Our New Favorite TypePad Feature

Blogging is a fun, social activity. It’s even more fun when you get feedback, so we have added the ability to “Favorite” a post as an option for you and your readers. For your readers, it’s an easy to use, simple, way to give praise and appreciation without having to come up with a witty rejoinder.

 
How Does it Work?
From a reader’s perspective, the Favorite feature has two main benefits. First, it is a great way to collect your favorite blog posts so you can read, comment or blog about the topic at a later date or share with your Followers. Second, it’s a great way to recognize and give feedback to a blogger for a great article or photo post they created.

 
For bloggers, Favorite helps you receive feedback and increase your traffic. When your post is recognized as a “Favorite” by a reader, a Favorite update shows up in your TypePad Dashboard, as well as the Dashboard of the person that Favorited your post. (Yes, I know Favorited is not a word. :))  
 

The Favorite feature is also a great way to drive awareness of you blog and to improve the social media optimization of your blog. When someone adds your blog post as their Favorite list, it will appear on the TypePad Dashboard of everyone that is following them, alerting a new audience to go check out your blog.

How to Add Favorite on Your Blog

Favorite is an optional addition to your blog. For a reader to “Favorite” a post, they will need to sign in using TypePad, Facebook, Twitter, or OpenID.  The Favorite feature will help you build a relationship with your readers and discover other things they are interested in.

To add it to your blog, go to Design > Organize Content > Post Footer > and click “Favorite.”

 

When your post is Favorited, you’ll receive an email notification. You can manage these updates, go to http://www.typepad.com/account/notifications.

So, give it a try and let your readers know about it. We’re sure it will become you a Favorite tool – sorry, had to do it – of your readers. 

Updated to add: want to know how to add Favorites on your Advanced Templates? Check out the step-by-step Knowledge Base article.

And when you see something you like on TypePad, let the blogger know by making it A Favorite.

Comments

[Erin Thomas]

Is Typepad having trouble???? I'm trying to blog, but it freezes continually without saving my work and shuts down my entire internet browser. I've tried blogging on multiple computers to see if it was an issue with my home computer. It's not. At random points, the cursor will wig out and then it all freezes.

[The Typepad Team]

Hmmm...that definitely sounds like problem. I'm going to open an ticket with our support team on your behalf so we can get some information and troubleshoot the issue. Check your account in a few minutes so we can learn more and get this solved.

Best,
Mark

[serge the concierge]

Do these new Post Footer Options conflict with 'Add this' or 'Share this' or are they a plus?

[Veronique]

They are in addition to other existing post footer options or widgets.

[Luci Weston]

Just added it, thank you. I was recently playing around with some code that added a Retweet button, but it was spotty. This makes it so much easier. Thanks!

[Nav]

Great addition to the footer. Thanks Typepad- NJ

[Account Deleted]

This appears to be incompatible with advanced templates. Where can advanced templates users get the code to add this and similar to our footers?

[Cookie!]

Thank you for making this new feature optional.

[Mark Thoma]

Yes, sadly support of advanced templates seems to be waning. Is that intentional? Those are some of your biggest users, and hence some of the best advertising that you have. You'd be surprised how many people choose one blogging platform over another based upon what their favorite blog uses...

[Kirsty]

Looks interesting. Any plans to make a 'UK English' version? Having a 'misspelled' button (US 'favorite' vs UK 'favourite') on my blog would drive me crazy.

[Qarla Diokno]

Very cute..

[Account Deleted]

I agree with the other users that there needs to be more support for advanced templates. When Typepad rolls out a feature like this, the post and KB should include the code to add to advanced templates or custom CSS for the same feature. Right now, there are items in the KB on how to add a banner or change column widths with CSS -- why can't there be a collection of common tweaks, like changing font styles for various components, etc.?

I had a professional designer make my template, but I'm not going to hire someone to make minor changes. I'm not good enough with CSS for the KB section on TypePad CSS Style and Class Reference to make sense to me, and I hate to open a ticket and wait two days to be given a line of code.

[Take Root Publishing]

Yes, another feature I would like to see with my advanced templates.
It should roll out for all of us :(
We have taken the plunge with advanced templates but it seems between that and having a blog with multiple authors always keeps us waiting.

But love the idea!

[Kate]

This is a great idea! Would love to have the adv template code in the post!

[Kristi S (sweetsauer)]

Cool feature, I will try on my blogs and give more feedback after I try it out :)

[Mark Simmons]

Hello, Mark.

This feature does work with Advanced Templates. We'll be adding the Advanced Template documentation shortly. Thanks for your patience. We're working on a lot of documentation right now and are a little bit behind.

(Side note: I wholeheartedly agree with your statement: many people choose a blogging platform based on the bloggers they read. Bloggers like you are the most important part of TypePad.)

[Account Deleted]

I agree... I just know I'd get a bossy email from my Mum saying, "Have you forgotten how to spell?" :)

[Michigosh]

Not only is the Advanced Template documentation for this interesting new feature missing from the new Knowledge Base, but older documentation (like for custom Category Archives, template modules, post footers, etc.) appears to have been removed from it completely. What's up with that? And how soon will "shortly" be? Please update us Pro users on this asap. Thanks!

[David Hooper]

Nice. How about adding a "Share of Facebook" button? :)

[David Harlow]

Here's a feature I'd like to see: If someone tweets a link to a post of mine, I want that tweet (complete w/Twitter avatar and username) to show up as a comment on my post. There's a Wordpress plugin that does this .... When is this coming to Typepad???

My big pet peeve continues to be a problem on the new platform. I prefer a font and font size that is not the default for my theme. I have to type, highlight, click new font and size every time I blog. I also have to remember to do it befor I add hyperlinks bcs otherwise they get wiped when I change the font & size. I am using the basic svc, but it seems to me there should be a way to reset the default font. Thanks for any help you may be able to provide.

[Ted Slater]

It doesn't seem very difficult to add this feature to advanced templates. Just insert the following code into your footer (you'll have to remove all the * symbols to "less than" symbols to get it to work):

*span class="entry-footer-links-favorite">*iframe class="favorite" src="https://www.typepad.com/services/connect/favorite?asset_id=*$MTEntryID$>" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" style="width:82px;height:20px;display:inline;padding:0;margin:0 2px 0 0;">*/iframe>*/span>

I simply "viewed the source" for TypePad pages that have this "favorite" feature, and inserted the MTEntryID where it should go. It seems to work on our blog. Can others confirm that this works on yours?

[Account Deleted]

This is Ted again, on the site account rather than my personal one.

I should add that I had to change the width to 90px in order to have the words "A Favorite" show up correctly.

I'm not seeing any kind of report in the dashboard, though. This may just be because I'm using advanced templates.

[Dave Hitz]

Will we be able to create a "top 5" list of favorite posts in the right column, similar to the "recent posts" list?

[Jim Mitchem]

I can't even find 'post footer' in my design dialogue box.

[Megan Tietz]

Yes! That would be wonderful! I would love to see that feature.

[The Typepad Team]

Hi Jim! Are you seeing it in the design -> content section, where you drag and drop your content selections (like widgets, ads, etc)?

[The Typepad Team]

thanks, Ted!

[Ginevra]

interesting idea! Thanks for sharing - I've sent this along to our product team for review. :)

[Account Deleted]

I tried to add "Favorite' to my posts. Not happening. You say to go to Design- Organise content ??? Whats that. Not on my dashboard,
Please advise

[Ginevra]

Deccan, if you're having trouble finding this feature to use it, I'll go ahead and open up a help ticket for you so that we can walk you through this in more detail and troubleshoot if necessary. :)

[A Twitter User]

I've had this happen before, too. It's usually when I'm dealing with adding photos/graphics, and then try to edit text. I've found I have to edit my text first, then add the graphic. This doesn't always happen. It's appears to be sporadic, and I've never found a pattern to it.

[Will Clark]

OK... I went to the organize content page but I'm not seeing the Post Footer anywhere.. I've looked through both of the scrolled lists... what am I doing wrong? Ack!!

[Ginevra]

I'll open up a help ticket for you, and we'll find out what's going on. :)

[Tim Heller]

I'm trying to add the "Favorites" and "Tweet This" options to my posts, but there's no "Organize Content" selection in my Design menu.

[Susan @ Raisin Toast]

I received an email asking if I wanted to add the Favorites feature to my blogs, and "Yes!" I would like to do that, however, I use Advanced Templates and do not know how to add this feature. I would think that before Six Apart published tutorials on how to add a new feature, or how to work with an old feature, that they would also include the instructions for Advanced Template users. Every instruction and feature should be accompanied by a tutorial for Basic template users and Advanced Template users - then there would be no question that you have considered all of your users when launching a new feature.

Susan
http://www.raisin-toast.com
http://www.redeasel.com
http://www.vaughnfineart.com

[Ginevra]

Hi Susan! Here's the documentation on adding Favorites to Advanced Templates:
http://help.sixapart.com/tp/us/adv_templates_favorites.html

[Jo Guerra]

Ginerva, I filed a few tickets today. The rich text editor is still not fixed plus I can't add modules. Are you aware of this?

Thanks!