Testing out new URL shortener with better analytics

 Testing out a new URL shortener with better analytics: http://grf.me/g7R5Y

Just Doing A Presentation For Some Nashville Real Estate Professionals

Having a good time talking Nashville real estate and tech with the top Remax agents in Tennessee (ELITE)!

How to Use Feedburner with the Share and Follow Widget on WordPress

Ok, so I finally got around to adding the email subscription service to the Nashville Tech blog page. Now you can sign up to receive email updates of new blog posts using the share and follow widget with a feedburner account.

Here is a quick walk through of how I did it...

One, I was already using the Share and Follow Widget available with WordPress. The Share and Follow widget gives you two main services, sharing buttons to allow people to share and like your blog posts, and a follow widget allowing people to easily subscribe to you on any network. The share functions are usually at the bottom of each page and post and the follow option can be a tab attached to the side of the blog (like on the NashvilleTech blog).

Here is an overview video of how to use the Share and Follow widget:

<p>Overview of how Share and Follow Wordpress Plugin works from Share and Follow on Vimeo.</p>

Next, I headed over to Feedburner to create the Feed account. I used my current MusikPitch Gmail account to set it up. If you don't have an account with Google, you will need to create one to create a Feedburner account (as Google owns Feedburner). Access Feedburner here.

After setting up a Feedburner account, you can "burn" a feed by pasting your RSS URL from your blog into where it says, burn a feed right this instance and click next.

You can find your RSS URL by right-clicking on the RSS button on your blog and copying the URL. Most blog RSS URLs are http://blogname.com/feed/

Go ahead and sign up for all the reporting functions as it is all free!

Once you get to the main dashboard, you'll see a tab that says Publicize. Click this tab and then look in the left column for the Email Subscriptions option. 

Activate the email subscriptions option and find the email URL code inside the Preview subscription link box. Now you can paste the code from either box into a WordPress text widget to appear in the sidebar of your blog. I'm already using Mail Chimp for a newsletter and wanted to keep my blog update email subscription separate. So I went into Share and Follow and checked the mail icon to add that subscription option in my follow tab on the right side. Then I added the URL that I copied from the Preview Subscription link box from Feedburner as the goto address for when someone clicks on the mail icon inside the follow widget. I also added some custom text as I did with all my follow widgets. 

Now when people click on the mail icon, they are taken to a page where they can sign up to receive new blog posts via email! 

Any questions on the overall process? Do you think having a Mail Chimp subscription and blog email subscription is confusing?

See and download the full gallery on posterous

HEAB on News Channel 2

Download now or watch on posterous

HEAB on News Channel 2.mp4 (8814 KB)

Heather McIntosh, the Queen of Almond Butter, get's interviewed on Channel 2 News about her Nashville based blog HeatherEatsAlmondButter.com

$4.5 Million of TNInvesco Fund Given to Boston Based Company

Boston based company Shareable Ink is joining us in Nashville after receiving $4.5 million of the TNInvesco fund, led by the Tennessee Angel Fund, an initiative of the Nashville Capital Network.

This is a bit odd in the fact that TNInvesco funds were designed to increase the flow of capital to innovative new companies in Tennessee in the early stages of development. 

This is also odd because according to the TNInvesco website, to receive TNInvesco funds, 

The business must be headquartered in Tennessee; its principal business operations must be located in Tennessee, and at least 60% of its employees must be located in Tennessee.

I'm guessing this is why Shareable Ink is rushing to open a temporary office in Nashville this month and have more than 60 percent of staff in the city within 12 months.

On the brighter side, Shareable Ink says they are looking to hire local to fill some empty seats for developers, project managers, and customer support staff. I guess if Nashville entrepreneurs aren't getting the funding, at least they can be someone's secretary.