You are probably one of those millions of people who are using face book. As such you probably have got used to the layout that facebook automatically gives you. But have you ever though about how you can alter it? There are a few things you can use to that will give you a better Facebook experience.
Some of them might need to be checked for security. I actually trust very little before I check them and if you want to check them by using Wot it’s a good idea to add it to your add on which are on Firefox. This gives you the ability to see what sites have good intentions and what is doubtful and ones you really don’t want to enter. They have used the traffic lights colors on the right hand side of the URL. It’s a good idea to have it installed.

Back to Facebook

PageRage

If you want to change how your facebook looks you might like to look at using a new Theme. There are several available on PageRage. Make sure you check the themes for Trojans and any nasties before downloading. Another add on to Firefox which allows this is DrWeb which checks the links and downloads prior to downloading. On PageRage you can choose a theme and install it on your facebook page to change your whole outlook. To do this you need a special plug-in for Firefox and also one for Facebook. Once you have these you are ready to try it out.

The second option for you to use on Facebook you might like to try is Docs in Facebook

You can add this and use it to read your documents while in Facebook and upload documents and read news etc all on it. Interesting but remember it can be public so never upload a private document.

Have you got your twitter tab yet?

You really need to link the two if you use them both. This way you know what is going on, on both sites at the same time. It’s easier to do this than toggle between the two of them all the time. You can actually have up to I think it is 8 different profiles to follow on your Facebook with regards to Twitter. So keep tabs on your favorite conversations. Simple add in on your facebook and it is useful to twitter and see it on facebook. Keeps you to date while you site on Twitter and people get your feed on Facebook.

Last up is your RSS feed item

This is a facebook application which is rather fun. If you run more than one blog or a website, this is a must. What is does is enable you to do your RSS feeds through the update feature your Rss feed on your blog or website updates on your facebook profile. This brings both new and old visitors to your site. This is especially important if you are using more than one site as it is easier for you to administer. It’s almost like a control center for your RSS feeds for your different sites. You can specify which walls to post to on Facebook. It’s something to keep in mind even if you don’t need it yet.

Social networking and the keeping up with social statements are all part and parcel of blogging. This is the way the word spreads about your blog. People get to know you and what you are about. What your interests are and how you invest both your time and your energy in what you do. To enable you to do this with easy and to use this to your advantage you need to work out where and how you are going to be using your social skills. By having plug-ins in your blog you can enable yourself to do this with far greater ease.

Let us take a look at a few of the plug-ins available.

Sharebar

The first one we look at is called Sharebar.  This gives you the whole gamut of the available social networking sites. You can install it to provide either horizontal or vertical dependent on the size of your page. It can have both large and small buttons on your page. A very useful way of having your social networking buttons displayed. Full instructions are available from Dev Grow.

Follow Me

The second option we have is a plug-in called Follow me. You can stick a widget on the side of your blog, which enables large icons to be displayed as a popup. There have been several updates of this plug in with each one adding more functionality to the plug-in.

KnxDTBookmarks is next

This plug-in allows for you to put in your bookmarks at the bottom of your blog for that page. Besides the social network buttons, it allows you to share using Feedburner by email. This product is also available in Spanish.

A little extra flair has been added to the next one

It is called Sexy bookmarks. They are apparently very successful in getting people to pass on your articles, which is interesting. They have a whole array of bookmarks for you to display.

Share and follow is up next

This one sticks more or less to the more prominent of the social sites. 52 of them, in fact, and the list is growing. There is a video here for you to view, which enables you to see how share and follow works. It is available in several languages and has 5 different sizes of icons.

This following one is directed at Facebook
It is called Simple Facebook connect.  This posts to your facebook profile or fan page and uses shortcodes and has a fan box widget.  It does require PHP5 and is best with WordPress 3.

Get Social is a box that floats on the side of the blog

This has the major social sites lists and sits on the side of your blog and floats with the text as the visitor scrolls down the page.  When choosing a theme to add this to its important to make sure that the side of the page is left free of writing, or it will be hidden by the floating bar.

I hope that helped you to decide how to add your social media to your blog.

In our last post we implemented your WordPress blog into Facebook, and thus gave a huge advantage to attracting followers to your blog. As you have no doubt deduced the reverse is true, and you can implement Facebook into your blog. This gives the advantage of your friends being able to post comments into your blog from Facebook, and thanks to openID, negates the need for multiple passwords.

The process is very similar to integrating Facebook into your blog, and if you have successfully achieved that, then you should have no trouble in reversing the process.

To integrate Facebook into your blog you will need the following:

Root directory of your blog

API Key
Secret
(These will come from Facebook after you create a new application)

Facebook Connect WordPress plug-in

The plugin gives added advantages such as sharing stories, feeds, invitations and pictures on to your blog. This allows the blog to be spread word of mouth through Facebook, and gives your blog a personal touch and vibrant feel.

As before create a canvas page, and enter the root directory with a trailing slash in the “Canvas Call Back URL” field. In essence this is exactly the same as integrating the blog into Facebook, and you enter the secret, and API key that you receive from Facebook a little later on.

Download and enable the above plugin, and then you are nearly done. A few steps however have to be adhered to, to achieve integration.

Once the plugin is activated, enter the API key and secret. It is now possible to add the plugin to the sidebar of your blog.

A whole plethora of options are now available and many are enabled by default. The reason for this as they promote the sharing of your blog and your friends activity in relation to it, and that can only be a good thing. You will probably notice that there is an option to circumvent comment approval and publish comments straight away. The thinking behind this is that as comments come from real people so there is no need to moderate them as there is no way they can be from spambots.

Another option to consider is the send user comments to Facebook. This will show the comments to their friends and so spread the word of your blog. All very handy.

Once you have chosen your options, you will then be prompted to create a template, as these have to by in synchronisation with Facebook. Click activate template and the template is generated automatically. You can set languages here to if you wish.

After this step is completed you are more or less finished, and you will probably want to take sometime playing around with options in the template.

Once you have completed this step you have fully integrated Facebook into your blog, so now feeds, comments, pictures, and everything else will now appear in it. If you have integrated your blog into Facebook as per our previous post, then you have taken a significant step in promoting your blog.

Additionally, your blog has become far more vibrant, and activity on it is guaranteed with posts from your friends. As these posts will be seen by their friends so hopefully word will spread and your blog will gain more readers. This is the true definition of viral marketing.

To work social media to your advantage, it is essential to connect as much of it as possible so that it pulls together in the same direction. This way, you get out there, and in turn, bring readers to you. This is obviously the name of the game, and can bring you notoriety and possibly be very lucrative.

It is possible to display your WordPress blog on Facebook, and connecting them is not as hard as you may think. There are plugins designed to do exactly that, and with everything social network based, anything that allows you to spread the word can only be a good thing, especially as Facebook applications tend to snowball, and gain more followers.

To integrate the blog you must use the Wordbook plugin, which was developed by John Eckman in 2009. The advantages of using the plugin are clear, as your blog now has two lives, one from the original web page, and one on Facebook.

To set up the connection, you use the above plugin and the Facebook API’s. You will need the following information to connect them.

Root directory of your blog.
Secret – You will receive this from Facebook after registering as a developer
API Key – You will receive this from Facebook after registering as a developer
Wordbook plugin.

Follow these steps to connect the two.

Register as a developer on Facebook, you must already have an existing FB account to do this. Follow this link to register. Once you have agreed the terms and conditions you will receive the following:

Secret

API Key

You will need these later.

You will be asked to submit the “post-authorize call back URL”, and the post-remove call back URL”. In both fields you enter the root directory of your blog with a trailing slash. Effectively, these handle authorizations when a user posts or removes the application.

Next create a canvas page, and enter the root directory with a trailing slash in the “Canvas Call Back URL” field. If you miss the slash, then internal links on your WordPress blog will not work with Facebook.

Under canvas page settings, you are given two options to render the page. iFrame, of FBML. FBML is Facebook’s XML scheme to use Facebook tags such as profiles and so on, and it also access procedures. The Wordbook plugin however, works using iFrame. This option should make the application work a little faster, and only internal links will have to be adjusted on the blog to make them work.

After this is complete install the Wordbook plugin. This installs using the normal WordPress method. If you are unsure how to do this, follow this link.
Once installed you can enter the API key and secret into the relevant fields via the settings panel. You will also need to enter the URL of the canvass page, to enter in the canvass page field. In this field be sure you only enter the name of the blog AND NOT http://apps.facebook.com/. So for my blog I would just enter “Teahon”, and not http://apps.facebook.com/Teahon

The only thing left to do is to choose your options from inside the setting panel on your WordPress blog, and you’re done. Play around a little bit and see what suits you best.

A quick note about privacy on Facebook and how it views websites and blogs. When you link your blog with Facebook, it will view it as another application, and subsequently it will pull through any personal details such as date of birth etc. This is how Facebook creates its social networks. This will also allow the administrator of the blog information about you as a user.

However, by connecting your blog to Facebook, there are possibilities of communities being established around it, and thus with it advertising opportunities you would not normally have had.

In the social networking world, the better connected all your social networking sites are, the better the traffic you generate. In many cases this is the name of the game.