How to Use the Facebook Like Button on Your Website

One of the questions we're hearing a lot these days is: "What's this Facebook 'like' button all about?" Once we explain it, the next question we get is: "How quickly can I get that on my website?" So I decided to write out an explanation for how it's done that anyone can read, understand and put into action for their own website.

Here are a few quick questions we often find ourselves answering that have quick answers:

Icons - Do I need to have a Facebook account to be able to add the "Like" button to my website?

No, you don't. Anyone can add it regardless of whether or not they have a Facebook account. Click here for our easy step-by-step guide on how to set up a Facebook account.
What are some of the key benefits to creating a "Like" button?

There are several very important reasons to get this like button on your website. Here's a list of a few of them:

* The Facebook brand carries with it a sense of safety, authority, trust and familiarity. Having their logo and a connection to them on your website will make your site look and feel more legitimate and trustworthy in the eyes of Facebook users. This is massive in building credibility, increasing traffic and driving sales.

* Your website has a chance to go "viral" as friends recommend you to their friends who then recommend it to other friends, etc... As the saying goes: "birds of a feather flock together" and this can be a fantastic way to penetrate your niche and have your customers spread the word in a low commitment way for them that can build amazing results for you.

* One great part of it is how much Facebook charges for it - nothing! That's right, it's free. A free advertising tool that relies on referrals and recommendations (we all know the value of those).

* A seismic shift is starting to happen and Facebook is squaring off against Google and looking to overtake them as the internet's number one search engine. This won't happen overnight, but it's wise to align yourself with Facebook early on so that you can get brownie points from Facebook for having got in on the ground floor.

So, now that you know what's at stake, here are some more general questions we get asked by people like you all the time. The answers are important for getting your head around how it all works - in simple terms.

What is the Facebook "Like" button?

The Facebook like button is used in two general places. One is on the Facebook site, the other is on sites outside of Facebook. For the most part we'll be discussing the button you can put on your website, but I'll just take a moment to talk about the like buttons on Facebook.

The like button on Facebook is a button you can click on after looking at pretty much any content on Facebook. This could be a friend's photo, a comment a friend has made or even a group or application. The fact that you have "liked" these things is then reported in your friends' news feeds. If you have "liked" a page on Facebook for a product, community, etc... then they can send you updates and information from them will appear in your news feed.

The like button we're most interested in is the one you can put on your website. This is the one you can often see when you visit a website online, and it looks like this:

The one on the left is the i-frame version and the one on the right is the JavaScript version, but we'll get into that later.

When someone visits a website with this button on it, they can click on it to let their friends know that they like the site. After clicking on the button they'll have a pop-up asking them to login to Facebook (or sign-up if not already a member). Once they've logged in, they'll see the button on the right above, which shows which of their friends like that page, along with their friend's profile picture. After clicking the like button, a story will be posted automatically to their Facebook page telling their friends that they like the site!

If the button has been set up correctly, the website can also be placed on other parts of the Facebook user's profile by using "tags". So if, for example, someone is looking at a webpage about their favourite movie and they click the like button. That movie can then be added to that person's profile under "interests". There are many categories you can tag.
How do I put the Facebook "Like" button on my website?

This is where it gets slightly more complicated - but only slightly. There are two kinds of like buttons you can add to your website. One, which is much more simple, is known as the i-frame. This button is simpler and gives users less information about who, specifically, likes your webpage. With this option, users won't get to see their friend's profile pictures pop-up and the button is far less customisable.
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The second option is JavaScript. This one is harder to add but allows users to see their friends' profile pictures and names pop-up which makes a huge difference in terms of emotional connection and trust building. The JavaScript button also allows the user to write a comment about your page that will be shown to their friends. The i-frame just shows the link, whereas the JavaScript will show positive comments that can be worth their weight in gold.

To get the "like" button put on your just head on over to Facebook's page that's designed to help you add the like button to your site. They have some explanations there on how to add the button with lists of all the options and how to implement each one. It takes a bit of programming experience and know-how that anyone with a web design background can have up and running in less than an hour.

However, if you're interested in using the JavaScript options to really leverage the full power this button can unleash, or if web programming isn't something you're overly familiar with and you'd like some help then you can get someone else to get someone else to set up your Facebook like button exactly the way you want it.

Hate Invades the Last Civil Vestige of Chat - Facebook - Oh Dear, What Shall I Do?

Hate invades the last civil vestige of chat: Facebook

Oh Dear, What shall I do?

Today, I am debating whether or not, I should surrender, abandon, shut down and never again log into my Facebook page and eliminate from my busy schedule all of the time spent on writing, chatting, witting and just having good old fashioned digital conversations with a world full of people, both personally known and known just through the acquaintance formed on the Internet. Not that my staying on-line or logging out would have even the slightest impact on Facebook or would diminish the perpetual traffic in and out of this hugely popular world-sized chat room. My leaving Facebook would be for personal reasons and not in protest over privacy invasions. My leaving Facebook would not be because of the myriad of mind-numbing and inane requests for a missing sheep, to join a gang to rub out some imaginary Mafioso ne-er do well or announcements that some marginally known relative has found this gem or that stone. My leaving Facebook would not be to escape the 2500 or so colleagues and fellow class members from my 1960's era High School Graduating class who has yet to uncover where I am hiding on-line.

By eliminating the amount of time I spend on Facebook, if I choose to shut down and padlock my electronic doors, would certainly benefit other projects that sometimes sputter and stall due to the lack of available time during an ever shortening day.

No, the reason I would leave Facebook is Hate. Not hate for me in particular, but hate and hate expressions and hate groups and hate pages and hate speech in general. Hate directed at anyone that disagrees with them, hate directed at people that agree with me, hate for anyone that does not back the mob in the plethora of battles, demonstrations, pronouncements and intended disruptions that are waged on Facebook every day with ever increasing frequency.

Let's begin with a little history.

For a over a decade, I was an active seller on an auction website. On occasion, I would come across an item, a vase, and an unusual toy or plate pattern that I was unable to locate and identify with my own resources. The Website offers a series of Category-Specific Boards within the auction "Community" where people with items that need some additional identification can go for help. The auction website states "discussion boards are a great place to meet other members, get advice, and share and find information on everything from art to travel. Browse the discussion boards below to find an area that interests you."

Sounds friendly right? A nice community of Collectors, with common interests, to help each other identify previously unidentifiable collectibles!

This is an excellent resource to make sure you are correctly identifying the item you have for sale.

After a few years of simply logging on with a brief description, a simple picture and a friendly request for some assistance, things began to change. Leaders were born and anointed, each with little quasi gangs of minions that would digitally kiss the leader's digital butt on the Auction board publicly as well as through various back channels. You could eventually tell that someone making an inquiry was not among the "Chosen People" of the Board, and that little chats had taken place through the back channels before any newcomer or occasional drop-in could be addressed directly. We occasional peasants, outside the walls of the Palace of Collectibles Definition, would then get increasingly bombarded with an ever expanding set of "rules". These were arbitrary rules that had not been established by the auction site, but by THE BOARD, presumably to save their valuable time they had graciously donated to identify our unworthy goods. Occasionally, THE BOARD, which was a loosely knit group of ego's masked as experts, would convince the auction site that THE BOARD's suggested rules, should be the auction sites Board rules to which, on occasion, the auction site adopted.

From, how big is your picture to the structure of the words in your title of your query, the rules were shared with everyone and under no uncertain terms, everyone at that time knew those rules must be followed if you wished to be graced with an identification. There were actually people on the board whose sole purpose in life was to warn all, newcomers included, that their time was extremely valuable and the poster must follow the rules if they were going to call upon the knowledge of the Almighty and Knowledgeable Board Leader's. These people, some known as "trolls" never identified a queried item; their purpose was to remind us of the rules.

Many of these Anointed Ones had actually been to the factory where their particular collectible specialties had been produced!

This eventually got even more bizarre. Little sects developed. Fostoria Glass people, Staffordshire fanatics and the most critical and vitriolic of the all: The Blenko Gang. At one point, Pottery & Glass gang members tracked down private property ownership, liens, criminal charges, financial information of anyone who would dare challenge their expertmanship. A popular comment, frequently made in response to some inquiry about the origin of a piece of art glass, was that it merely cheap Mexican glass. The minions took particular glee at dashing the hopes of some would-be seller with the "Mexican Glass" response. These smirking comments were frequently wrong. Some "trolls" even offered incorrect identifications so the unwary seller would describe their treasure using the information received on the Board, only to have the items purchased at an extremely low price when it attracted no buyers during the actual auction.

Posting to these auction boards for information, became such a maze of unknown rules and demanded expectations, got so nerve-wracking wondering whose wrath you were about to incur, would your background be checked or would you get a mysterious package of white powders, fecal materials etc in the mail from these giggling Internet bullies, that I stopped using the BOARD and sought my information elsewhere. I was always surprised that this largest of auction sites would allow these little fiefdoms to be established and these people to continue to wreak havoc to what could have been helpful boards. Society eventually identified these types of Board attendants as the Internet Bully.
The auction site eventually came up with rules for identifying Pottery and Glass items that included discussions of:

• "Vulgarity" includes references to bodily elimination"
• "Hate Speech"
• "Disruptive or Hostile Comments"
• "Interpersonal Disputes"
• "Threats of violence"

Threats of violence from a group of little old ladies, identifying porcelain tea cup patterns or the age of a glass vase. What happened? These back channel chats included visits to courthouse records of the offender to research all of their crimes against Humanity, paying People Search fees to gather any internet available information. Plots were hatched, retribution plans drawn up.

Even today if you peruse these auction boards, new Leaders have emerged, polite but snide comments still pepper the discussion. Things have really not changed. They have just gone further underground.

A group of outcasts were wholesale removed from future access to the auction boards The actual auction site administrators were flooded with well orchestrated sets of nasty complaints directed at a certain group. Coordinated by the Board leaders and their minions, the auction site responded by removing the disruptive rule breakers. This group of Board outcasts responded secretly by forming a refuge from the web bullying and put strict limitations on their membership. The outcasts set up another board site, where Identifications cnuld be made without fear, retribution, condensation, or verbal abuse. The outcast were soon chatting and sharing, posting music and speaking of the old days. It was real fun. Information about collectible pottery and glass flowed freely. Bonds were created, friendships began.

It was only a matter of time before the group of outcasts, began to plot their vengeance on those nasty BOARD trolls that had them exiled in the first place. These collectible refugees, by employing equally invasive tactics of seeking out personal information through Court filings about their enemies, even engaged innocent Board bystanders to supply the newly exiled with fodder for their anger. Eventually these hateful and spiteful conversations about retribution changed the mood of the new home. Chat degenerated into racist commentary on political candidates, inappropriate humor on the direction of the Nation and even personal attacks on members of their own group.

They began to eat their own refugees. Peace was intermittent and the barbs and flaming began to occur with greater frequently. I then realized I was spending too much energy and focus on what this new Board had become. People, digitally beaten and bruised from challenging the new rules of the new Leaders, began to limp away and leave the Board.

I didn't need that and again I packed up my goodies and in the dark of night, unceremoniously left.

In a few weeks, yet another group was formed and I was asked to join. Its purpose was described as: "This group has been created as a place for owners of shops at (Site Name) to come together and discuss ideas, problems and anything else related to our business.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee, tea or wine from the bar. Sample some of the finest chocolates and cookies to the right. Pull up a chair and let's get to know each other:)."

Doesn't that sound nice? Well after a year or so, some voices that had been so virulently vocal in the previous group, began to migrate to this new group and it wasn't long before I found myself dodging the barbs and flames and nastiness that I had found in previous groups. Again I left and this time...for good. No more little groups, no more time spent in these negative dens of Internet iniquity.

And then I found Facebook.

Wow, Facebook is chat and sharing friendly pictures and what did you have for dinner. There were those bothersome sheep and occasionally bloodied victims of Mafia hits staggering through, but they were only mild annoyances.

Things started out nicely. Grandchild this and that, nice summer vacation pictures and an occasional blushing joke picture or video filled the pages of my Facebook.

But slowly, we, the Facebook Family were asked to back this position or that, profess our love of God, Mother and Country by inserting a few words into our "Status Update" Box.

Actually, preceding the invasion of our "Status Box", was the "join my farm" or "join my Mafia gang" or various requests from this or that group of gamers. I turned them all down and would occasionally send out a guilty note that I don't join for this reason or that reason, because I didn't want to offend someone asking me to play with them that I refused. But the guilt of not playing was growing and the concept of "join this group" emerged.

When the requests for Support the Troops or Profess your undying love for the Lord Jesus started to hit the board, I, at first, acquiesced and would temporarily post this or that phrase in support. And then the numbers grew, sometimes getting three or four requests a day and I knew there was some Facebook troll sitting out hn some basement somewhere, giggling to see how viral his or her "Post this on your wall" request had grown.

I stopped. My wall, My space, My words!

Sure I was raised Catholic. I had guilt for not posting that I accepted Jesus as my one true savior or that if I accept one, I had to accept all. It got to "If you don't support the mutilation of babies and puppies for the purposes of developing hair care products in Indonesia, then show you have the nerve to post this on your wall" and I really struggled with posting about my bra Color!. Some things should just not be discussed. This is a family board and I didn't want some stranger asking my Mother about her Bra color...Where would it end?

How could I support mutilating babies by not posting for God's sake? To not do so would support the mutilation of babies AND PUPPIES!!

And then came the Political Groups. As the temperature outside Facebook and on the streets of America got hotter and hotter and the Cable News channels turned the anger volume up to a scream with Tea Parties and Panels that would kill your grandparents and Socialist and Communist and Nazi's and Socialist Nazi Communists that wanted to kill Grandma, some Facebook members brought the battle to the Status Update postings of Facebook. Pitting poodles against cable news commentators, frantically trying to reverse democratically determined Congressional decisions and invoking the name of every God to intervene everywhere, Facebook pages and hate groups were formed faster than an Internet Virus Scares. People were being forced to take sides. Failure to take a side meant certain ostracizing from Facebook and maybe the Web as a whole.

And now, we are being asked to pray for the death of our President and anyone associated with him.

And then that was it! The final digital straw as it were!

What had been a wholesome share kid vacation pictures with Mom & Dad, had become a screaming angry bomb throwing vitriolic over-blown mob chat room where friend was pitted against friend, where you checked the groups that someone belonged to BEFORE you accepted them as a friend.

The outside, the growing hate in America, the racism from the street and the TV, the total lack of Civility and even the understanding of basic American Civics invaded Facebook. And now everywhere you turn, you cannot escape the anger.

America has its problems. Some people say we are stupid and poorly educated. Maybe some are, but not all of us. Some say we are sheeple and victims or Patriots. Whatever. I have a hard enough time being me.
Well I can escape the anger. I can be an ostrich. I can turn off my TV. I can stop reading the news. I can be an uneducated idiot, like so many, that are running, streaking, screaming madly like some Ritalin-riddled Anarchist through our lives.

I can leave Facebook. But I shouldn't have too!

Is that what I have to do? Where did I go wrong? Do I eliminate friends on Facebook and if I do that, I eliminate the pleasant exchanges as well. Do I contribute to the Hate Mud? I found myself looking back at all my posts the other day, making sure I wasn't the one that caught up in the moment, that wished Death to my opponents and every one in their miserable lives. That is when I realized there was a problem. I was even getting caught up in it.

I realize that the Hate Groups and the Hate speech didn't start after I joined Facebook. Facebook started general access usage for anybody with an e-mail address in 2006. Banned in several countries, it is the largest social-networking site in the world with over 400 million users and amazingly 50% of those 400 million log in and check their updates everyday! These users have on the average of 130 friends and spent over 500 BILLION minutes on line each month.

Mike Godwin wrote in 1990, Godwin's law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies or Godwin's law of Nazi Analogies". Goodwin's Law is simple "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." Facebook had reached "1" and Goodwin's Law had been proved out once again...

So I go back to my dilemma: Facebook or No Facebook. Is there any way to enjoy this digital escape without being caught up in America's anger?

When I queried on Facebook, those lucky few who I identify as my "friends", came back with helpful suggestions that involved choosing future friends more careful, stay and fight the Hate Goods, delete, hide, de-friend anyone of my little group that "crosses the line." One says that she "admit(s) to often posting things that have political overtones, but I would hope that I never encourage intolerance nor discourage civil discourse. If you think any of my posting comes across otherwise, I want to know."

Another states "I ignore many things on Facebook, and choose my "friends" carefully. And I'll "de-friend" those that get carried away with their hateful messages. Everyone that knows me or takes a minute to look at my choices on FB knows my political stance."

And yet another "I agree, there is way too much hate in the world. What I do is hide any applications etc that I don't want to see posts about. I have enough serious issues in my personal/family life to let posts on Facebook worry me. I come here to relax, look at people's pics, see how/what they are doing and even play those dreaded games you wrote about.:) This is what I do for relief from real life and I don't want drama

Finally another adds "If you leave Facebook, can I have all of your Friends?"

I can leave Facebook. The Hate will still be there until we as a society recognize it, condemn it and send it back underground in the dark dank caves it deserves to be condemned to. Maybe Facebook is the face of the world and maybe this is where the World is right now.

Facebook Application Development - Tips For Owners and Designers

Facebook applications are an innovation aimed to help their owners to make the most of one of the largest social networks. But like any other popular novelty, this Facebook option raises a lot of questions too.

In this article you will find tips and recommendations which can be helpful when planning, designing, and developing Facebook applications.

Facebook Development Platform - Innovations and... Volatility

Facebook is growing fast now. The number of Facebook users escalates in thousands and millions. It means that Facebook apps owners get increasingly more potential users every single day.

But this coin has a reverse side too: due to Facebook rapid evolution tools for the application development - Facebook API (Application Programming Interface), etc - are changed quite often as well. Owners, designers, and developers should keep track of such new features because they can affect appearance, functionality, and operability of existing applications.

1). So, before starting planning a Facebook application make sure you have read Facebook Privacy Policy and Facebook Developer Principles and Policies. These documents contain lists of limitations that should be taken into account while designing and developing your Facebook application. If your application does not correspond to them, the Facebook team may not approve it for using on Facebook.
2). Read Facebook Developers Roadmap to be aware of the upcoming changes and to forecast respective modifications of your application in advance.

Frankly, documents mentioned above are not bedside literature. If you outsource their reading and learning to programmers, just remember that there are some constraints and internal rules on Facebook which can change with time, and your FB application should follow them.

Successful Facebook Applications Start from Successful Design

Design is extremely important for Facebook application success. In order to provide good look and feel of your FB app take into account the following points.

1). Design should be an integral part of a general application concept and convey ideas and feelings behind it.
2). Design should be user-friendly, intuitive, and of playing style to some extent, because Facebook apps are entertaining by their nature. That extent depends on your application niche.
3). Design should be social-networking and viral - and give a user a supporting environment to socialize with other users. Does your design encourage people to communicate and make invitations? Does your design help people to express themselves and show them in a favorable light among their friends? Will users say each other "Wow, just take a look at that app!"?
4). Design may impose certain restrictions on a Facebook application and, therefore, cause problems when programming the app and afterwards when adding new functional features. As a result, a FB application design should be flexible and simple enough to be able to reflect that constant Facebook growth we've discussed above.
5). Also remember that potential users are spoilt by numerous already existing applications competing for their attention. So, analyze your competition to understand what and why is popular and how it can be overcome.

Facebook Apps vs. Facebook Connect - What Is the Difference From a Development Viewpoint?

Basic-level components of Facebook Connect are scripts which help to realize such options as sharing a piece of content or a link from your website onto Facebook, driving fans to your Facebook Page, etc. Such scripts are ready-to-use and easy-to-install onto a website.

Unlike it Facebook apps are software applications which are developed from scratch using Facebook Development Platform (Facebook API), as well as PHP, AJAX, MySQL, and other programming languages, libraries, and so forth. No wonder Facebook applications development and integration require designers, programmers, testers to be involved, and it is very similar to the creation of any other piece of conventional software. This is also true for Advanced Facebook Connect options and their tuning.

Facebook applications should not be confused with ordinary websites too. Usually FB apps are complex web-based systems with a lot of back-end (server-side) modules which, actually, provide app functionality and make the application attractive for users.

Facebook applications and Facebook Connect are all the rage now. What your FB app will be - just an attempt to follow the fashion or an effective tool to make the most of Facebook - depends on many factors. The deeper you learn and understand them, the better your result will be.

The Basics of Building Facebook Applications

The ubiquity of Facebook is hard to ignore. It started as a local service that helped college students connect and has expanded into a worldwide phenomenon with millions of users accessing Facebook and associated applications every day. The size of the Facebook audience makes it a compelling platform for developers as does the versatility of the site. There are a wide range of applications already being used on Facebook and the possibilities for new applications are limited only to the developer's imagination. So let's discuss some of the basics when it comes to building Facebook applications.

In the Beginning

Any developer who is hoping to write or install Facebook applications must first have his or her own Facebook account and then must install the developer application. Facebook's developer application allows you to create, monitor, and configure applications. In addition, you'll need to secure yourself a server as Facebook applications run form the developer's server. The benefit of this is that you can write the application in whichever language you know best. For the sake of simplicity, examples in this article will use PHP but the process is the same regardless of the language you use.

Once you have your Facebook account, have downloaded the developer application, and have your server ready to go, you'll be ready to start developing your own applications. Still, having a bit of understanding of the Facebook platform will help you during the creative process. First and foremost, the fundamental components of Facebook are clearly outlined on their developer site. Essentially, the platform is made up of three parts: API, FBML, and FQL. Of course, APIs determine the ways in which you can connect to and interact with Facebook. FBML is the custom Facebook markup language which has basically be modeled around HTML. While similar to Coldfusion or ASP.NET and associated tag-based syntax, FBML helps you to define the pages of your application specifically for the Facebook Platform. And finally, FQL is the Facebook Query Language which is also a customized developer language for Facebook that is based on SQL. FQL is especially useful when there are no helper methods in the API but can also be used for tags in FBML giving developers an incredible amount of control over the details of their application.

Facebook Development Tools and Resources

Like any development applications, Facebook features a range of tools and resources that can help developers in a number of ways. Apart from the core documentation, tools can also help you debug raw API calls or tweak the FQL. With Facebook resources you'll find a collection of libraries for PHP and Java as well as links to other libraries like ActionScript, Cocoa, Coldfusion,.NET, Perl, Python, and Ruby. In addition, Facebook has an ever-expanding community wiki that can help answer any questions you may have about the details of developing Facebook applications. Because Facebook is a fairly complicated social media network, pages often feature layers upon layers of detailed information and it is certainly in the best interests of the developer to become familiar with FBML and API. Indeed, FBML and API allow you to manipulate a lot of this information so a more in-depth understanding of these tools and the terminology used on the site. Experienced Facebook users, for example, will know the difference between the News Feed and your Profile page and so should developers.

Step-by-Step Guidelines for Creating an Application

At this point, let's discuss briefly the stages involved in building a Facebook application. Of course you'll need to get the Facebook Developer Application to begin but from here there are some basic principles that should help guide you through the process.

1. To begin setting up a new application select the "Set Up New Application" option in the developer application. You'll want to name your application and you'll also need to accept the Terms of Service. Your API key is used so that Facebook can recognize your application and your application secret are used so that Facebook can authenticate your requests. Choose a secret that is easy to remember and also difficult to hack as you would with any online password.

2. The next step involves configuring a number of settings before starting to write code. Under the "Edit Settings" section you can enter support and contact information, including your email address.

3. A callback URL is required and this would need to be the address where your application is stored on the server.

4. A canvas page URL is also required and this tells us where your application is stored on Facebook. Developers usually want to match their canvas page URL with their application name so that it's easy to remember for users. This URL must be a minimum of 7 characters long and can include only letters, dashes, and underscores.

5. Next, Facebook will ask you whether your application can be added on Facebook, obviously you'll want to say "Yes."

6. To continue developing your application click "Save and Continue."

5 Easy Steps How to Connect Your Twitter Account to Your Facebook Status

Connecting Twitter to Facebook
If you enjoy using Social Media Websites chances are that you would have a Facebook account as well as a Twitter account. Both of these allow you to make updates to your status. By creating a connection between these two accounts you only need to write your message once as it will be posted to the other one automatically.

There are two ways of creating the connection between Facebook and Twitter. You can link your Twitter account to your personal Facebook account; or you can link your Facebook Page to your Twitter account. In the first option the message goes from Twitter to Facebook and in the second option it goes from Facebook to Twitter. For instance if you use Twitter regularly just write your message on your Twitter account and it will be posted automatically on your Facebook account. You will see it on your Facebook profile page and it will appear on the Facebook News Feed. Here is how you can do that in just a few simple steps.

Connecting Your Twitter Account to Your Personal Facebook Account

In this connection when you write a message on your Twitter account it gets automatically posted into your Facebook status and Wall. Here are 5 simple steps how you can make that connection. You need to be logged into your Facebook account in order to do this.

Step 1 - Locate the Twitter Application

The Twitter application as well as many other cool applications are stored in the Facebook Applications area. You can access it directly at the following URL (just copy and paste into your browser): http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2231777543

Once you have located the application click the blue 'Go to Application' -button.

Step2 - Allow Access

By clicking the 'Allow' -button you will authorise Twitter and Facebook create the connection needed. Go ahead and... click.

Step 3 - Log on to Twitter

Next you will need to log in to your Twitter account to make the connection happen. Since we are creating a connection to your personal Facebook account you should use your personal Twitter account here as well.

Step 4 - Allow Twitter updates

In order to get the automatic update from your Twitter account to show up on your Facebook status you need to click the '+ Allow Twitter to Update Your Facebook Status' -button. This enables the connection and sends you to the next screen.

Step 5 - Authorization

This is a bit unnecessary step but you need to click the blue 'Allow Status Updates' -button to finalise the operation. The only good thing about this page is that it gives you the page URL where you can change the settings of this Twitter application as well as your other Facebook applications.

Once you click the button you will be back on the previous screen. From this screen you can also update your Facebook status. This will be posted automatically to you Twitter account as well. Please note that when you update your status on your Facebook profile page as you would do normally, it does not post to your Twitter account... and you're done! You have now connected your Twitter account with your personal Facebook account. Every time you write a new Twitter post it will now automatically show up on your Facebook Profile.

Make Money on Facebook With These 12 Free Applications

Making money with Facebook! If you are a Facebook user or have been around social networking sites for a while, you probably have heard that. But, is it really possible to make money with Facebook? How would you go about making money on Facebook?

Well, thanks to some very useful and user friendly applications, today almost anyone who has a Facebook page, can make money in verity of ways. With one simple installation, you can be on your way to make money on Facebook. Of course like any other methods of making money, specifically making money online, it takes hard work and persistence to be able to make a decent amount of money on Facebook. Although these applications make it very easy to get on the path of making money with face book, its the strategy and a well thought out plan, combined with persistence and hard work, that ultimately factors in your success or failure in making money with Facebook. Here are 12 applications you can use to make money on Facebook.

1. RadicalBuy This is almost like a Facebook made eBay. You can sell anything on your Facebook page using this unique app. List an item and have it visible to all Facebook users instantly. Now, the cool think is that you can offer commission to others who will sell your items on their Facebook page, allowing you to reach more potential buyers. Of course that means, even if you don't have any item for sale, you can show other peoples item on your Facebook page and make money with the commission you get for selling there stuff.

2. MyMerchStore Zazzel allows you to create and design any product on their site(which is free), and sell them on your face book. Think about the potential buyer base for customized t-shirts and hats and etc, specially if you have a lot of Facebook friends. You can also sell product created by other artists and earn a commission on those. So, even if you don't want to deal with designing, you have a way to make money on face book using Zazzle.

3. CafePress It's the same idea as Zazzle, but with a much bigger and well known online store. Cafepress lets you easily sell any product from anti Obama Shirts to pro Obama Shirts, on your Facebook and make money, whether it was created by you or someone else.

4. Ether Ether is a website that you can make money on by giving advice to people over the phone or by chatting. But now, you can use their new application on Facebook to make money while giving advice to people over the phone. If you're good at giving advice, this may be the way for you to make some extra money on Facebook. Also if you know a second language, this app makes it easy to teach others and make money. You set the rates and Ether provides a number that individuals can call. The call will then be forwarded to your personal telephone number.

5. MusicBlaster With MusicBlaster you can put a simple little music store on your Facebook, and sell music from BlastMyMusic.com. You earn 5% for each song sold. The cool think about this app is the fact that you can help your favorite band or singer to sell their music while you make money, as well as helping them to gain more exposure.

6. GarageSale The name says it all, its the good old Garage Sale, but a "Facebooky" Garage Sale. Simply add Garage Sale to your profile page and list every thing you want to sell. When someone buys something, Garage Sale automatically bills the buyer's credit card and lets you when to ship the item. Your money is deposited directly into your Pay Pal account, or you can request payment by check. However they charge a 5% commission on the total sales price, but that's all. No other fee for setup or anything like that.

7. Shopit Shopit is a free Social Commerce Network that gives users the ability to buy, sell or trade any product or service. Simply add a free store to your Facebook and sell anything you like. Another easy way to make money on Facebook.

8. FlameTunes FT was founded in 2007 by an Iranian-American named Nima Khakpour. This app is more for the artists to sell their music. So, if you are an artist, FlameTunes enables you to sell your music on your Facebook. You can also use it to sell music on myspace.

9. Lemonade Remember when you setup your first lemonade stand in your community? Well, this app allows you to use the same concept, combining commerce and community, and have a lemonade stand in a digital (Facebook) neighborhood. Basically you add what you want to sell to a lemonade stand, and put it on your Facebook. It's free and easy.

10. eBay Who knew that was coming? Yep, you guessed it. Now you can have your ebay on Facebook. This application allows you to add eBay auction listings to your Profile. Sell things to your Facebook friends from crafts, jewelry to diary pages, undies and dinner dates or just whatever you're selling on eBay! You also have the option to add a charity auction that you support, on your Facebook profile. I think it's a very smart way to combine eBay and Facebook, and you don't even need an eBay Account!

11. Lending Club It's almost like prosper, where you land money to others and make money with the interest you make from the loan. Not to worry though, lending club has all the detail covered. So, it's completely safe, and the whole legal and trust issues are taking cared by lending club. If you can use it safley, it can be a good way to make money with your Facebook.

12. e3buy Auction Buy, sell or trade anything. Auction your used or new stuff. With e3buy you can open a customizes store, upload your logo and start selling things. Unlike ebay, there is no commission or fee to be paid. it's completely free to use. It is also fully integrated with paypal, so you can get paid fast.

Basic Facebook Marketing Strategies to Generate Endless Leads and Dominate

According to Alexa, Facebook is the second most popular website next to Google. I researched more and found that around 30% of the global internet subscribers visit Facebook every day. Facebook currently has 300 million subscribers and is growing rapidly. 45 Million updates are made on Facebook every day and world wide users spend around 8 billion minutes per day.

What does it mean to you as an internet marketer? It is a large gold mine. Isn't it? However, How are you going to position yourself uniquely and promote your business on Facebook considering the large volume of updates being posted on Facebook every day? How do you grasp the attention of the Facebook users? The purpose of this post is to make you aware of the basic Facebook marketing strategies and tools that you need to successfully generate leads and dominate.

Always remember Facebook is a social network and should not be used to pitch your business. Prosperity in your Facebook marketing is directly proportial to the number of solid relationships developed with fellow users.So, Lets gets started

Facebook Profile

- A picture is worth thousand words. Make sure to add a picture in your profile
- Fill in your past info such as schools went and make it public so that people can find you through search
- Fill in your interests and make it public so that fellow subscribers could relate to you
- Fill in all your websites such as a blog, Twitter, your capture pages etc on your profile. By default, only your primary website is displayed. I would highly recommend to display all your websites in your profile. Anyone visiting your profile page could click on your URLS and learn more about you

Add Friends

After creating a profile, do not wait for things to happen. Go ahead and find and add few friends a day every day. It is advised that you can add up to 25-30 friends everyday. Excessive adding of friends will result in removing your page by Facebook administrators.

Interact with friends through like and comment

Once you have added a few friends and see their content on your home page, start interacting with them by liking and commenting on their updates. Commenting on updates could have a viral effect. When you comment on an update, your comment will show up on the updater's wall and is visible to all his friends. So, it pays to make intelligent comments and get traffic back to your page. Also, feel free to share quotes, posts, and videos that had a positive impact on you. Key is to interact with Facebook friends as much as possible.

Facebook Photo Albums

Feel free to share your pictures and videos with your friends on Facebook. People would love to know more about you through pictures and videos. If you have been to a networking event and have taken pictures with the leaders and fellow networkers, share those pictures with stories about the events and see the traffic to your website increasing

Facebook Videos

If a picture is worth thousand words, how much is a video worth? In 2009, video marketing has been growing rapidly and is here to stay. Facebook allows you to either upload videos or shoot a video instantly. More you share the videos, better it is. Do share your videos about networking events, funny incidents, achievements and any other video that could have a positive influence on others. I use the video feature of Facebook in a couple of ways and am seeing phenomenal results:

1. I introduce myself to recently added friends. A short video describing who I am and appreciating for friendship
2. I use instant Facebook video recording option to wish birthdays to friends

Facebook Groups

Group positions you as a leader and displays the value you can provide to fellow networkers. Facebook users who join your group can be converted to prospects for your biz by using effective attraction marketing strategies. It pays to establish a group and providing value to the members of the group through emails, invitations to an event etc. I also use groups in Facebook to identify like minded people and to promote my posts.

Facebook Events

Facebook allows you to create a public event ( viewable to all members of Facebook) and provides you URL that can be used to communicate on other social networks like Twitter, MySpace etc. I send an event invitation via email to all my group members. Event feature keeps track of the users status (attending, not attending, may be) about the event. I see an increase in numbers for the event when I blast a reminder email to people who were not sure or were planning to attend.

Facebook Wall posts

Evey user in Facebook has a wall where he posts messages and moderates the comments made. If you are a core Facebook user, I am sure that you must be posting and promoting your content on your wall. However, It is worth much more to learn how to post your content effectively on walls of the members having a huge number of friends. It can be done by giving a lot of value that could be beneficial to the users visiting the page. Facebook will disable your account if they see you spamming. So, be cautious while using this approach.

Facebook Notes

Do you have a self hosted word press blog? If no, I would highly recommend you to start blogging and provide valuable content. Facebook notes is an awesome feature you can use to make your valuable blog content visible publicly to all members of Facebook. Also, there are applications that imports your blog content into the notes in an automated way. Isn't that cool?

This feature would increase your blog traffic tremendously and ultimately your sales if you are using the blog as central hub/nerve center as I mentioned in my Attraction Marketing Blueprint post.

Facebook Applications

I am not a big fan of applications on Facebook as I generate enough traffic using the resources mentioned above. However, there are couple of applications that I personally use

Vuyou (Video Email Application): If you are an internet marketer and are generating leads through various marketing strategies like PPC, classifieds etc, you already might know the value of connecting with the prospect. I use this FREE video email application to connect with my leads as soon as they enter in to my sales funnel.

Facebook Lite Unveiled - Stealing Twitter's Thunder

Facebook Lite has been the newest Facebook makeover in which the social network has become a lot more simplified. How is this affecting social media optimization? Many believe Facebook Lite has been introduced as a direct competitor to Twitter's minimalistic look. Before, it used to be that social networks with more applications, options, preferences was better. Facebook was winning that race by far, with hundreds of different applications you could choose from as compared to other social networks which had just a handful. Facebook also had more detailed privacy and profile settings and a variety of options on how you wanted to display your profile. Now marketing has seen the popularity switch from more to less with people enjoying Twitter's simple look and the idea of a limited character micro blogging service.

There have been some significant changes in the new Facebook. Facebook Lite does not have any applications like the regular Facebook does. Facebook Lite allows you to tag the friends in your network if you mention them in a status update. When you mention a friend from your friend's list while typing a status message, Facebook Lite provides you a drop down menu of friends with that name so you can tag the friend mentioned. The person who you tagged in your status update is then notified, just like if you tagged a friend in a photo on regular Facebook. A lot of people take time to "get Facebook" when they first join. There's so many applications, choices, options, features that it can leave someone new quite confused and frustrated. First time I dealt with Facebook I think I had to sit for a good couple hours clicking on random tabs to figure out what they all did and how I get back to where I began from. With experience of using this social network you get a hang of it. I think Facebook Lite is a way to end this problem and provide users with a faster simpler version of Facebook if they choose.

I think this is the first time Facebook has renovated in such a way so that they can offer two different versions to their users instead of one version that people may or may not like. I say this is smart marketing strategy. It's like a beginner's version (Facebook Lite) and an advanced version (regular Facebook) If you can handle and enjoy the complex nature of Facebook, you can go ahead and use the regular Facebook. If you like a simple Twitter like feel to it, then go in for Facebook Lite. I think from the Social Media Optimization point of view, businesses and corporations will prefer the regular Facebook as it gives them more leeway to provide information and entertainment to their followers. Last year Facebook had unsuccessfully tried to buy out Twitter. Since then, Facebook has done the next best thing and copied Twitter's minimalistic appeal. But even then Facebook's networking is still quite different from Twitter.

People connect with each other on Facebook generally if they are acquainted with each other or are friends. Connections on Facebook depend on one person connecting with another and if they accept, you are then connected to the same network. Then both parties get status information and updates about each other. Twitter works differently in that you can choose to follow random people or people you know. Anyone you choose to follow is not obligated to follow you back. You don't have to know them or be friends with them, you follow them if you're curious enough to want to know about their activity. Twitter has received a lot of publicity for celebrities and businesses using this social network as a way to reach out to their fans while also maintaining their distance.

Twitter and Facebook are both popular social networks that have been utilized by companies for their Social Media Optimization campaigns. There's not much we can predict about the impact of Facebook Lite at this point. It might be the newest rage or it might just not catch on. It will be interesting to watch and see how much people enjoy using Facebook Lite and what Twitter users have to say about the new Facebook.

Promoting Your Business With Facebook

In the past few years, websites have become increasingly essential for achieving success on the internet. Facebook is one of the most widely used social websites on the internet and as such presents businesses with an opportunity to enhance its profile.

Facebook is an important tool for promoting your business or blog. Facebook pages is dedicated for business use and offers a cost effective opportunity for small as well larger businesses. Over the years the popularity of Face Book has continued to grow at a phenomenal rate. It has been growing faster than many of its rivals such as MySpace. Facebook now has over 200,000,000 active users all over the world.

The large user base of Facebook has made it attractive for businesses to use it as medium to connect with customers. It offers a business with an opportunity to acquire new customers and drive traffic to its website. Facebook can be used to promote a business in many ways.

Listed below are some ways a business can use Face Book:

Business profile on face book pages

As discussed earlier, Facebook pages is a section dedicated purely for promoting business. A business can create a page on Facebook pages in order to tap its full potential. A Facebook page is more than simply a blog page. There are many applications and built-in tools to make the page interactive and interactive for your users.

The Facebook page of your company is accessible to Facebook's vast user base as well as being available publicly on the internet and search engines like Google. A Facebook page can be a powerful tool to help your business to acquire new customers.

Creating your profile is only the first step that can then be used to invite new and expand your company's network.

Create and expand your business network on Facebook

After you have successfully created your business profile on Facebook, you can build your network and start expanding it. As with other professional networks on the internet, the main benefit depends on how established your network is on Facebook and its popularity among users. A large network for your company is important to leverage the maximum benefits for your company.

A good place to start expanding your network is to invite colleagues and customers to join your business network on Facebook. They can do so by adding your network to their favourites or joining as fans. Any posts you make on your Facebook page will automatically appear on the news feeds of all those who have added your profile to their friends list on Facebook. This provides opportunities for posting information such as latest news, special offers and so on. You can use the search feature of Facebook to find your contacts and invite them to join your group or network or add your company to their friends list on face book.

Promote Your Business

Your Facebook profile and business page offers opportunities to promote your company and enhance your profile. The default info tab on face book pages can be used to provide information about your company and also includes a link to your company's website.

Promote your Website and Blog

You can also use Facebook to promote your website and blog. Many businesses operate a blog these days. You can promote articles of your blog on Facebook. You can easily import blog posts from your blog to your Facebook page. Your posts will be available on your profile as well as in the news feeds of your fans and subscribers. The amount of traffic you can generate to your company's website from Facebook will also depend on how active you are on Facebook.

Sell Products in Facebook Marketplace

You can also use Facebook to sell products or services. Facebook Marketplace is dedicated specifically for listing items for sale. Facebook market place is free to use and offers a method to promote products and services you would like to sell to others. You can use the market place to promote existing products from your website.

Advertise on Facebook

In addition to promoting your content on Facebook via your profile or business page, you can also use facebook to advertise your business. There are paid advertising options for promoting your business or products on Facebook. You can easily create advertisements for your business in few simple steps. The charge is based on pay per click or per thousand impressions. The high website traffic of Facebook can help acquire new customers as well as drive traffic to your website.

Facebook - The La Brea Tar Pits of the Internet

Let's suppose that it's 35,000 years ago and you're a Wooly Mammoth. You're casually lumbering along, as you like to do. It's a hot day, and you're thinking it would be nice to find a pond or something where you can wet yourself down, cool off, maybe take a long refreshing drink. You happen upon just such a spot. You look around, and there's nothing untoward, so you dip a little bit of your foot in, and discover that the water is pleasant. You're up to your ankles, and nothing unusual has occurred, so you wade in further and stand there, up to your knees, soaking and sipping, and generally enjoying yourself.

After a while, feeling very much invigorated, you decide to mosey on, maybe find some marsh grass to nibble upon for a snack. What you didn't notice is that while you were wallowing, distracted, you've been slowly and imperceptibly sinking in to a pit of viscous goo. By now you are well and truly stuck. You may thrash around and try to extricate yourself a bit at first, but eventually, exhausted and resigned, you are completely enveloped by the innocuous-looking Tar Pit.

As with the hapless mammoth, so is it with the innocent Internet user upon encountering Facebook.

Even trying to write about Facebook is difficult, because it is sprawling, addictive and idiosyncratic. It is cohesive and fragmented, frivolous and utilitarian, a boon to society and a scourge to productivity. In case you haven't noticed, I have mixed feelings about Facebook. This article doesn't purport to be a review or an endorsement, but more of an overview, and perhaps an introduction. I'll be that initial elephant foot dipped in the water. Whether you decide to wade in is up to you.

What is Facebook?

What is Facebook? If we ask our old friend, the Wikipedia, it will say this:

"Facebook, formerly TheFacebook, is a free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc."

That's a start.

Free access: anybody can use it. You don't have to pay for it.

Social Networking Website: A website where people voluntarily share information with friends, family, colleagues, and total strangers, and join themselves into groups and affiliations of all different varieties and sizes (more on groups in a little while). Facebook is all about communication, and members interact with one another in several different ways.

[NOTE: In this article, I will be capitalizing Facebook as a proper noun. In the company's logo, it is spelled all in lowercase.]

When you first sign up with Facebook, you create a profile. The profile contains a whole range of information about you. You can decide how much or how little to share, and you can control who gets to see the information. The settings allow you to control the levels of privacy. Some of it can be for public consumption, or just visible to the people in your network, or just to members of specified groups of family or friends.

Your profile page is broken up into different tabbed sections. You click on the tab to make that section active. The main sections are: Wall, Info, Photos, and Notes.

Info is pretty much what you'd expect. When you begin with Facebook, you join different networks. The main one will probably be based on a geographical area, usually a major city. For example, I belong tn the "Los Angeles" network. You can also join networks based on where you went to school, and the company you work for.

The information that you share can be as detailed as you want, from your gender and your hometown to relationship status, political leanings and religious views. There is room to list your favorite music, movies, television shows and books. Once again, all the information is voluntary, and you don't have to share it with anyone you don't want to.

Photos get uploaded to the Photos section. You can "tag" someone in your photo by clicking on the center of a face, and entering the person's name, so that the face is associated with the person. If the person is also a member of Facebook, that picture will be linked to their profile as well.

Notes is a section where you can write or attach text: a poem, essay, opinion, idea; anything.

Wall is the equivalent of a virtual public wall where information about you is available to your friends and group members (more on those in a moment - I promise). Every time you do something in Facebook, you can choose to have it posted to your wall. This is also where you can type a short message about your status.

More exciting terms defined: Status, Friends, Groups & the News Feed!

The Status box is an empty box at the top of the screen labeled "What's on your mind?" You can write anything you want in this box, and it is displayed on your wall and on your profile page. If you wish, you tell everybody that you just walked your dog, or had a really terrific plate of scrambled eggs, or that you're feeling cranky, or will be picking up shirts from the dry cleaners, or that you're upset with a political figure's recent speech, or that you liked a movie, etc. etc. etc. You may attach links to anything on the internet, should you want wish to share something you've found interesting. You can also attach pictures, and upload or link to videos. You are limited only by your imagination and your own sense of propriety.

I should say at this point, that there are rules governing what you can and can't link to or say. They're pretty basic and you agree to them when you create your Facebook account. They can also be found at the "terms" link at the bottom of every page. There has been some controversy in the past with regard to the ownership of intellectual property when you post your original content to the site. They've modified the terms based on the feedback from the community, and my impression is that they're not out to screw you. Nevertheless, if you have a legitimate stake in your intellectual property, as a writer or photographer, etc., it would behoove you to carefully go over the terms before you post anything. This, of course, is true when posting anything, anywhere on the web.

You can easily configure Facebook so that you can post status updates from your cell phone. This allows you to share text, pictures and video from out in the world. No longer must you be tethered to your computer, should you wish to share your thoughts and feelings!

After you've been using the site for a while, your Wall becomes a document mirroring your life and activities, thoughts and interests.

Friends is an important concept on Facebook. Think of a friend, relative, coworker or acquaintance with whom you would like to be connected. You can search for them by their name. If you find a match, you can invite them to be your Friend. If the other person assents, then you each show up among the list of approved friends for the other. You then have access to each other's full profile, and your status updates will appear in each other's news feed (explained very soon).

All of the information in your profile that you have labeled as being acceptable to share with your friends will be available in your friend's version of your profile. Similarly, your friend's profile information is now available to you. You may also become friends with someone if they initiate the process. If they do, you will receive an invitation to become friends with the other person. If you recognize the person and choose to become friends, you can accept the invitation and then you will show up in each other's friends list as well.

You can post messages and comments to your friend's public wall. These Wall-to-Wall messages show up on both of your walls. It's a quick and easy way to communicate with someone, but don't forget that it isn't private. Anyone with access to either wall will be able to see the exchange.

If you want to communicate more privately, there is a message system that will be familiar to anyone who has used web-based email. It works like a simple version of gmail or hotmail, and allows you to send private messages to any of your Facebook friends, or the people in the groups to which you belong. Speaking of groups...

Groups are collections of Facebook members with a common interest. Anyone can create a group for any topic. For any given group, the creator can choose to make membership available to anybody in Facebook, or they can restrict the group to membership By Invitation Only, meaning the group is searchable on Facebook, but members can only join with the permission of the group's creator. Finally, the group can be private. A private group won't show up in the Facebook search engine, and can only be joined by the invitation of the group's creator.

Here are some examples of just a few of the groups to which I belong:

Friends of the Walt Disney Family Museum
Bone Marrow Transplant Awareness
When I Was Your Age, Pluto Was A Planet
Californians Against Public Education Funding Cuts
Lost Timeloop Theory Fan Club
BookCrossing

Another main Facebook feature is called the News Feed. The News Feed is a page that posts updated status messages, pictures, and links from the friends in your friends list. It's like having a stock market ticker of your friends' lives.

Fun & Games

Besides updating your own status and keeping tabs on the status of your various friends, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of different activities to occupy your time on Facebook.

Finding your way around on Facebook takes a little getting used to. The paths from one area to another, and the methods, for example, for sharing a link from your status box, or your wall, or your news feed are slightly different. If you need help, you can always post a question to your Facebook friends on your wall, and chances are you will quickly be inundated in advice. Facebook has a pretty good help system built in, and you can access it from the link at the bottom of most pages. There is also a search box in the upper right corner of each page. This is a good place to go if you are looking for a person, group, or application.

Although Facebook is free, you are continually exposed to advertising, mostly in a column down the right side of the web page.

Of course there is a chat feature. In the lower-right hand corner of the window, you can find a list of your friends who are currently online. By clicking on a name, you can start a text chat with someone.

There are thousands of quizzes available on Facebook, on every conceivable subject. If you want to discover which Disney Princess you most resemble, or which sandwich, Transformer, chemical element, Star Wars character, etc., there is a quiz for you. You can share your quiz results and compare them to your other friends who have taken the same quiz. The tools are available to make your own quizzes to publish and share, should you so desire.

One of the more bewildering Facebook applications lets you give and receive virtual "gifts" to your Facebook friends. The gifts come in thousands of varieties. You can choose birthday cakes, plants, buttons with slogans, furniture, motorcycles...anything you can imagine can be made into a gift and then shared. You can choose from existing gifts or create your own.

Another strange thing to do is to poke a friend. When you "poke" somebody, they receive a message that they've been poked by you, and they may opt to poke back. Then you will receive a message that you've been poked, and you can poke that person back again. It reminds me of two siblings in the back of a station wagon on a long trip: "If you kids keep poking each other, I'm going to turn this internet right around!" One friend came up with an explanation for this behavior that almost makes sense. Poking is just a way to let the other person know that you were thinking about them, which is a nice sentiment, I suppose. Poking on Facebook is less likely to cause restraining orders than in real life.

There are many many free applications available. Some are useful, some frivolous. You can keep track of events and birthdays with calendar programs that send you reminders of your friend's birthdays. You can maintain a list of the books you read, and share reviews with other members using applications like WeRead and Visual Bookshelf. Some of the applications are variations on simple games. They derive their income by getting you to play and exposing you to advertising. Some claim to be for a good cause, like saving the rain-forest, and others are simply for fun. In games like Lil' Green Patch, and Lil' Blue Cove, you collect and maintain plants, or fish, and send them to your Facebook friends.

There are travel games where you kidnap another player to a destination of your choosing, and they must answer a travel-related question to escape. You can trade salvos with a variety of water pistols or participate in an online pillow fight.

There are games where you unscramble words or manipulate shapes for points.

All of these games combine a participatory element, so that you can play with or against other Facebook friends.

The Big Wrap-Up

Facebook is so successful because of the social element: the ability to communicate with your social network. The site is well-known for reuniting people who haven't spoken in decades. It is an amazing tool for locating school-mates from the third grade, ex-girl and boyfriends, and faces from the past.

The idea of this seething community of people that you know, spread across the globe, busily pursuing their daily activities, living, loving, amusing themselves and each other, is what makes Facebook so addictive.

Before I wrap this discussion up, I would like to make mention of the potential business uses for Facebook. People and companies can speak directly with their clients, and maintain open lines of communication. Organizations can quickly and easily communicate among their employees through the use of groups as well. It gives a business new and immediate ways to connect to their clients.

Facebook doesn't really do any one new thing that can't be found elsewhere on the web. It is a success story because of the unique way in which it combines all the different elements. With over 200 million users, it has achieved a critical mass that allows it to leverage the affects of social networking. The site is still in its infancy, and exactly where it will go, how it will grow, and what new ideas and opportunities it will offer is open to speculation. It should be an interesting ride.

The Chiropractic Marketing System That Works - How to Use Facebook to Get 12 Patients Immediately

The most powerful chiropractic marketing tool for chiropractors is not hard to find nor does it cost thousands of dollars. It's something which you probably already have and which you can do yourself. It's Facebook! Incredulous? My client managed to secure 12 new patients within a week of marketing his practice via Facebook. He did it in three steps, and I will share these methods with you right now.

Why market your practice via Facebook?

Facebook is Massive: It seems the whole world is using Facebook. 200 million people have a Facebook account. This population equals that of the 8th largest country in the world! We are talking about a huge social networking community.
These users love Facebook: In a single day, the total amount of time that users spend using Facebook totals 4 billion minutes. At one point of the day, 100 million users are logged in to their accounts.
These users belong to your ideal market: Two-thirds of Facebook members are finished with college. Among these people, those 35 years old and up are rapidly growing in number.
The Viral Nature of Facebook: The average member on Facebook has been shown to have 120 friends.


How big is this opportunity?

Let me put it this way. If you have 200 patients using your Facebook page to connect with you, you'll essentially be plugged into 24,000 potential patients!

Get started on this powerful marketing tool in three steps:

1. Get your patients to use Facebook

I knew that my client was losing a terrific marketing opportunity when he told me that he didn't have a Facebook account yet. He already had 500 patients he had seen over the years.

I told him to go create an account on Facebook.com - it's free and takes only minutes. The site then allows its members to import their contacts from their email account. It makes it easier to find their friends already on the site, or invite their contacts to join them.

2. Upload a video about your practice or a symptom you treat

Videos are always fun to watch and online video is exploding with growth. I recently read that the average YouTube user spends 21 minutes a day watching video. We're going to take full advantage of the curiosity factor of video. Facebook makes it very easy to record a short video and then post it to your Facebook page... and then the goal is to drive as much massive traffic to view the video on your Facebook page as we can.

After getting his contacts, my client uploaded a video entitled "The Chiropractic Solution: How to Stop Back Pain Without Surgery." It was only 3 minutes long and was filmed in his clinic while wearing his white lab coat and simply sat on a treatment table and talked into the camera. Then he uploaded the video to YouTube.

YouTube generates something called "embed code" that makes it very easy to paste your YouTube video into Facebook. Also Facebook has many tools for posting your YouTube videos in your Facebook account. In fact 10 million videos are posted to Facebook every month -- so videos are very popular on Facebook.

3. Spread the news and drive the traffic!

The final step was to drive massive traffic to his Facebook page by generating excitement to view his new video. Patients love watching videos like this. I told my client to send an email invitation to his 500 patients with a link to his Facebook profile to check out the video. He strongly encouraged them to post a comment about the video to get them involved! This whole idea of "involvement" is a core psychological component to making your Facebook marketing gain traction. The more involved we can get patients with your Facebook page, the more business it will generate.

To summarize, this sent two simple emails:

- An invitation from the doctor to use Facebook;

- An email with a link to view his video on his Facebook page.

Let's talk about the results of this three step system:

This doctor got 12 patients in a week because he drove patients to his Facebook page, got them involved, and teased them with his video. Since we know statistically that the average Facebook user has 120 friends, this excitement led to patients, referrals, and reactivations.

What can you do to continue getting great results from your Facebook marketing? He ensured the growth of his results by uploading more videos and each time sending an email to his patients inviting them to check it out and comment. Each instance resulted in more clients or reactivations.

There's no denying the potential of Facebook as your chiropractic marketing tool. Today Facebook is the largest social networking site in the world. Creating a single account connects you to 200 million people - all potential clients. By following my three simple steps of getting contacts, creating a video, and getting site traffic, new patients and reactivation will come to you faster than ever. And it's FREE - can any other advertising alternative beat that?

Social Media Marketing - The 10 Social Media Laws of Facebook

Where have YOU been?

Unless you have lived in a cave the last 4 years, you have probably heard of this. It is a rocking hot social networking site that seems to be almost everywhere today. It is on the news. It is on the radio. It is on the minds of millions of folks a day.

It is called "Facebook" and over 175 million people are active on this site.

Ok- I know that you may be asking," A LAW about Facebook?" Yes, 10 of them for marketing and business success in what you do. I am a marketer and have been for 20 years. I built a training and consulting business that does business in over 20 countries, because of social media and the internet. And there are marketing laws that all marketers and business professionals must follow if they are going to have Success in the marketplace online.

It is the same for Facebook.

Lets cover them briefly:

1) The Law of Visibility on Facebook.

You MUST be visible on Facebook of you are going to get your message out. You must spend time on Facebook and get to know people. You must put yourself together a "Facebook blueprint" and work it. How many hours a week are you going to be seen on FB? How many times are you going to befriend someone this week? How many times are you going to upload photos this week? All of these things put you in the 'Visibility Zone" on Facebook, and on the radar as far as people on Facebook. Be SEEN and be THERE on a daily basis.

2) The Law of the Powerful Facebook Profile.

Why would people want to get to know you? One of the first things they check out is your Facebook profile. What does it say- but better yet- what does it DO? Does it make people curious and want to get to know you? Does it make them think? Does it make them smile? Does it make them see that you have Value for their life and can help change it?

Powerful Facebook profiles are NOT based on what is said in your profile- but what it DOES.

Does it direct them to DO something? Does it tell them you are person they MUST know? Or someone that has a nice picture and a nice profile- with no magnetism? Put yourself OUT THERE and tell the world WHY they need you as a friend, and get them to take action towards YOU.

3) The Law of the Facebook WALL.

You MUST use your Wall to market or message. many folks regard their Wall as a communication utility like email. It is not that. You already have a Facebook email. The Wall is for you to BUILD- BRICK BY BRICK- MESSAGE BY MESSAGE- NOTE BY NOTE- VIDEO BY VIDEO- your Brand on Facebook. Every time something happens with you- it goes on your Wall. Don't stare at the wall- CLIMB THE SUCKER and make your message the PEAK of the page- and keep yourself out there with the Wall. And answer the messages on your Wall. Thank people for sharing with you their visit or message. This will show up on THEIR wall. This will set you apart from most on Facebook. The Wall is simply a BILLBOARD of what you are doing and your friends are doing on Facebook. Use it often and wisely.

4) The Law of Your Facebook Network.

You are part of a local Facebook network and you have access to that network to befriend them. I live in Birmingham Michigan, and the network i am a part of is the Detroit network. There are 640,926 people in my network that I could potentially MEET LIVE in a local place and get to know them and connect with them. You have local folks as well. Where do you find your network?

Click on "settings" and then click on "network." You will find it there. This is a GOLD MINE of people in your local area to CONNECT and Construct new trust bridges that may lead to business down the road.

5) The Law of the Facebook Notifications.

This is an overlooked and rarely talked about utility. Notifications are part of your "Facebook email system." Go to "email" at the top of your Facebook profile page, and then click on "notifications."This is list of who is thinking about you, talking about you, including you in tags, and generally is pointing to you. This is a GOLD MINE of people that have PROVEN they are behind you and willing to make you a part of their Facebook experience. Pay attention to the Facebook notifications. Thank them for their thoughts of you on their Wall and let them know you appreciate it. Include them as well on your tags and other activity on Facebook. The notifications are GOLD and is a prospecting Vault of Leads. And make sure you stay CONNECTED to them.

6) The Law of Facebook Link Love.

The Link application on Facebook is a HOT commodity. It allows you to post a link that you like and then sends it out on the news feed that is on your home page. It picks up the image that you want on the link page, and allows it to be a LIVE link. Send out other people's LINK and givem some LOVE. Do NOT just send out your own links. Let others do that. Find interesting links of others and send them out.

WHY? EXPOSURE for you. You will be given credit for the link. People LOVE link love. If you send out a LOT of other people's links on Facebook, they will start sending out YOUR links. Been there done that.

7) The Law of Facebook Groups.

Join groups. Join a LOT of Groups. Start your OWN groups. The join MORE groups. Why? Here are a few reasons: EXPOSURE. CONNECTION to other Group members. AUTHORITY. Start your own and be a Leader. INCREASE YOUR REACH.Groups extend your reach into Facebook. MULTIPLIED PROSPECTS. There are more people in a group - then on a profile page.

Duh. Build a list in your own group and then you can become an admin and email messages to them. Make them messages of VALUE and interest.

8) The Law of Facebook Events.

Attend events. Attend more Events. And then attend many MORE events. Why? It allows you to leave a message on the events page wall, and create exposure. I attend at least 2 Facebook events every week- to learn- and to network. Events can be found on the new Facebook page in the upper right under "Upcoming"-these are the events that are upcoming. There is one unique twist: You have birthdays under the "upcoming" tag- and you can send presents to folks. THIS will get their attention as it shows up on their wall and the news feed as well. Attend as many events as you can. make them worth your while- learn and grow from them. BUT'always leave a RSVP message about attending or not- with an encouraging message. This will show your professionalism, and caring.

Event UP! This will do you well on Facebook. Put the term "events" in the search box, and it will find every event that is going on in your network of friends. It is a GOLD MINE of new possibilties of business. Become a master of events!

9) The Law of Facebook Multimedia- Videos and Photos.

People LOVE photos and videos. They are the most looked at and watched pages on Facebook. Make some videos and upload them. Upload some photographs. Not only will the be seen on your wall and the Facebook news feed, but also will allow you to "tag" others on these. This means that you can pick out people you have befriended and let them know you are thinking of them. And when you tag someone- it shows up on THEIR wall. Not isn't THAT cool? It is called EXPOSURE!

10) The Law of the Facebook NEWS FEED.

This is the big kahuna of Exposure on Facebook. This gets you out to ALL of your friends and creates a massive exposure vehicle that can keep your brand in front and recognized. You also will be many times on the "featured" part of the new news feed on the right. This gives you HUGE exposure. Whatever you do, like change your status, upload a video, write and publish a note, or just comment on another person's message on the Facebook news feed- it SHOWS UP in the news Feed. Be seen- and be seen often if you are trying to brand yourself on Facebook.

Facebook - The New Internet Marketing Frontier

It takes getting eyeballs to see your product or service, millions of eyeballs, and Facebook is an untapped marketing resource. Only a handful of Internet wise guys know how to use it. Here are some tips.

Facebook, Inc., runs a leading social networking web site, Facebook.com. Initially launched by undergraduates at Harvard University for college students, the site was soon expanded to include alumni in the corporate world as well as high school students. Membership was opened to anyone with a valid e-mail address in 2006 and it has grown into the millions since.

The key to marketing on Facebook is this: A members full profile information is available only to other members who are somehow connected. The resulting "connections" is what makes Facebook a billion-dollar idea that offers fat bank accounts to marketers who know how to be one of "them".

A news feed feature, controversial at first, allows sponsors to push ads to highly targeted audiences in ways never before imagined. The value of these online connections that imitate those in real life is also reflected in classified advertising and that is where marketing is done, for free, among those connected "friends".

Forget about trying to spam the system. Friends tell their friends about spammers and global searches of all registered users are not possible, limiting the possibilities for SPAM and other abuses.

Facebook has features to stay relevant in the Web 2.0 world. It leads the generation of interactive web sites designed to make it easy for users to share video, music, and other multimedia content. And, for marketers to reach those people in this sharing model.

Facebook ranked as the sixth or seventh largest social networking site. It was on top in some key metrics, according to ComScore Media Metrix statistics quoted in Fast Company. It led the country in photo sharing, a capability at the heart of the Web 2.0 challenge. In 2007 the company signed up with Comcast to produce a webcast called the "Facebook Diaries," based on video contributed by users. Opening membership to the general public swelled the membership rolls and shifted the demographics away from the college age crowd. Interestingly, more than one-quarter of users were outside the United States.

Some marketers saw this shift to an older, more affluent, user base and moved in to make Facebook a steady source of steady income.

Some of the site features these marketers are using include:

........ The Wall

The Wall is a space on each user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see. One user's wall is visible to anyone with the ability to see their full profile, and different users' wall posts show up in an individual's News Feed. Many marketers use their friend's walls for leaving short, temporal notes. More private discourse is saved for Messages, which are sent to a person's Inbox, and are visible only to the sender and recipient(s) of the Message, much like email.

Facebook users are allowed to post attachments to the wall, whereas previously the wall was limited to textual content only. Marketers are wisely using this feature.

........ TheMarketplace

In May 2007, Facebook introduced the Facebook Marketplace allowing users to post free classified ads within the following categories: For Sale, Housing, Jobs, and Other. The market place is available for all Facebook users and is currently free. You can guess how valuable this feature is to marketers.

........ Pokes

Facebook includes a "poke" feature which allows one user to send a "poke" to another. Facebook defines it as - "a poke is a way to interact with your friends on Facebook. When we created the poke, we thought it would be cool to have a feature without any specific purpose. People interpret the poke in many different ways, and we encourage you to come up with your own meanings."

In principle this is intended to serve as a "nudge" to attract the attention of the other user. Friends often engage in what is known as a "poke war," where the poke is exchanged back and forth continuously between two users by using the "poke back" feature.

There are several new applications such as "X Me" and "SuperPoke!", that allow users to put any action in place of the word "poke." Again, smart marketers have found ways of using this feature as well.

........ Status

The "status" feature allows users to inform their friends and the Facebook community of what they are up to. Facebook prompts the status update with "(User name) is..." and Facebook users fill in the rest. Status updates are noted in the "Recently updated" section of a users' friend list. How about "Mr. blue is working on a new ebook."?

........ Events

Facebook events are a way for members to let friends know about upcoming events in their community and to organize social gatherings. This can be used for seminars, meeting, courses, podcasts, etc., but, used very carefully to avoid being tagged as a spammer.

........ Applications

The "Facebook Platform" provides a framework for developers to create applications that interact with core Facebook features.

Among the most popular applications are "Top Friends", which allows users to select and display their favorite friends; "Graffiti", which gives users a visual version of Facebook's wall; and "iLike", a social music discovery service that features concert information and a music trivia game, similar to the one featured on the iPod. Even games such as chess and Scrabble are available.

........ Facebook Video

Users can add their videos with the service by uploading video, adding video through Facebook Mobile, and using a webcam recording feature. Additionally, users can "tag" their friends in videos they add much like the way users can tag their friends in photos. This feature was expected to increase competition with MySpace. However, the Facebook Video Application does not allow sharing videos outside of Facebook.

Users are not supposed to be able to export or download videos from Facebook. I say "not supposed to" because a Greasemonkey Userscript was posted on Userscripts.org which allows both the downloading of Facebook Videos and the embedding of Videos on sites outside of Facebook's website. Another marketers dream tool.

Monetizing Facebook Through Contests

Nowadays, thousands of online entrepreneurs, small businesses, and large companies are monetizing Facebook through contests. It is not uncommon to see businesses pushing products, services, or causes through contests hosted in the social networking site. If you own digital space of any kind, you should be doing the same. The power of Facebook as a marketing tool is undeniable. Facebook is after all the biggest social media site out there. Its members are close to approaching the one billion mark. If this doesn't make you rush out and use Facebook like crazy, nothing will. The great thing about the social network is that you don't have to be an online entrepreneur to be abld to make use of it. Even if your business only operates offline, you can still make a huge online presence for it on Facebook.

Holding a Facebook contest is nothing new. Ever since the site's beginnings, people have been using it to conduct contests. Now that the site has grown into a whole new level, it's not surprising to see hundreds of contests being held on it in a daily basis. Marketers have seen the potential of Facebook contests and they are taking full advantage of it. You should be doing it as well if you want to leverage Facebook's huge traffic and member levels. Of course, the process is not as simple as offering prizes and stuff. You have to plan everything just like any marketing campaign. You can't just go in there without any directions or goals. If you do, you will likely fail.

Everybody knows that besides Facebook's advertising program, everything on the site is free to use. You don't have to pay a cent to make use of the services, resources and tools that it offers. Speaking of tools, there's one tool that is particularly helpful in holding Facebook contests and that would be the Facebook Connect feature. If you want to try monetizing Facebook through contests then Facebook Connect is something you should look into. This is going to make the whole contest process easier to conduct and of course simpler to track and measure. Facebook Connect was specifically made to help outside parties like you to get a better experience on the social network. With regards to contests, Facebook Connect will amplify the results of your contest campaign.

But first of all, what exactly is Facebook Connect and why does it matter in hosting Facebook contests? In the simplest of terms, it is but a feature of Facebook that allows users to shard their information and activities with third party websites and applications. You are basically connecting your Facebook account with third party websites. That is of course if you allow them to. Looking at this scenario on a marketing perspective, this is a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs, marketers, and businesses to get connected with customers, readers, clients, fans, etc. It is therefore not surprising to see many websites holding Facebook contests by leveraging the Facebook Connect feature. You will simply double or even triple the number of people you can reach if you use Facebook Connect on a contest.

Here's what happens if you host a contest on Facebook and then make use of Facebook Connect. Let's say you create a web application specifically for the contest you have in mind. In order for people to join in on the contest, they have to have a Facebook profile and they have to connect it to the web application you created via Facebook Connect. To use the web application, they will log in using the Facebook login details because this is the whole point behind Facebook Connect. You simply use your Facebook login details to sign in into third party websites and applications.

Now, whenever these people interact with your application, these interactions will be shown in their Facebook walls. They will show up in the feeds of other users who are friends with the people who joined your contest. In essence, people who join your contests will be promoting your contest for free. More people will be directed to your Facebook contest. There's a snowball effect. This is where the magic happens. If your Facebook contest is interesting enough, it could go viral. If the contest is geared towards promoting a product or service of yours, expect a spike in your sales. That's how powerful Facebook contests can be.

One obvious drawback of using Facebook Connect on a contest is the fact that people nowadays are more aware about security issues. They won't just give up their Facebook login details. Although Facebook Connect is pretty secure, you cannot discount the fact that people sometimes get freaked out when asked to connect their Facebook profiles to websites external of the Facebook banner. However, if the offers or prizes in your contest are hard to refuse, Facebook users have proven time and time again that they take risks when confronted with great free offers. With that said, if you play your cards well, people will be more than willing to connect their Facebook accounts to your website or application.

Now, let's go to the monetization part. The goal is monetizing Facebook through contests right? That basically translates to making money off Facebook. Most businesses use Facebook contests for marketing purposes like branding, introducing a new product or service, etc. You can also use the contests to make money right off the bat. The goal is to drive as many people as possible to your website or web application through the Facebook Connect feature then introduce them to your offers and services. It's as simple as that. In other words, the contest is merely a bait. This may sound a bit unethical but most of the time this is what Facebook contests are all about - just a small part in a huge marketing puzzle. It's a very effective marketing strategy as long as you have high quality products and services that will draw customers towards you.

Here are a few tips on how to effectively conduct a contest using Facebook Connect:

Offer great prizes. Give people reasons why they should connect their Facebook account to your website or application. If you are offering prizes of $5, why would anyone even bother connecting to you? So offer prizes that will blow people away that they will have no choice but to join.

Create a Facebook Page specifically for your contest. Keep in mind that a Facebook Page is different from a Facebook Profile or a Facebook Group Page. A Page differs because it can be viewed by anyone on the web whether he/she is logged into Facebook or not. This makes it a very great tool in promoting your contest.

Encourage those who joined your contest to share the contest with their Facebook friends. This will ensure that your contest is exposed to as many people as possible. Imagine someone sharing your contest to a thousand of his friends then these thousand friends do the same. The numbers can easily grow as people start sharing your contest.

These are everything you need to know about monetizing Facebook through contests. Keep them in mind and most importantly, follow them. A Facebook contest isn't too hard to pull off. If you have great offers, Facebook users will do all the marketing for you. For instance, if you're going to offer a free iPad, thousands of people will likely share your contest right after you announce it.

Kevin Coombe is the Owner of Market Web Group, LLC an online media consultant firm. He founded Market Web Group, LLC in 2009. The mission of Market Web Group is to generate a consistent stream of qualified leads for Businesses.

Market Web Group does Real Time Marketing for Businesses, both Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C). Strategies include: Video Marketing, SEO, SEM, PPC, Local Search (Google Maps), Social Media Marketing, Mobile Marketing, and most importantly (Automated Follow-up).

The Market Web Group puts your business message in front of your ideal customers online, in hundreds of places, so they see it, and your business gets noticed, for the lowest possible fee.