Promoting your blog with facebook.com
I think it was funny that I was reading about Robert Scoble and a few of his posts via blog friends on facebook. The irony was he was being lambasted and accused of using Facebook to promote himself and even hacking the newsfeed. I don't know anyone with more friends than him on facebook (was over 5000 he's been slipping). He admits on a group called "Robert Scoble needs some facebook detox" that "it'll be interesting to see if more and more people keep adding me. At some point I'll have to quit accepting or hire someone just to click the [@*&^%] "confirm" button." More than speculation that he'd been adding hundreds a day. Now that appears to have slowed down or his strategy might have changed.
Ironically he hasn't responded to my friend request, but he is on Lawrence's friend list, so as you see below, it doesn't keep his blog from being promoted on my profile. He also seems to have less friends since I requested to be his friend a couple of weeks ago.
On with what I wanted to share one example of the real value to facebook from a biz perspective.
Your Posts on Blog friends and real social networking features to promote them
Blog friends is a facebook app allows you to add your blog posts and see your friends posts and a whole lot more. The coolest thing is when you add this app, add your blog you can see your recent blog entries, your friends blog entries, and even your friends friends posts up to a maximum of 20 (default of ~5). The next layer of coolness is your ability to say what you're interested in, so it then tries to pull in posts that you're interested in. So let's say you add SharePoint to your list. Now across your own network of friends 2-3 layers deep you're getting the latest blog posts. Then in your news feed you can see who clicks on what blog posts. Powerful. This is one of my favorite features. People can then also comment on your blog posts right through facebook. Power of social networking. Just going to the app group I see that I have 37 friends who also have this app. Wish it told me how many friends they have that use this app. :)
Some tips:
click on "more»" next to blog post titles to read the full post without leaving your profile
click Share at the foot of posts to share them with any of your facebook friends
visit your Home page to see which posts your friends are reading
keep your Interests up-to-date to get an even better service
I highly recommend all SharePoint bloggers to use this feature, for one, even if I don't know you, my friends may, or their friends friends. Then as I see the quick view I can quickly see what relates to my interests.
Notice anything odd about my friends friends blogs? Guess who shows up the most? :)
Your blog posts as Facebook Notes
On the help topic for notes on facebook it provides some steps for importing your blog posts as Notes. It shows the past 5 or so on your profile after it finishes importing. The displays are only as good as your RSS feeds.
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"On the Notes page, select the "
Import a blog" link on the right side of the page.
- Enter the URL of your blog into the text box, and check the box underneath that states that you agree to our Terms of Use.
- To complete the process, click on "Save Settings". Once you do this, your past posts will be in notes and any new posts you make will automatically display."
Other than that it's cool to see recent posts of someone on their profile, you can tag people in the notes, add photos, and comment. Also as notes are added the potential to have this added to your friends news feeds that you've posted a blog is much more likely to happen than them randomly finding your post in their search results if they haven't subscribed.
Remember this is all an opt in experience and everyone can decide how prominent both the Notes are, and the bloglines.
What someone could do is get thousands of friends and then push the bloglines apps on them (which is opt in) to in effect it shows their posts on their blogs (prioritized by interest) which then displays friends of friends posts giving them the effect of the thousands of friends, friends contact reach. Oh wait, someone already did this, but he sure has slowed down, and why doesn't he want to be my friend?
So you're now asking, why all this about facebook? We'll obviously you're reading this BLOG which without it being discoverable wouldn't be worth my time to post it. I post because I get value from people reading it and learning from me. I'm not making any money from it, but it's likely not that far off. I hope there aren't any SharePoint bloggers are into blogging for money alone. My hope is this blog is helping people. If it helps people more easily find good SharePoint blog posts, then... cool.
By the way to add bloglines or any of the other blog apps on facebook, login go to your profile click on applications in the left hand corner. Then click browse, search for blog. Here's some of what you'll find including descriptions clipped directly from facebook.
Live Blog is simple and easy to use blog, yet introduces powerful features like setting your mood, location, and music. Supports HTML and Youtube videos. The whole entry is displayed on your profile. Works in both the left and right sides!
Flog lets you quickly and easily integrate your existing blog into your Facebook profile. Get more exposure for your blog and share your content with friends. Join the Flogosphere!
HotBlog is the most awesome blog app available on facebook! It looks great in both the left and right areas of your profile, and HTML is allowed! Blog with photos, stylized text, and more in just a few clicks.
Blog Friends Find great blog posts—sociably! Blog Friends taps your interests and social network to bring you just the blog posts that *you* want to read.
Blog Link Put a screenshot of your blog on your profile. Perfect for Xanga, Blogspot, MySpace, or any other site. Get more visitors!
Blog RSS Feed Reader Great way to drive traffic to your personal or corporate blog from your Facebook profile. Customise the application with your own image, description, published dates and more. Also sends emails to your friends when your blog is updated.
Feed Friend Subscribe to your friends' blog feeds within Facebook. You can even display them in your profile! If you write your own blog, you can include a 'subscribe' link under your profile picture.
myBlog is an application that displays the contents of your blog, using an RSS Feed, on your Facebook profile. myBlog will also send updates to all your friends whenever you add a new post.
