Whats the latest hype with Facebook? The social networking site has unleashed its chains breaking free of its domain as it lets you “like” things all over/anywhere on the Web.

Facebook  Like buttons for the entire web. They are the same Like buttons you  see on Facebook, which will now be seen on various websites.
If you are a webmaster, you might be interested in implementing this on your blog/website right away, since it lets users to share something they find interesting on your website on click of a button.

“ The Like button enables users to make connections to your pages and share content back to their friends on Facebook with one click. Since the content is hosted by Facebook, the button can display personalized content whether or not the user has logged into your site. For logged-in Facebook users, the button is personalized to highlight friends who have also liked the page. The basic Like button is available via a simple iframe you can drop into your page easily. A fuller-featured Like button is available via the <fb:like> XFBML tag and requires you use the new JavaScript SDK. The XFBML version allows users to add a comment to their like as it is posted back to Facebook.

If your web pages represent profiles of real-world things — things like movies, sports teams, celebrities, and restaurants, you can optionally use the Open Graph protocol to enable users to establish lasting connections to your pages. Your pages show up in more places on Facebook and you gain the ability to publish stream stories to connected users.”

Adding meta data to your web pages:

•    og:title - The title of your page; if not specified, the title element will be used.
•    og:site_name – The name of your web site, e.g., “CNN” or “IMDb”.
•    og:image – The URL of the best picture for this page. The image must be at least 50px by 50px and have a maximum aspect ratio of 3:1.
For example if you are creating a page about the movie ‘The Rock’ you would include this meta data:
•    <meta property=”og:title” content=”The Rock”/>
•    <meta property=”og:site_name” content=”IMDb”/>
•    <meta property=”og:image” content=”http://ia.media-imdb.com/rock.jpg”/>

Find out more at: developers.facebook.com

How to Add Facebook Like Button on WordPress Blogs?

Implementing Facebook’s Like button on your WordPress  blog doesn’t get any simpler either. It took the WordPress community no more than a few days to introduce a vast array of WP Plugins.

Here are my personal picks for WordPress Facebook Like Plugins. As always, if you try these plugins, please do let me know your thoughts.

Facebook Open Graph Widget

In order to add this widget to Facebook you must be a member of Facebook. The widget will not appear unless you set your Facebook ID in the widget options. Your Facebook ID is the long number that Facebook uses to identify you, or you can use your unique username if you have one. If you can’t find your user id, try looking in your photos. I found mine in the URL to the albums.

Great Plugin. Lots of little tweeks. Also a widget.

WordPress-Facebook-Like

Simple. Lightweight. Awesome (and every time someone clicks “like” that activity will show up in their Facebook stream and bring traffic back to your blog.

This one is my favorite. Simple and to the point. Very minimal.

Twitter has been nothing short of successful since the website launched itself in 2006.  The social media site has revolutionized the online world by allowing users to follow others and stay up-to-date on the latest trends and topics.  In the last 4 years, aside from the extremely rapid growing fan base, not much has changed to the site’s style and design — until now…

During the recent Ad Age Conference in April, COO Dick Costolo announced Twitter’s new addition: Promotional Tweets.  Promoted Tweets are the solution to maintaining a free service with continuous growth.  Best Buy and Starbucks are a few of the major corporations involved.

Personally, I think that this is a smart solution for the popular micro-blogging service.  The sponsored tweets won’t interrupt us and they allow us to continue to use our beloved twitter.  How many of you use twitter to promote yourselves?  Under trending topics on the site, promoted tweets ranks low.  My impression is not too many people are hot and bothered by the change.  It is a win-win situation — we keep using twitter for free, and they throw a few subtle promotional tweets our way.  I’d love to hear your thoughts!

-Sheera

Perhaps the most complex feature on Twitter for a new user to understand is the infamous HashTag and how it can be applied to a topic with its respective symbol (“#”) at the start of the tag to identify it. Twitter hashtags like #followfridays spread information on the twittersphere  while also helping to organize and categorize flow of information by bringing communities and interest groups together.

Hashtags were originally developed as a way to group subjects on Twitter with out having to change the basic service. The symbol # is a convention permanently borrowed primarily from the old school IRC channels as followed later by Jaiku’s channel (a social networking, micro-blogging and life-streaming service comparable to Twitter).

In a way it would be safe to say; to understand Twitter hashtags and there implementation is to grasp Twitters full power and potential to convey the message to its proper channel. To put it simply, a hashtag is a way to search for tweets that share a common topic.

Let me give you an example; say you are a huge Lost fan, (like most of us here at Derooted Agency) you can search Twitter #LOST, you’ll get a real-time list of tweets related to one of the greatest TV shows ever made. Lost.

The beauty of a hashtag is say if someone wrote something about Lost which did not actually have the word “Lost” in the tweet, the message would still get categorized because of the hashtag.

e.g. I just sent the following tweet on twitter: “Who do you think is hotter?? Kate or Clair? #Lost”

Everyone in the world who follows #Lost on twitter will receive my question and if they choose they will answer me directly on my twitter @amirebrahimnia

I may choose to add more than 1 hashtag to my message given I keep the total message to no more than 140 characters.  “Who do you think is hotter?? Kate or Clair? #Lost #ABC #TV #Show”

In reality hash tags allow you to create communities of people interested in the same topic by making it easier for them to find and share info related to it.

When you apply a simple hashtag to your tweet, in a way you are the closest as you may ever be to your audience given they are any more than 4 degrees of separation. Think about it for a second. If your message is one worthy of sending to someone in pure intention, what would that do for your objective?

I would be grateful to hear you.

Do you tweet your product? How do you use hashtags? What are some of your favorite hashtags and how do you see yourself benefiting from a Twitter hashtag?

-Amir

One of my favorite all time free tools/services is a clever little service from Google to help keep you up to date on any subject. If you have an ego half as big as mine, you’ll be tickled pink with Google Alerts.

Google Alerts provides you with email updates of latest relevant Google results (web, news, amir ebrahimnia .. etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.  For instance if you want to keep up with news about your company X, just type that in as your search term and you will receive notifications of  new Google results that contain that search term pretty much as soon as it happens. Pretty nifty eh?

You can also manage the alerts you receive, for example how often you want to receive them.

Monitor Your Name/Brand Name/Portfolio

Finding out what people are saying about you and your business shouldn’t be just about the size of your ego. This is about reputation management, building relationships and, often, making sales. A Google Alert set up properly, let you see where your name or brand name are appearing and that alone is worth its price in gold.

Just imagine the possibilities this simple little tool can have for you in customer service or business lead generation.

Yes, you’ll also likely see bad reviews as well as the good, or mentions where there’s nothing to be gained for you by joining in

the conversation (non the less knowing about the review), but the ability to connect with others who are predisposed to being interested, as well as the power to monitor your brand name, more than makes up for the possible frustration.

Google Alerts gets my two thumbs up. Simple to use. Give it a try. Let me know what you think and how this service will effect your business.

How to setup an alert with Google Alerts

1. Point your browser to the Google Alerts BETA page. Enter the keyword(s) for the alert that you want to setup.
2. Select the type of Alert you want to receive. The comprehensive Alert retrieves news from blogs, news sources, Google Groups messages and websites. You can choose to get results from only one of these sources, instead of all sources.
3. Choose how often Google will send the Alerts to you. Google can send your alerts as soon as it finds a match to your keyword, once daily or only once a week.
4. Enter the email address that you will use for your Alerts. If you don’t have a Google email account, you will need to register for one.
5. Click “Create Alert” when you are finished entering your keywords, choices of sources and frequency for messages
6. Review and revise your Alerts if you receive too much or too little information. Log in on the Google Accounts page. Choose “Manage Alerts” to see your saved Alerts. Delete alerts that you no longer need.

- Amir

you dig it. share it.