Web Strategy and Development Blog

Linking your Facebook Page to Twitter

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Facebook recently released a great new plugin that allows users to link their Facebook Pages to their Twitter account. If your University unit already has a Facebook Page established but has been hesitant about using Twitter, this tool should help convince you it’s time to set up that new Twitter account.

This new tool will automatically share status updates, links, photos, notes, and events with your followers on Twitter directly from your Facebook Page. You also have the option to choose the kinds of things you want to share both on Twitter and Facebook.

What this means to you is that once you set up a Twitter account and link it to your Facebook Page, this plugin will do all the work for you – importing all of the info you want your Twitter followers to see from Facebook. You only have to update your info once, on Facebook, and your updates will automatically show up on Twitter. It’s a great way to re-purpose content and allow people to keep up-to-date with info from your University unit in different ways.

Here are the step-by-step instructions on how to add this plugin to your Facebook Page:

  1. Visit http://www.facebook.com/twitter/ and log in to Facebook.
  2. Click the green button marked Link a Page to Twitter.
  3. A new screen will appear, allowing you to select from the Pages you’ve created to choose one to link. Click the appropriate Link to Twitter button.
  4. Your browser will redirect to Twitter. If you are not logged in, do so, and a screen will appear that asks if you want to allow Facebook access to your account. Click the green Allow button.
  5. You will be redirected back to Facebook, which will ask you what sort of updates you want to be sent to Twitter. Choose from the options and click Save Changes.
  6. Your updates from Facebook will now appear as tweets in your Twitter account, linking back to the original item in Facebook.

If you wish to learn more about using these tools, be sure to read our support pages for both Facebook and Twitter.

Re-purposing videos from Inside Missouri State

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This post will give you step-by-step instructions on how to embed the videos from Inside Missouri State on your University web site. There are five marketing message videos, one for each of the first five sections of the site, as well as testimonial/spotlight videos that correspond to each marketing message on the left of these sections. You are free to include any of these videos on your University website. Here’s how:

  1. The videos are hosted on Missouri State’s iTunes U site. You will need the URLs for these videos to embed them on your site. First ensure that the iTunes software is installed on your computer, and then visit http://itunesu.missouristate.edu and click on the button labeled ‘Open iTunes U: Public Access.’ This will open iTunes on your computer, and automatically navigate to Missouri State on iTunes U.
  2. Now that iTunes is open to Missouri State’s page, click on the section labeled ‘About Missouri State,’ which is in the first content area called ‘Welcome.’ You will see multiple tabs in the About Missouri State section. The tab labeled ‘Inside Missouri State’ houses the five marketing message videos from Inside Missouri State, and the tab labeled ‘Spotlights’ houses the testimonial videos from Inside Missouri State (they are the first six videos under this tab).
  3. Find the video you wish to use on your site, ensuring that the correct tab where it is located is selected and open in iTunes. At the top of the page is a ‘Subscribe’ button. Right-click on this button, and select ‘Copy Link.’
  4. Open your web browser, and paste the link you just copied from iTunes into the address bar and press Enter. You will now see the RSS Feed of the tab you had open in iTunes U. Find the video you wish to embed on your site, and copy the URL of that video. The video URLs should all end with ‘encolusure.mp4.’

Now that you have the URL to the video copied, you need to paste that URL into the video player. In Web Press, you will use a content class called ‘Video Player – MP4 or FLV.’ The instructions below will show you how to embed the video using this player in Web Press.

If you have a University site that does not use Web Press, the embed code can be provided to you. Please send an email request to bradmitchell@missouristate.edu if you would like to use the video player embed code on your site outside of Web Press.

To embed the video in your Web Press page:

  1. Open the Foundation Page of the web site that you want to edit.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and click Edit List of Content Pages. The Edit Link Element page opens.
  3. On the Edit Link Element page, click Create and Connect Page. The Content Class Groups page opens.
  4. In the top portion of the screen, click the General Pages group.
  5. In the bottom portion of the screen, click Video Player – MP4 or FLV.
  6. Type in a headline. This headline can not seen by users and is used for searching only.
  7. Open Edit Video Settings Via Form and paste the video URL you copied from iTunes.

(More information on using the MP4/FLV Video Player in Web Press can be found at http://webpress.missouristate.edu/VideoPlayerMp4Flv.htm)

Also note that you can use the above instructions to embed any video that is hosted on Missouri State’s iTunes U site. Simply find the video you wish to embed on your site, and then follow the above instructions.