This is super-basic for anyone who’s been using WordPress for a while, but I thought I’d just throw out a quick addendum to this Mashable post on how to integrate the new official Tweet button (see at the bottom of this post) with your CMS.

For people running WordPress.org installations, it’s super easy to install–you just drop the line of code in where you want it to go. For me, for example, it goes in a tiny footer at the bottom of each of my posts.

The only minor hiccup I had when installing it was getting it to tweet the correct entry title and URL when someone clicked on the button from my homepage. Because you’re technically on my homepage, the button’s default settings led users to tweet nothing but my homepage and the URL for alexpriest.com. Thankfully, it’s a super, super quick fix.

The line of Twitter code is simple:

<a href=”http://twitter.com/share” class=”twitter-share-button” data-count=”horizontal” data-via=”alexpriest”>Tweet</a>

This, by itself, will do nothing but create a Tweet button sharing the current page. In order to get it to tweet the correct post (even from the homepage), you need to add these two bits of code to the link HTML in the Twitter button:

data-text=”<?php the_title(); ?>” data-url=”<?php the_permalink() ?>”

This makes it so that the text of the tweet is the title of your entry (<?php the_title(); ?>) and the link is the permalink to that post (<?php the_permalink() ?>). In the end, my final code looks like:

<a href=”http://twitter.com/share” class=”twitter-share-button” data-text=”<?php the_title(); ?>” data-url=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” data-count=”horizontal” data-via=”alexpriest”>Tweet</a>

Just a quick blog-related update–I am now listing the major events I will be attending on the left-hand sidebar of my blog. I’ll include all the events I plan to attend, and occasionally events that I cannot attend, but I think are worthy of sharing. And who knows, I might even write a quick blog post about some of the more interesting ones.

Are you hosting an upcoming event? Let me know (tweet at me, post a comment, or even shoot me an e-mail)! I’d be happy to list it to the left and attend, if at all possible. And of course, if I attend, I’ll likely tweet about it plenty as well (@alexpriest).

Well, sort of. I’m back, anyway.

As most of you know–if any of you are still reading this–I’ve been on a sort of unannounced hiatus since the end of March, largely due to school responsibilities and, well, lack of time. This isn’t to say that I’ve gotten less busy, necessarily, but I have resolved to make writing a bigger part of my life (again) and get back writing some regular material for my own personal blog, right here. I’ll be blogging elsewhere, as well, but I’ll post more on that soon.

You’ll notice that along with the new writing, as usual with me, comes a new design. I have no doubt I’ll be tweaking, modifying and possibly outright changing this template over the coming weeks, but for now I’m happy enough with it to kick this off and present it to the interwebs. By all means, please (please) give me feedback! I’d love to hear what complaints, issues, etc. you might have with it, particularly regarding design and usability. My goal was to place a lot of focus on the content (tada!) while still making archives, links, search, etc. very accessible. You’ll also notice all my links there in the sidebar, with their fancy social-network-color-appropriate hover and everything.

And another thing. You’ll notice I’ve built in Facebook’s new open graph API and Twitter’s @anywhere service into my blog now. This was partly an experiment just so I could learn the basics of the two new APIs, but partly because I’m excited to have them on here. So now, for example, you can hover over my Twitter handle, @alexpriest, and see a hovercard. In addition, you can “like” this post by clicking the button below (so please do!).

Anyway, that’s enough about bloggy-stuff, on to some real opinion/news/ranting soon enough. Mostly on social media and technology–with a little politics and personal life thrown in. Thanks for reading.

Of my energy, that is. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s been one week since I’ve updated my blog which–compared to my usual activity–is far longer than I like to go. The next few weeks are almost guaranteed to be a little tougher than usual, but I’ll do my best to keep updating with some regular frequency. Once the summer finally arrives, I’m planning on rolling out a redesign and lots of fun new things, so you can look forward to that as well.

In other words, bear with me. I’m going to need lots of motivation over the next month and a half or so!

In addition, I’m on the look out for social media professionals who might be interested in helping me out with a quick interview via phone, e-mail or in person. This semester I’m completing my first honors capstone, for communications, focusing on social media and its impact on politics, social movements and the traditional news media. Are you a thought leader in this industry? Are you a thought leader in any of those industries? Let me know! I’d love to talk to you and gain some more insight as I work to complete the project.

The “deliverable” for this product will actually be in the form of a Web site. Because I’m titling the project “The Social Media Revolution,” the site will be hosted at SocMediaRev.com–not the easiest to say, but it’s the best I could snag; after all, “social media”-related domains are quite the hot commodity nowadays. Feel free to check out the site as you like, but keep in mind that right now, it’s simply a shell, and over the coming weeks it will be very much a work in progress. Please don’t judge! And of course, rest assured I’ll be blabbing all over the place once it’s finally finished.

Anyway, as always, thanks so much to my friends–and those of you I don’t know–reading my content here on this blog. And thanks so much to all my Twitter friends as well, who keep me motivated to stay active there, even if I can’t quite commit the time to posting blog entries as often as I’d like! More to come soon.

Well, maybe not entirely shameless self-promotion, but I did write it so I suppose it deserves a little disclaimer. This weekend will hopefully be a great one for productivity. With the incoming D.C. #snomgasm / #snowpocalypse2 / #snom (my personal favorite) / any number of other crazy hashtags, I’m hoping maybe it’ll give me a good excuse to lock myself indoors with a blanket, food, notes, a laptop and maybe a good book, if I manage to get a lot of work, writing and studying done.

Anyway, this is a quickie. Just wanted to point out that from now on I will be writing for not only this blog, but also two other blogs! First, I’ll be contributing to the brand spanking new Shamable.com, written as a guide for public relations and communications professionals, with a more serious, realistic take to the industry than some other blogs that may or may not have been spoofed for the title. The people contributing to this blog are top-notch, triple-A professionals with fantastic ideas and brilliant track-records.

I’m honored to be a part of their site and I hope I can provide some valuable input from my student perspective! Be sure to check out my first entry on the blog (more to come this week), about teaching social media (professors, pay attention to that one).

Secondly, I will now be writing for the AU Intern Blog for the American University Career Center. There I’ll be reflecting on my internship experience this semester at MS&L Worldwide as well as some other random internship-related thoughts that might be bumping around in my head. I’ve actually written two posts for it just tonight, you can see my introduction here and my comments on the TechCrunch intern “scandal” here.

I’ll do my best to note on here when I’ve made some significant contributions to the other two blogs, but please add them to your RSS reader (and me, for that matter!) and keep your eyes peeled for new updates from me and my fellow contributors. Thanks, as always, for reading. Tomorrow evening I’ll have a recap of the fantastic panel event I attended this morning as well as some thoughts on what may be in store, in the near term, for my future (might be a bit vague!).

[Shamable]
[AU Intern Blog]