I have 2 questions for you.
Question 1
I recently received several requests from people (bloggers and non-bloggers alike) who want to join the Fiesta Friday Friends Pinterest Group Board. However, they’re not Fiesta Friday Link Party participants.
In the past, I always told them that they needed to participate in at least 3 rounds of fiesta, then I would send them an invite.
Recently, however, I’ve been thinking of opening the board up to more contributors, with less stringent rules. I think the more the merrier. Of course I would continue to monitor the board to keep it attractive, tasteful and useful. But what do you think? Please give me your two cents’ worth.
Question 2
Can you share with me what social sharing plugin you use?
When I changed the theme of my blog, I found myself needing a new plugin. The old theme came with a built-in one, and it was quite effective.
I’ve now gone through 3 plugins and still can’t say I’m fully satisfied. The one currently used on the blog is by Social Warfare. It’s pretty good, but it’s erased all the shares on older posts to zero. It makes these posts look sad and lonely, and that shouldn’t happen on Fiesta Friday, right?!
So, please, share what you know. Sharing your knowledge will empower you and inspire others. It’ll make you a leader and not a follower. Something like that. I think I read it on a poster somewhere and it’s stuck with me.
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Now, features from last week’s fiesta:
“I was blown away by the ingredients in this Raw Banana Peel Chutney! Not only is it my 1st introduction to the use of banana peel, all the other flavors intrigued me, too!” — Mollie
“You heard it first here at Fiesta Friday, folks! Banana peel is edible and can be made into chutney! I’m dying to give this a try!” — Angie
“One of the things I always look forward to at FF party is Jess’ bread. I kinda miss her bread posts when I don’t see one. 😀 I am glad she brought this Sweet Potato Challah Buns. I haven’t made bread with sweet potatoes, but her recipe is so good I need to make my own.” — Jhuls
“This is definitely what I would call food art! They look so realistic, don’t they?! And how cool that it uses natural food coloring.” — Angie
“Move over Sriracha, there’s a new kid in town! Meet Gochujang! I’m actually quite familiar with Gochujang, but seeing it here used as a glaze on potatoes opens up all kinds of possibilities I haven’t considered before. Thank you for the idea, Judi!” — Angie
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Now, let’s party! Join Fiesta Friday #221 by adding your link. Don’t forget to link your post to FiestaFriday.net and the co-hosts’ blogs, so we can feature you. Your solo cohost this week is Jenny @ Dragonfly Home Recipes.
If you’re new to Fiesta Friday, please read the guidelines.
If you’re interested in becoming a cohost, please leave me a message.
[inlinkz_linkup id=777655 mode=1]
Thank you so much for featuring my Raw Banana Peel Chutney recipe here! 🙂 My name isn’t Meghalaya, though – I’m Priya Iyer. Request you to please rectify the same.
All fixed! And you’re welcome!
Stupid Auto Correct – it turned Megala into Meghalaya! 🙁
Amazing features! And it is making me hungry again.
I will have a look at Pinterest again! 🙂
Have a great weekend! x
Excellent! You’re always making us hungry so we reciprocate 😀 Yes, please, you MUST get on Pinterest!
Hi Angie, I do love the blog revamp! The layout looks great and does justice to the images in your recipes. The orientation of the blog posts is more effective the way you have it now (left aligned). Good job! About Pinterest, most group boards that I follow ask their followers to follow the board owner back, and then to re-pin at least one pin from the group board, which is easy to follow-through. If the person who requests to join the board finds the 3 rounds of link-ups to be time-consuming, they may not respond. I feel that any Pinterest board is as good as the number of quality pins on it, so I would say the more pinners the better. You could ask them to participate in one link-up round (and not three) ; any good blogger would see the value of the link-up in their first round, anyway! This would be less of a constraint, IMO. Regarding social share plugins – I use the ‘simple share buttons’ free plugin and am happy with it so far. Thats my 2-pence! Happy Friday Angie!
Thanks for your input, Shinta! I appreciate it! I’m the worst at decision-making and tend to drag my feet so it feels reassuring to get advice from others. Let me know if you feel like cohosting sometimes.
Happy Friday Angie! Love these features 😀 I’d say it’s fine to open up the Pinterest group. I think the only social plugin I use is WD Instagram feed to show my latest instagram photos, but it recently stopped working. I’ll definitely be following the conversation today for some suggestions!
Thanks for the feedback, Alex! I use Smash Balloon for my instagram feed, so far so good, fingers crossed. That’s one thing about plugins, they’re not always reliable and can have incompatibility issues with other things on your blog. Make sure they’re all updated.
Angie, I think I suck at answering questions (except if you are asking me if I am hungry coz I’d always say yes-haha), but I think I’d vote yes for question #1. I think in that way, more will be able to share pins from FF boards to their non-FF boards. I don’t know if that makes sense or if I delivered the message I want.? For question #2, I am only using the plugin for Instagram.
Thanks for this week’s FF party and have an amazing weekend!?
I understand exactly what you’re saying, thanks for your input, Jhuls! Enjoy the fiesta and have a wonderful weekend! ?
Thanks, Angie! I hope you are having a lovely weekend! ?
Hey Angie,
I think they should at least participate in one FF link party before being allowed to join the group board. I’m also using Social Warfare which was recommended by my ad network company because it’s lightweight. Any new social sharing plugin you switch to will erase all the shares back to zero.
Is that how it works?! I guess I’ll stick to Social Warfare then. Thanks for letting me know, Lily. You’re the best! ??
Happy Friday Angie, it’s been awhile but I am happy to be back.
It’s great to see back at the fiesta, Liz! You’ve been sorely missed. And when you’re ready to cohost again, please let me know ?
I almost forgot to join in this week! Good thing you reminded me by joining in with #CookBlogShare – thanks! Shared your lovely recipe all over the place.
Regarding pinterest I think either way is fine, it can be just for the people who link up here or for everybody. The way we do it at #CookBlogShare is only the 4 of us hosts can pin onto our dedicated linky board, but I am part of another group which allows its members to pin up to 3 pins a day, not necessarily those that have been linked up to the link party.
I use Shareoholic for social sharing.
Have a good weekend!
Aaw…thanks so much! I should be doing the same with all these great recipes shared at FF, and sometimes I do set aside time to do that. I just need to be consistent about it. Will definitely try harder from now on. I think you guys at Cookblogshare have come up with the perfect system. I might have to adopt something similar at some point. Thanks for sharing your experiences! ??
Thanks for the feature – I really do love the flavor of Gochujang and what it can do in recipes. I don’t have any plug-ins – my social media is my blog and a few family members on Facebook. Pinterest – I say the more the merrier. I’ve been getting daily emails of “pins” I might like – not sure why??? I can see how people become addicted to Pinterest as I am starting down that road. I’ve already seen an increase in pins from your party since I started to pin/repin 🙂
You’re welcome, I really think it’s a terrific idea adding gochujang to potatoes ? Yes, Pinterest does that to you ? There’s no going back now, Judi ? Thankfully it’s free and pretty much harmless. The only thing you invest in it is your time, but hey, it’s time spent looking at gorgeous food and landscape photos, at least in my case, so it’s really not that bad.
Angie,
your new theme looks fabulous! I have been meaning to change mine but have been dragging my feet. About Pinterest board, I think the more the merrier. When people ask to join my group board, My Indian Kitchen in America on Pinterest, they send me a link to their board, so it allows us to see if their vision is in line with our vision for that board.
I want to learn about plug ins….I am so bad at this technical stuff.
Thanks, Sandhya! I was like that too, for months. Actually years! I think I was reluctant to spend the time necessary to make these changes. I finally just started doing it during spring break, and once you start you need to complete. Not without glitches, of course. You weren’t here last week, but nobody could read the text on my blog! But you know what, I’m glad I went through all that. I feel I gained a lot of new knowledge. So I hope that’s encouraging for you. We’re all here ready to help!
I like the new, polished look, Angie! It’s your board and whatever you decide will be fine. I’m happy you let us share, so who am I to say no to others? 🙂 I use Shareaholic. Have the best weekend!
Thanks, Jas! I prefer to think it’s OUR board and I’m just the administrator ? Shareaholic seems pretty popular, I’ll have to take a look at it. Thanks again for your feedback ? Have a fabulous weekend.
Hi Angie,
Question 1: I think open the board, as long as you’re monitoring it. I think that the huge boards with thousands of pinners lose value, though, so there’s a midpoint.
Question 2: It was a big surprise for me when I upgraded my blog awhile back that my social media plug in no longer worked. WP did not do a good job in preparing me for all the things that would no longer work. I tried a couple free plug ins but then settled on social warfare and there is a way to have it pick up the pins from your old posts. The problem is that it will let you use only one iteration of older blog names. Like http://www.wordpress/xxxxx You’ll need to figure out what iteration of your name has the most pins and then it will do a recount. Look under Advanced Functions, share count.
I am not 100 percent totally invested in SW but I like it so far with one exception. The pins that show up when other people try to pin from their own browser buttons don’t include the pins I make and add to Social Warfare, which is upsetting to me. And pins I hide away that usually become visible when people pin from their own pinterest browser buttons seem to be suppressed by SW. So the only way to make sure that the right pin is pinned if someone is using their own pinterest button (rather than clicking mine) is to include the actual pin in my post, which I hate to do and was hoping SW would fix.
I’m very interested in what other people are using for social media plug ins, too.
Thanks for all your suggestions. I’ll keep them in mind come decision-making time. I didn’t know that SW suppresses hidden images. How did you find that out? Have someone test it on their own device using a different browser? If it’s true that they suppress these images, then that sucks big time. I spend a lot of time creating these pins!
I suspected that was the case when I started seeing really strange pins. Like a blue block of letters with just the name of the post. I went back and checked those posts with different scenarios. The hidden pins didn’t work for me, So I didn’t have anyone else check it. But I’m pretty sure it is suppressing because my pins are GIANT and say Pin Me right on top with a pushpin and my hidden pins don’t show up but those blocks do.
*sigh*
I think it works fine, Mollie. I just pinned your lemon shrimp asparagus and nothing was amiss. And the blog looks awesome! New theme? Looks great!
Thanks for hosting a great party – Hope your weekend is going great!
My pleasure, Helen! Eek…forgot to join your party last week! I’ll do it tomorrow, okey dokey? ?
Thanks so much for featuring my strawberry cake pops! 🙂