I’ve spent the last few days getting the sermon feed turned into a podcast over at my church website. I use the fantastic SermonBrowser plugin, and in the process of teaching myself how to use that plugin to create an iTunes-friendly podcast, I thought I’d share the wealth. Here’s a screencast detailing the process.
You can get to your podcast.php file at /wp-content/plugins/sermon-browser/sb-includes/podcast.php
I personally use and love TextWrangler (on a mac) because it can directly open (via FTP) those files.
Here’s the final code from that screencast (lines 106-119 minus my email randomly typed in)
Also be aware that any time you modify that podcast.php file, you’ll want to keep a backup copy so that when the plugin is updated you don’t have to repeat this process again.
I will update this post as folks comment or point out ways to make it more helpful.
Ahh yes, the pinnacle of neat looking design that fails at the most basic level of functionality. Click the image for Creative commons attribution.Have you ever owned a Brita pitcher—the type of deal that you run tap water into and then it filters it, and you pour from it into a glass and enjoy?
I love those things. But as design goes, (and I’m not sure if this is just me) it seems that the guy making it is unaware that it will regularly be tilted to about 45 degrees or more. It’s a pitcher. The primary purpose it has been assigned on this planet is dispensing water. By tilting it.
Yet, as soon as you tilt it beyond about 15 degrees, the lid that up until this point has simply been a suave looking white piece of plastic goes rogue, clacking onto the floor in front of the fridge.
Which makes me want to throw it out every time I use it, despite how cool it looks. No matter how sleek, well designed, and cool something looks, if it doesn’t work, it’s useless.
We are no longer talking about water pitchers. If your digital marketing strategy is focused on high quality production and presentation to the exclusion of usefulness, your potential customer will opt for less shiny, more functional alternatives.
If you build a compelling case for engagement on your blog, but then have “your comment is being moderated” as the primary feedback when somebody finally does take the time to say something, the lid just fell off the water pitcher.
If you make a flawless $10,000 ad campaign for your product, but the online ordering page requires a degree in computer science and a minor in long-suffering, your lid just fell off. (tweet that sentiment)
In the digital world, there are just too many things that you can do in “one click.”
That’s not to say that everything should be a clear call to action or “click here.” That comes off as a bit sleazy. (Sign up for my emails for a free course on how NOT to be a sleazy salesman.)
It’s just that when you DO call somebody to action, make it simple and rewarding, like a cup of freshly filtered water.
If you need me, I’ll be cleaning up the water I poured on my foot when I leaned over to pick up a cool-shaped plastic lid earlier.
Here’s the dog implicated in the crime.My dog was trying to tell me something was up all morning. She was pacing, whining, and even when I took her out she just never seemed “done.”
So it shouldn’t have surprised me when she had diarrhea all over the living room carpet. But that is the sort of thing that will always be a surprise, whether you “saw the signs” or not.
After briefly considering simply lighting my apartment building on fire and cutting my losses, I started to clean up. Thank you Jacqueline for purchasing the carpet shampooer. Best purchase of our marriage.
The good thing about your dog pooping in the floor (not a common sentence-starter) is that it gives you opportunity to reevaluate your priorities. It immediately creates a nuanced distinction between urgent and important.
So in your marketing and social media strategy, you need to let the dog crap in the living room (so to speak) and figure out why you are doing things. Has urgency become your main motivator? Don’t get me wrong, I know you’re busy. But without a plan, all the busyness in the world won’t help you toward your goals.
You’ve gotta scoop up the poo before somebody steps in it and tracks it all over the house, I know. (Believe me, I know. There are some tasks that just have to happen each week, and some things have a way of propelling themselves to the top of the to-do list like dog-scat on a rug.
But is your entire day running from one pile to the next, never stepping back to get some systems in place to process piles—or better yet, prevent them altogether?
Take that step today—Contact me for a digital strategy session. If it’s not worth your money, I’ll give your money back.
I ruthlessly stole a screenshot of the GREAT CopyBlogger video.I’m still ironing out some kinks in the design around here, but I thought I’d add a new blog post to the mix with a bit of an update from today.
I just joined My CopyBlogger and I’ve got to say, this is a pre-sifted goldmine. Just walk in and pick up nuggets.
But you’re still not going to use them.
Because digital strategy, actually having a big-picture plan, making the time to aim before firing in this crazy digital world is WORK. It’s hard work.
I’m not trying to get under your skin. I just know the numbers. It’s way more accurate when addressing the entire internet to say that you are not going to do the work. Most blogs are deserted. (I’ve got at least three that I’ve deserted.)
It’d be better to not even have a digital presence at all than to have one that hasn’t been updated in months.
If you need me, I’ll be reading another ebook from My CopyBlogger Marketing Library. You should be, too.
Are you measuring the engagement? Or do you just assume that people love you?On Thursday I posted a link to my employment bio on a couple of social media profiles, with the specific goal of monitoring how it performed.
Let’s discuss.
I broke it into 5 parts, because otherwise it’s tough to see how far down the page readers go. Making them click on “read the rest by clicking here” might be mildly annoying, but it is the simplest way I could measure.
If you’ve not been around web analytics, it’s a cup of cold reality splashed in your face. Turns out that when nobody is watching, people really don’t care about your favorite new amazing content nearly as they would tell you if they were sitting in the same room.
Post a 10 minute video of your kid on your blog, and you’ll be lucky to average 2 minutes of time spent on that page. People simply do not care. They care about things when it’s about them. Make people click through 5 parts of a story, and you are lucky to get 3 or 4 percent of them to make it to the end.
A good copywriter writes in such a way as to make people keep reading. I am not under the impression that I have already arrived, but I am proud to say that almost half (45.94%) of the 441 people who clicked on that first page clicked all the way through to the last page of my bio.
I CRUSHED the industry average.
Now, considering the audience (upwards of 95% came via facebook, and presumably a majority of those are my acquaintances, not folks who don’t know me) and the content (a blow-by look at my last 10 years of life), it would make sense that this target audience is very interested. But very interested would be 10% in web-world. I got over 40%.
The business lessons? First, stories sell. Second, and more fundamental, there is no shortcut around high quality content presented with an eye toward engagement.
