Archive for January, 2010

Twitter Tools: Leverage Eloqua, Microsoft Outlook and RSS feeds

by Carey Copeling on January 25, 2010 in Marketing Automation, Social Media, Twitter with No comments

Checking in with Twitter multiple times a day can be tough and time consuming; most likely there are only a few people in your organization that have been assigned Twitter detail, but there is a good chance there are others in your organization that might want to see what’s going on without having the time to check-in themselves.

We recently recognized a need to keep the team here abreast with relevant tweets, but not everyone has the time to login to CoTweet to check themselves. We utilize the SearchPad function in CoTweet to save common and relevant search results, but if you don’t login, you can’t see these results. The solution was to do one and/or two things: Enable RSS feeds for specific search results in our Microsoft Outlook instances, and also setup a daily Eloqua email sent to an internal distribution list with RSS feeds enabled to display desired search results.

Microsoft Outlook RSS Twitter Feeds:

This may be a no-brainer for some of our readers who already utilize RSS feeds with Outlook, but we’re going to go through the process of finding the feed and adding it to Outlook.

Determine which search query or queries yo uwould like to include in your RSS feeds by logging into Twitter (or your Twitter management application) and running a particular search. In our example below, we searched for the term “CouchAssociates”. Near the bottom of the control panel on the left hand side, you should see a link (highlighted in blue) entitled “RSS feed for this query”. Clicking that link will take you the RSS version of the query results.

 

The URL (highlighted in red) is the location of this particular feed. Copy this URL, as it will be inserted into Microsoft Outlook in the next step.

Open Microsoft Outlook and locate the RSS feeds area in your Mailbox area.

 

To add a RSS feed to this area, right-click on RSS feeds and click ‘Add RSS Feed’. Paste the URL from the query feed you copied from the previous step.

     

You will see that this feed has now been added to the RSS section. It will continue to refresh and mark new Tweets as Outlook sends and receives data normally.

Again, this is a great way to stay on top of relevant Tweets without having to login or have access to any Twitter-related accounts.

Automate Twitter Feeds with Eloqua:

To all of our Eloqua customers, this is an easy win for sharing Twitter search results with key stakeholders within you organization. **Note: This particular method requires the use of Eloqua’s Program Builder (Eloqua subscription required: Eloqua Express, Eloqua Team or Eloqua Enterprise)**

Create a simple template email, using the wizard, leaving the content section(s) blank.

Once the email is created, select the Main Content section, and using the toolbar located at the bottom of the frame, select Insert Feed.

Using the URL of the search feed (see step 2 of the section related to Microsoft Outlook RSS Feeds), add the URL using the Add button on the insert feed menu. You can also set the number of items you want to insert into the feed – for our example we are pulling all new tweets within the last 24 hours. Other options available here are feed format (we are using Heading Only), the feed style (we created a custom theme) and also the update option (Auto update feed is the best option here as it doesn’t require any manual efforts to update the feeds).

Once you have added all of the desired feeds to the email, name it appropriately according to your naming convention.

Using Eloqua’s Program Builder, you will need to quickly create a simple three step program:Step 100. is a holding entry step that uses a feeder that adds members of a contact group (in our case this is our internal contact group of all C&A employees that was built using filter criteria Email Address is equal to *@couch-associates.com) and executes at 9:00am EST, Monday through Friday.
Step 200. sends a batch version of the email you created in the previous step.
Step 300. removes the contacts from the program so they can be added using the feeder at 9:00am the next (business) day.

The result? A daily email sent your list, automatically, that keeps your team and stakeholders up to date and informed as to what is being discussed about your brand, competitors and industry-related topics on Twitter.

Web Fonts – Adding Some Style To Your Webpages

by Dan Hight on January 21, 2010 in Website Design with No comments

webfonts

You may have noticed some websites using custom fonts as selectable text, not as images. How did they do this you ask.

Unlike print-based designers, web page designers are restricted to the fonts that are installed on a user’s machine. As a result available fonts are whittled down to so called system fonts, such as Times New Roman, Arial, Georgia, Tahoma (for a full list of web safe fonts see the bottom of the post). Utilizing web fonts is a great way to make your website stand out in a crowd, without the disadvantages of converting text to images.

Using non-system fonts is not a new ability. Internet Explorer has had this ability since version 5 dropped in March of 1999, however it relied upon the proprietary Embedded Open Type (.eot) format, which apart from being hard to find became less advantageous as newer browser started appear and IE started losing ground in the browser wars.

Things began to change with the release of Safari 3.1 in March of 2008 -nearly a decade later! Although there are now more consistent methods available for using web fonts it is still not perfect. With the upcoming release of CSS3 web fonts should finally have the consistent support they deserve. After all, doesn’t choosing the font you want for your webpage seem like a basic formatting parameter that we should have had control over all along?

I will show you how to acheive web fonts 3 ways: Using Embedded Open Type fonts, using simple javascript, and lastly, using the new @font-face command which currently works in Safari, and is planned for CSS3, which is purported to be supported by Firefox and even IE9 (or so we shall see). I must point out that these methods are not perfect solutions, in fact you’ll probably prefer to wait for CSS3. But here’s a look at how it has been done.

1. Web fonts the old fashioned way: Using Embedded Open Type

To start, I referenced the source of the embedded font in the css:

@font-face {font-family: Script; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;src: url(SCRIPTM2.eot); }

And then I applied it to the heading and paragraph tags:

H1 {font-family:”script:”; color:#ffcc00; }
P {font-family: “script”; color: #666666; }

I can now call upon the new font in my html as needed:

<H1>Embedded OpenType Fonts</H1><p style=”text-align:center”>An example of Embedded fonts in Internet Explorer</p>

View the online example here. (requires Internet Explorer 5+)
*not all fonts render cleanly cleanly – another reason why CCS3 promises to make life easier


2. Web fonts using Javascript (typeface.js)

Instead of creating images or using flash to show your site’s graphic text in the font you want, you can use typeface.js and write in plain HTML and CSS, just as if your visitors had the font installed locally.

The code is free and open source. Supported browsers include Firefox 1.5+, Safari 2+, and Internet Explorer 6+. As with the previous method. This is not a complete solution, some browsers will experience degradation.

To begin download a free version of typeface.js here.

Once you have done that reference the typeface.js file in your header script, and the font file you wish to use.

<script src=”typeface-0.14.js”></script>
<script src=”neuropol_regular.typeface.js”></script>

Then you may reference your font as below.

<div style=”font-family: Neuropol”>
Text here in Neuropol font using javascript…
</div>

View the online example here.


3. CSS3 @Font-Face

Currently only supported in Safari 3.1, this is standard method by which web fonts willbe specified with CSS3.

To start, the fonts are declared using the @font-face rule in the stylesheet of the page:

<style type=”text/css”> @font-face {font-family: Chics; src: url(‘Chics.ttf’);} </style>

Then, I can call the fonts in my html as such:

<div style=”font-family: Chics; width:600px”>
<h1>This text is displayed in the Chicken Scratch font using the @font-face command supported in CSS3</h1>
</div>

View the online example here. (Requires Safari 3.1+)

What have we learnt

It is clear from these examples that the @font-face command provided the cleanest results, with javascript coming in second, and embedded open-type fonts a distant third. With the adoption and full support of CSS, @font-face will make using and selecting web fonts a simple and standard option. In the meantime there are the incomplete methods of acheiving this listed above. My advice: wait for CSS3, it will be worth the wait.

Eloqua Contact Ownership & Profiles 101

by Mike Couch on January 18, 2010 in Other with No comments

Salesforce.com has it on all objects.  In fact, most CRM systems follow this general concept: each object in the system is owned by a user of that system.  Further, most platforms make this a mandatory relationship.

For instance, here is an example of a test Contact from our SFDC instance (owned by me):

To some of you, you may see this and think of the million ways your organization is leveraging this particular relationship in CRM.  Perhaps you use this during employee transitions, allocating all the accounts from an old employee to a new one.  Maybe, you keep a close eye on the number of opportunities owned by a given salesperson and ensure your pipeline is allocated to those people who can adequately manage the potential deal.  Maybe, you don’t use this relationship at all strategically, the owner is simply the creator of the given object and that’s that.

That said, this article isn’t about CRM Object ownership.  I could expand the examples above to an almost endless list, including Lead Assignment, but where I’d like to go with this is from a Marketing perspective; within your Eloqua system. Continue reading →

Adobe Creative Suite 5 updates

by Dan Hight on January 14, 2010 in Other with No comments

Here’s a preview of some of the new technologies that may work their way into the upcoming release of Photoshop CS5.

The video shows a selection of features that are being developed by ‘Photoshop Labs’, including Painter-style brushes, a new warp tool and more.

The video shows ‘wet’ paints beng smudged, smeared and blended. It also shows an on-screen representation of the 3D properties of a brush controlled via a Wacom tablet, showing how the stoke varies according to the 3D manipulation of the tablet pen in real space. It also shows a new warping technology, similar to After Effects’ Puppet tool, that enables artists to warp images by placing pins into areas to lock them down, then moving the areas around them.

FFiles

by Dan Hight on January 11, 2010 in Website Design with No comments

If you’re interested in Flash, or just adding some Flash to your website you have to check out Flash Files – http://www.ffiles.com/.

With over 100,000 registered members, and over 1,300 files, FFiles is a must see for anybody interested. Whether you’re looking for menus, gallerys, text effects or full website templates FFiles has you covered, and the best part - it’s free! Once you find what you’re looking for, downlaod the files and you’re on your way. If you need help, just post, someone will gladly guide you along.

I have found many useful items here, and tinkering with the various projects has greatly improved my understanding of the langage.

Check it out! http://www.ffiles.com/

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