If you post many blogs on your site and want to create better navigation, then Webjam's saved search could be the answer. By simply tagging your blogs you can send them around your site with ease.

Here's what to do

Let's take the example of a website that covers music, art and film in their blog. Each topic has it's own separate page and you have set up a blog roll on each page. This is no longer necessary. You can now set up one blog and simply tag content to be relayed around the site.

Tagging is the process of adding keywords to content on a website that allows the content to be found through search engines.

To make the search work to it's full potential, it is advised to set up a keyword to add to your tags. This keyword should be something that is not going to be found within the text of other blog posts. For example, for the film page use the tag 'filmblog' or if you have a local area page on your site you could use 'localblog'.

Now place the saved search box onto the page where you want the content to appear. The saved search module can be found in modules > Webjam toolbox > Saved search - choose add to page and select the 'Edit' button on the module. In the pre defined query enter your tag 'filmblog' or localblog' and choose to search blog posts only. You can search by date or relevance and choose how many posts to display. Like many things on Webjam you can cutomise this to your own desires and it's good to play around until you have it set exactly as you want it.

Choose save and the search box will show all blogs with the tag you have set.

If you go back to within your blog light box you can then select co-editors - members of your network who you want to blog on your site. By making them a co-editor of the blog they can edit the blog, but not the content on the site, which gives you piece of mind that your site will have content on it but the look and feel will not be changed.

We hope this of use to your network. Please let us know what you think and how you are using the search and co-editor functionality.

Using various platforms you are able to run multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts from your desktop. This helps to save you time as you do not have to constantly log in and out, but more importantly it keeps you updated in real time. You are able to react to what is being said as it happens.

We suggest using Seesmic Desktop. However, other applications are available

Seesmic Desktop is an Adobe Air application that integrates multiple Twitter accounts and your Facebook account and pages.  You can easily add new accounts to your desktop program and browse through people’s tweets.

The left column is where you navigate from. You can choose what to display - @replies, private messages, sent messeges etc. Then you can decide which accounts to display. To add an account select the + button which appears as you hover over the word Accounts. Enter the user name and hit 'Add'. It's very simple and will start displaying info from that users account straight away (note, you will have to include the password so can only add your own accounts).

Using the lightbox you are able to add other things such as notifications, URL shortening services and to amend the general settings.

Have a go using this product and see if you can save yourself time when working on Twitter.

If you listen to music on sites like last.fm and Spotify, no doubt you've wanted to tell your friends (via Twitter, Facebook or whatever) about what you're listening to. Plenty of music websites have created widgets so you can share your favourite album, top new tracks or the latest singles in your blog. Simply choose a widget, follow the instructions and insert it into your Webjam network.

1. Grooveshark

Grooveshark's widget lets you create and embed a playlist of your favourite songs. You can specify the theme, exact size and customise the colours to match your Webjam site.

Get the Grooveshark widget.

2. Hype Machine

Hype Machine keeps track of what music bloggers are writing about - making it much easier for the rest of us to find the best of new music. Their widgets allow you to showcase these songs, as opposed to a playlist that you've created.

Get the Hype Machine widget.

3. Mixcloud

Mixcloud is best described as Spotify for radio shows and DJ mixes. Their attractive widget lets you post any of the thousands available on to your Webjam site.

Find out more about the Mixcloud widget.

4. iTunes

iTunes customer? Their widget allows you to display your recent purchases, top reviewed albums and favourite artists.

Get the iTunes widget.

5. Muzicon

Muzicons are slightly different to the other widgets, in that they only display one song. The idea is that this one song and, accompanying icon, display your mood or status. Simply pick your icon, choose it's expression, upload your MP3 file and customise the colour before posting on your Webjam site.

Get a Muzicon widget.

Wufoo is an internet application that allows anyone to create an attractive form. You don’t need to know CSS or HTML, it's free to sign up and you can easily embed the form in to your network. Whether you wanted to create a questionnaire, petition or simply gather more information from your visitors, Wufoo is probably the best place to start.

Creating your form

1. First, you'll need to sign up with Wufoo. There are several paid-for options, but the basic one is free.

2. Once you're registered, you can create a form for pretty much anything (get some ideas here) by dragging and dropping fields into place. The font, backgrounds and buttons on your form can be customised too, if you like.

3. Alternatively check out Wufoo's form gallery for form templates - you can choose from an Employment Application, Consumer Demographic Survey, Online Petition and more.

4. Once you've made your form you'll need to download the embed code:

i) Go to the Form Manager

ii) Find your form in the list and click on the Code icon

iii) Click on Embed Form Code and copy the code - the JavaScript one works best on Webjam.

Embedding your form

Once you have the HTML code of your form, you'll need to insert this into a Free HTML module on your site:

1. Go to your site and click on the Modules tab.

2. Click on the My Content tab, find the Free HTML box and add it to your site.

3. Once the Free HTML box is on your site, click the Edit button. Paste the embed code from Wufoo into the box and click save.

The form should now be embedded in your network, and look a bit like this:

Recently, I’ve been asked by a colleague how to blog. Not just how to blog though, but how to engage with an audience, build a following and create a flourishing community.

There is already an abundance of content online with regards to the above points, but it’s not always clear or quality content.

Over the next few weeks I will be tackling each point and hoping to assist you in creating a better all round blog.

First of all, here are some ideas on how to blog. You should also bear in mind that I have written these from the perspective of a writer who understands social media and blogging, as opposed to a social media list maker hence this is not in list form.

One of the most important things about writing is to be interesting, so why should that be any different from blogging? I’m not suggesting that you should aim to be the next Charlie Dickens, but a bit of character goes a very long way indeed.  If people are not captured within the first few lines what hope is there for them to read until the end?

Create an eye catching, relevant title. You have to lure in the reader and make sure your title is relevant to your post. While “Elephants raise boy in the Jungle” is a wonderfully grabbing title, it doesn’t work if your post is about School Councils. Remember, that if you have feeds going to your Twitter and Facebook the only thing people will see is the title of the post. Your blog should have a particular focus, one that people can relate to, make sure you are passionate about it too. It’s no good starting blogging about one thing, only to realise you are not interested in that field after a week.

Imagery is vital. A big striking image at the beginning of your post and more throughout can be extremely effective. There’s an old quote that states “an image speaks 1000 words” so don’t be shy to use them.  In my opinion it’s those three things that matter the most and if you do them correctly there is no reason why people shouldn’t start reading your blog.

However if you use the Internet you must know what’s coming now. It’s not just about being a good writer and being able to use imagery in neat ways. No sir. The hard part starts when you want to attract people to your site, when you want to start getting a response from readers. Nowadays, this is a much easier task than it was two or three years ago. With the introduction of social media sites, communication is a far simpler task.

If you don’t already have a twitter account then the first thing that you need to do is create one and read our tips on getting started with Twitter. Twitter is an ideal place to promote your blog. It gives you quick access to scores of users who may be interested in what you are writing about. However, there are certain rules you need to follow when marketing your blog on Twitter. It is important that you don’t overload your followers with links to your blog, it’s good to work on an 80/20 strategy. 80% of your tweets should be interesting points, re-tweets and @messaging, with the other 20% links back to your site. If people see you as a link machine they will unfollow you and connecting becomes harder.

There are various third party sites that you can use alongside Twitter to monitor the effectiveness and to also boost it.

Bit.ly allows you to monitor how many clicks your links are receiving as well as what time they occurred and where they were occurring. Use their simple URL shortening tool to add a link and then keep track on their easy to use dashboard.

Twitterfeed automatically posts to Twitter and Facebook from your RSS feed. Sign in with your Twitter account and then place the feed where prompted. You can select to update your feed every hour, day or week. It runs alongside Bit.ly so will monitor the stats for you.

Twollo helps you to accumulate relevant followers on Twitter by using pre defined keywords that searches through what people are tweeting. Someone who blogs about London might add ‘Camden’ to their list. From here you can choose to follow between 1 and 50 people per day. It’s a good way to accumulate followers and if they like what you write about then they can choose to follow you back.

Using Twitter I was able to accumulate some users thoughts on their best blogging tips. I think that you will agree that the responses point to the fact that if you get things spot on and revolve your posts around decent quality content you are more than half way there to creating your blog:

@Netwench: my blogging tips: blog about what u know, distribute post via different social media & respond to commenters

@Sjorsuk: my top tip for blogging is to re-read your own post a few times before you post it (or even better: print, read, rewrite)

@simon_baptist: Blog about things that are important too you

On my next blog I will be looking further into how to generate an interest in your blog, building on the people you are building through Twitter and using other sites and ideas to increase your scope.

What is it?
Lists are a new feature that have just been rolled out by Twitter. Essentially allowing users to create custom lists of people that others can follow with one click thus creating a new way to find interesting users to follow.

How do I use it? Go to your Twitter page and you will see a new section on the right hand side called ‘Lists’ (betcha didn’t see that one coming). Click ‘New List’ and in the lightbox give your list a name. People will search this list so make it poignant and relevant to what you will include within the list. For example we are creating a ‘jukebox’ list which will include all of our favourite bands and music. Select whether you want your list to be public or private and ‘Create list’. Next simply find people to add to your list by using the search tool. You should note that you don’t have to be following someone to add them to your list.

Where am I? You can also see where you are included in other people’s lists, which is nice when you are included. At the top where your followers are and where the number of tweets used to be - you can now see a number above the word listed. Click this to see all the lists you are included on.

Why should I bother?
Well, the list functionality offers a way for you to quickly sort through various tweeps. By viewing or following a list you can easily see what everyone on that list is up to. For eample by choosing to follow @webjamdotcom/Webjam list you can see what all of our employees are upto without having to scroll through an endless feed.

Like we mentioned earlier you don’t have to be following someone to add them to a list. So if you like what a person is saying but think they tweet too much simply add them to your list and be done with it.

Like most things on Twitter, the best thing to do is go and have a play. Get a feel for how the Lists system will work and how it will be able to assist you in your day to day tasks.

Very simply, this is my favourite Twitter app at the moment. What's not to like about filming yourself using a webcam then broadcasting it to the world immediately?

Here's how it works:

Visit www.twitvid.com and either choose a video file stored on your computer or record from webcam.  Then add your tweet in the box and select 'Tweet Video'. Your video will instantly be updated to Twitter and your followers can see what you are up to.

You can use twitvid for all sorts from promoting a band to sending a simple message to a friend.

You can also share videos straight from your mobile.

Integrate your videos into your Webjam

Twitvid offers a widget so that you can embed your video stream onto your website. As usual grab the code from their site and return to your network. Add an HTML module from Modules > My Content > Free HTML and enter the code into the module. Your videos will now display on your site.

Twitvid is being used by The Discovery Channel, Coldplay and Stephen Fry.

In the right hands twitvid could be an excellent tool.

What are you waiting for?

When editing your site you should have noticed a small button embossed with 'ADD' and the Webjam logo. Some of you might not know what this does, or what it means. So I'm here to tell you exactly what you can do with the Webjam Add button. 

One of the core functionalities of the Webjam network is to allow its users the ability to share content effortlessly. If for example you visit one of your friend's sites on Webjam, and you like the look of something on their site, such as a widget or module, you can add it to your own site within a few clicks.

Hover over the module, and if the AddW button appears you can add it to your own site! Although note that not all networks on Webjam allow their content and modules to be used. 

Allowing / Not Allowing Replication.

Site owners and editors can specify which modules visitors can add to their site (replicate). To modify modules to allow/disallow replication follow these steps:

1. Log into your site

2. Click the module 'EDIT' button

3. Either check or uncheck the 'Allow replication' tick box

4. To modify the entire page's replication settings, click on the 'Settings' tab at the top of the page & a list of your pages will be displayed, select which pages you want to be replicable

If you do not want the add button to appear to anyone visiting your site, you must uncheck the 'Allow replication' check box in 'settings'. If you only modify individual modules, the AddW button will display on other modules.

Adding Modules to Your Network

So you've found something on another site and you want it on yours. The site owner of the site has allowed replication so you're good to go; all you need to do now is specify where you want to add the module:

1. Log into your Webjam account

2. Hover over the AddW button

3. Click it and a lightbox will open, displaying 'Select the networks to add this module to from the list below:'

4. Either add it to your network, or click the small + [PLUS] sign next to your network and select which page you want to add it to

5. Click 'Add to selected network' button

6. Go to your network and then adjust and reposition

Styles

You've made a great looking site, but what if you want to change it, or maybe you want your site to completely red on a Monday, yellow on a Tuesday and green on a Wednesday? How do you go about making different designs, without editing your existing style?

The easiest way to do this is the create a new network, as if it were a testing network, where you can build, design and test out widgets, different designs and functionalities of different modules.

Once you've created a new style for your site and you're ready to impress visitors with your new look, follow these steps:

1. Visit the site you want to change

2. Click the 'Styles' tab

3. Select 'My styles'

4. Click on the style you want from the list

Have a look through your site, and make sure that everything looks good, if you're not totally happy with it, no worries, click the 'Reset' button.