the business card that I had designed on the computer in the proper size, or so I thought. I ended up going with editing a design that they had but I did get my photo on it as well as my logo on the back. With all the little extras and the rush I ended up having to overpay a bit. So I guess I should have planned better. Here are the two designs that I was thinking of doing but didn’t end up able to use them. Let me know what you think of the designs that didn’t make it.

BusinessCard3a

BusinessCard4a

. This is the final one, however it is just the proof on yellow paper.

#ase09 business cards done ...

You’ll have to come visit me at Affiliate Summit 2009 and get one. The front has a nice blue on it and uses blue and black writing. The back is black and white.

I got back to the house and there was a message from the Hilton that I’ll be staying at for Affiliate Summit. I looked closer at the reservation and realized that I had made it for August 8 – 11 that meant that I’d be going down on Saturday and back on Tuesday. That won’t do. I’m heading down Sunday. If I headed down to Affiliate Summit on Saturday I’d miss the annual Wing Off. And believe me I am not missing a Wing off! So I made the change and saved a boatload of money. So happy about that because the business cards are going to set me back and then I’ve decided to take the train from Providence to New York’s Penn Station to get to Affiliate Summit. The fare is only $117.00 and I decided that train was better than driving. I get 3 hours down and 3 hours back to get things worked on. I’m pretty sure I’m going to save money and sanity over driving and using the valet.

So on to tonight. This evening we had a good time having dinner with our friend Beth. We had the corn on the cob that we got at the Farmer’s Market as well as the lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber. It was delicious. We did make a good choice buying the food locally. We’ll try and get there more often.

After dinner we headed over to our friend Jen’s for a little party. Eva of course charmed everyone and I got to talk to quite a few people about blogging and the upcoming trip. I met a guy who works for GyPSii, which is a mobile app for updating where you are and what you are doing. We talked together about Utterli, Zannel and Radar.net. It was a very interesting conversation and I’ve signed up for GyPSii which is apparently huge in China and is starting to catch on here.

After talking with that guy I talked with another guy who was really interested in my camera. We talked about my Photo-A-Day project and how he did paranormal investigations and debunked photos of suspected paranormal sightings. We also talked about how something small mentioned on the blog can become something really big, for example, Fry Sauce is something I mentioned on the blog once and then I did a contest and now I get comments occasionally on the Fry Sauce posts. It was pretty fun to talk with these new folks. I’m really getting geared up to meet new and exciting people next week and dusting off the rust on my conversational skills was just the thing I needed to get ready.

When I got home from the party (I took Eva home early) My tickets to the Market Leverage Yacht Party were waiting for me. Thank you Dina Riccobono