Connections: Facebook, Flickr and your camera phone

Jan 032010
 

Although there’s an iPhone app for everything short of walking your dog, sometimes there’s an easier way to something that’s a little off the beaten path. I was taking photos of some artwork that a friend of mine did with our daughter on New Year’s Eve and in the midst of sending it to my twitpic account, I changed my mind and came up with a way to post a photo to a Flickr photo stream and Facebook simultaneously. Continue reading »

Getting Fans on Facebook

Mar 262009
 

I went to a seminar this week at Salem State’s Enterprise Center about managing social networking for small businesses. Neal Advertising’s Neal Bocian, Chad Foster and Jesse Friedman were great at not only explaining why social networking matters for business, but also incorporating the wide range of questions into their presentation. One business owner asked the question that I am sure most people do after they’ve brought their company’s Facebook page into being: “How do I get Fans for my business?”. Continue reading »

Buttons and Chicklets and Badges Oh My!

Feb 182009
 

My most recent client is looking to upgrade the blog portion of their site by adding features to increase readership and create an online community. It’s something that’s fairly easily done via the web, but it’s the kind of task that requires a few simple tips to make sure your site makes the right connections with your readers. Continue reading »

How To Put A Link In A Facebook Note

Jan 282009
 

Putting a link into a Facebook note
Here’s an example of a link embedded in a Facebook Note

1. Create your note on your Facebook profile. Then, in another window on your browser, find the page you want to link to. Select that page’s url and copy it.

2. Go back to your note and find the text you want to transform into a link. Place your cursor in front of the first letter and type in these characters:
The beginning of an html hypertext link tag

3. Now, after the first set of quote marks, paste in the url you just copied and then put another set of quotation marks followed by a bracket after it like so:
The rest of the opening link tag

4. Next, go to the last character in the string of text you want to link to and after it type:
The closing tag in an html hypertext link

NOTE:  I have had a couple of readers tell me that this didn’t work for them.  If you try it and it doesn’t work as a link, please leave a comment below.  Facebook has an annoying way of changing things around so it never hurts to test again once in a while.

 

A (Fluid) Facebook Field Guide

Jan 152009
 

One thing I’ve noticed about a lot of free stuff on the web is that the administrators like to just throw you in there with a shrug as if to say: “Go figure it out for yourself, it’s free isn’t it?”. I respect that. It takes tons of BS&T to start any sort of web service and since every tweener on the block seems to be trying to do it, I have that much more respect for services that actually succeed. So, as I’ve been adding friends, checking out walls and sending messages back and forth, some things are making me wonder. What is a “poke” and why would I want to use it? What’s the deal with “Boxes“?

Originally I wanted to do a Glossary, but A: That takes a lot of time, time I could spending on Facebook! B: It’s a fairly fastmoving service, so I’d run the risk of dating myself (and I don’t mean in a fun way) and C: Why tread where others have obviously tread before?

So…here are some links to fairly good guides to Facebook. Enjoy, and let me know if you’ve found some good guides you’d like to share!

CNET: Newbie’s Guide to Facebook

Techsoup’s Beginner’s Guide (with bonus screenshots!)

AllFacebook’s Guide to Page Tabs: Find out what Boxes and Notes are all about

Web Worker Daily’s 12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally: Good no-fluff, no hype tips for using Facebook to its fullest.

And, for fun, check out Sugarrae’s Unofficial Guide

C&E Search Engine Tactics: 1. Getting Connected

Jan 102009
 


Whether you’ve been to a business meeting or dinner with your teenaged niece, chances are high that you’ve heard at least 200 references to social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn. And, if you’re like me, after hearing those names about 199 times you started to get curious about what those sites are about. For a while I used the excuse that I was too busy actually working to spend time tracking tweets and updating my online “mood” of the moment. Continue reading »