Setting up your Netvibes Dashboard Adding a Blog to your Dashboard

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1 Cr e a t i ngali s t e ni ngda s hboa r d wi t hne t vi be s Ne t v i be s

2 Table of Contents Introduction... 1 Setting up your Netvibes Dashboard... 2 Adding a Blog to your Dashboard... 2 Adding Twitter to your Dashboard... 4 Understanding the Netvibes Twitter Widget Interface... 5 Adding a Twitter Search Query to your Listening Dashboard... 6 Hashtag Search Widget... 6 User Mention Search Widget... 6 Keyword Search Widget... 6 User Timeline (latest tweets) Search Widget... 6 Adding Flickr Photostreams to your Dashboard... 7 Adding a Facebook Like box to your Netvibes Dashboard... 8 Modifying the Style of your Dashboard... 9 Adding Hootsuite Twitter Widgets to your Dashboard Introduction There is no doubt that social media can be extremely overwhelming and time consuming. As Social networks become a regular part of engaging with our audience monitoring blogs, Twitter feeds, Facebook pages and videos can be a real challenge. In order to keep up with a constant feed of news and information, OIE recommends the use of a Listening Dashboard which is a landing page or portal for all of your social media connections. On this listening dashboard you can read blogs, post Twitter updates, respond to Facebook posts, watch videos. Instead of browsing to hundreds of different webpages, a listening dashboard pulls all of that content into one simple page. Alternatively, you can use a dashboard to host content from post that includes a variety of different social networks or blogs. There are a variety of different social media aggregators or listening dashboards online. OIE recommends the free web service Netvibes.com because of its rich feature selection and flexibility with different social networking platforms. For a general idea of how a Listening dashboard can work, check out the IIP Digital Netvibes dashboard here: oie

3 Setting up your Netvibes Dashboard Navigate your browser to Netvibes.com. In the box that reads Netvibes for you. It s free, select the Default popular dashboard template. This template will allow for the most flexibility on our new listening dashboard. After selecting this template, Netvibes will take you to a new dashboard and offer you a short interactive tour to acquaint you with different features available on Netvibes. At the top right of your new dashboard, select the New Tab link and type in a name for your new tab. You now have 2 separate tabs for your listening dashboard; the default one Netvibes provided and a new blank slate, which we will populate with content from around the web. In order to save your dashboard, log into your Netvibes account or register for one. You can do this in two ways, either navigating your browser to or by clicking the Sign Up link at the top right of your dashboard. Adding a Blog to your Dashboard One of the many great features about a listening dashboard is the ability to funnel content from multiple sources into one place. Your listening dashboard will push content to you from a variety of different social networking sites, blogs and other online publications. In these next steps, we will walk through how you can add blogs to your dashboard. Most blogging platforms utilize a type of online syndication known as RSS or Really Simple Syndication. RSS allows bloggers to automatically push content out to subscribers after publishing a new blog post. You most likely have stumbled across a square orange icon on a blog or other major online news source. By clicking this icon, you can copy the URL for the RSS and load it into your listening dashboard so that every time a blogger updates his or her blog, that content is pushed to your dashboard.

4 1. Navigate your browser to any blog or major news publication (like the Washington Post or New York Times). In this activity we will walk through adding an RSS feed from IIP Digital. 2. Click on an orange RSS icon or find the RSS Alerts link at the bottom of the IIP Digital Website. 3. Many web pages that provide a large amount of content will organize their RSS feeds for specific topics. IIP Digital provides regional feeds, latest information, language feeds and social networking feeds. Copy the URL for the RSS feed you want to include in your listening dashboard. 4. Navigate your browser back to Netvibes and click the green Add Content button located on the top left of your listening dashboard. 5. On the left side of the drop down, select the Add a Feed option. 6. Paste in the link you copied from IIP Digital or other blog into the text box and click the Add Feed button to the right. 7. A small box should appear below the text box where you pasted in the RSS link. Netvibes is offering a preview of the widget we are about to add to our dashboard. In order to include content from IIP Digital on our dashboard you will have to click the + button on the top left of this preview. 8. Close the drop down box by selecting the X button on the top right of the dashboard. 9. Your new blog widget should now be displayed on your dashboard with titles of the previous blog entries. When a blogger publishes new content, your dashboard will update the widget to display the most recent posts. 10. Repeat these steps for other websites. Remember many webpages (other than blogs) will include RSS feeds. Be sure to check newspaper websites, journalists and online alert systems.

5 Adding Twitter to your Dashboard Netvibes allows you to include a Twitter widget to your dashboard, which provides a convenient way to take content you find in one of your widgets and immediately post it to your Twitter account. In the next steps we will add a Twitter widget to our dashboard and customize it for your own account. 1. As we did with adding a blog, click the green Add Content button located on the top left of Netvibes. 2. In the drop down menu, select the Essential Widgets link 3. Towards the right of the drop down menu, find the Twitter widget preview icon and click the+ button to add it to your dashboard. (Note: if you do not see it in the essential widgets link, it may be on the 2 nd page which you can navigate to by clicking the 2 or next button at the bottom of the drop down window). 4. In your new Twitter widget on your dashboard, click the Connect button. 5. A pop- up window should appear asking you to enter in your Twitter account credentials. Authorize the application by entering in the Username and password for the Twitter account you want accessible in your Netvibes dashboard. 6. After successfully entering in your login information to Twitter, click the blue Authorize app button. This step allows Netvibes to access your Twitter account. Note: you will only have to authorize Netvibes to access Twitter once. The next time you login to Netvibes, your Twitter account will load automatically.

6 Understanding the Netvibes Twitter Widget Interface Edit Settings or close the Twitter widget Twitter Text box: compose tweets here. Twitter Stream: Latest tweets from people you follow See the next latest tweets in your Twitter stream 1. Home: Displays the latest tweets from the people you follow on Twitter 2. Twitter Lists: Displays tweets from specific Twitter lists you follow 3. Replies: mentions to you 4. Direct Messages: Displays direct message to you 5. Twitter Profile: Displays your latest tweets 6. Favorited Tweets: Displays any tweets you have favorited 7. Twitter Followers: Displays avatars of the people you follow You can drag any hashtag (#) or Twitter account that shows up in your Twitter widget onto your dashboard. This action creates an automatically updating widget specific to the hashtag or Twitter account you drag. You can perform a lot of Twitter actions such sending a DM or retweeting by hovering your mouse over their Twitter avatar.

7 Adding a Twitter Search Query to your Listening Dashboard Hashtag Search Widget To add a Twitter search widget for a specific hashtag click the green Add Content button, select the Add a Feed RSS option and paste in the following URL: So for instance, if you were searching for the #SecClinton hashtag, you would enter in the following URL: User Mention Search Widget To add a Twitter search widget for a specific user click the green Add Content button, select the Add a Feed RSS option and paste in the following URL: So for instance, if you were searching for all mentions you would enter in the following URL: Keyword Search Widget To add a Twitter search widget for a specific keyword (that is not a hashtag or username) click the green Add Content button, select the Add a Feed RSS option and paste in the following URL: If you were searching for the keyword Public Diplomacy, you would enter in the following URL: User Timeline (latest tweets) Search Widget To add a Twitter search widget for a user s latest tweets click the green Add Content button, select the Add a Feed RSS option and paste in the following URL: If you were searching for the latest tweets of StateDept you would enter in the following URL:

8 Adding Flickr Photostreams to your Dashboard 1. Navigate your browser to your posts Flickr photostream or any Flickr photostream you want to include on your dashboard. For this exercise we will use IIP State s Flickr page at: 2. Scroll to the bottom of the photostream page and find 3 different RSS links. 3. Right click and copy the Latest RSS link 4. Return to your Netvibes dashboard. Click the green Add Content button and select the Add a Feed option. 5. Paste in the Latest RSS link you copied from the Flickr photostream 6. Your new Flickr widget should have been added to your dashboard but only includes text. To change this, select the Edit link on the top right of the new Flickr widget. 7. Create a new name for the widget in the Title text box 8. In the view drop down menu, select one of the Slideshow options. 9. Press the ok button to view your new Flickr widget that now displays thumbnail images of the latest photos from your account s photostream

9 Adding a Facebook Like box to your Netvibes Dashboard You may decide to use your Netvibes dashboard as an outward facing public aggregator of content your post generates across the web. Consider adding an Ambassador s blog, IRC information, general contact information and Facebook page content. To embed the latest posts from your Facebook page onto your Netvibes dashboard: 1. Navigate your browser to the following address: 2. Click on the Like Box plugin 3. Change the Facebook Page URL to the URL of your own Facebook page 4. Adjust the width, color scheme and other settings as needed 5. Click the Get Code button 6. A pop- up window should appear with HTML 5 code. Select all of this code and copy it. 7. Return to your Netvibes dashboard 8. Click the green Add Content button and select the Essential Widgets link on the left. 9. Find the HTML widget and add it to your dashboard (Note: it may be on the 2 nd page) 10. On your dashboard, find the new widget titled UWA Module and click the Edit link to the top right of the widget box. 11. Give your new widget a title in the Title box 12. Paste in the code from the Facebook Like Box page into the Source text box and press the OK button

10 Modifying the Style of your Dashboard On the top right of your dashboard, click the icon to the left of Dashboards which look like a control panel. General Settings Adjust general settings such as interface options, speed and performance and search options Theme Gallery Choose from a variety of different themes to give your dashboard a different look and feel Theme Preview Click on any of the themes from the gallery to preview the theme on your own dashboard To close this dialog box without changing your settings click the Discard Changes link To accept the changes you have made and close the dialog box, click Done

11 Adding Hootsuite Twitter Widgets to your Dashboard If you are using Hootsuite to engage with your audiences on various social networking sites, you can include columns from your Hootsuite dashboard to your Netvibes Dashboard. If you would like more information on Hootsuite, please see the OIE Field Guide. 1. After logging into your Hootsuite account, click the Add Stream at the top of your columns. 2. In the pop- up box, click the Search tab and enter in a search query for Twitter. 3. Click the Create Stream button on the bottom right 4. A new column is created that will automatically update whenever someone tweets something that contains your search query. 5. Click the down arrow on the right of your new column and select Embed. 6. Title it, choose a size and color and click the Grab Code button 7. Copy the code and return to your Netvibes dashboard. 8. Click the green Add Content button and find the HTML editor as we did for the Facebook Like Box 9. On your dashboard, find the new widget titled UWA Module and click the Edit link to the top right of the widget box. 10. Give your new widget a title in the Title box 11. Paste in the embed code from the Hootsuite into the Source text box and press the OK button