Know Your Audience

You can’t effectively market your business without knowing who your target audience is. In your Facebook Timeline dashboard, you can use your Insights data to help you identify your audience and from there, begin to break your advertising down by the demographics. Then use the Facebook Targeting Tools to help you deliver the ads according to those demographics. If you have a physical location, you will want to use the Geo Targeting option to target the people in your local area for in store promotions. Demographic Targeting by Job Title, Age or Gender as well as Likes and Interests Targeting can help you create target specific ads for a better ROI.

If you want to use the targeting feature by Job Title or Interest, you would enter it into the “Precise Interest field”. When you begin typing your keywords, Facebook auto-populates a list of related keywords with that audience’s population so you know how many people that particular ad will reach.

Engage customers

Now that you know how to target your audience with an Ad, the next task is to decide where to display it. You have several options for this and it’s best to mix it up putting some in your news feeds, as a custom tab or in a message. You can even place them on a new fan’s page as a thank you response when they Like your page. Their friends now see it in their feed as well so it has a far reaching effect.

Nobody likes to be brow-beat by a sales pitch day in and day out, so don’t use your Facebook Page solely for that purpose. Keep your fans and customers engaged by posting informative articles about your product or how your product helped solve a problem. Display photos, videos and polls that keep the fans engaged with you and other fans of the page. Social Fresh is a good example of this method with varied posts of polls, articles and images. All are brightly colored and customers are always engaging in conversations and debates with each other and the brand here.

 Create An Ad

We have walked through all of the technical aspects of using the Facebook Targeting Tools to get the most ROI with your Ads so now we’ll put all of that together to actually create the Ad.

1. Design Your Ad

Navigate to the Facebook Ads Page and click “Create Ad”.  Decide on which Timeline it will go, where you want it displayed, then choose the image and text to be displayed. Make sure you use bold colors that will stand out from the blue and white background of Facebook.

2. Target Your Audience

Using any of the desired targeting tools, enter the demographics you want to target with this ad. Facebook will generate an Estimated Reach of your ad based on the information you selected so you’ll be able to see the demographic reach at a glance.

Set A Budget

It’s now time to set your budget for the ad but first you need to decide if you are optimizing for “Likes” or “Clicks”. The option to optimize by Likes isn’t available to everyone just yet so you may not have this option right away. Your budget can be set as lifetime of the ad or by the day. You set how long you want the ad to run by selecting the dates in the “Campaign Schedule” and Facebook will auto-populate the CPC based on your targeting and budget allotment.

Review Your Ad

The last step is to review your ad for accuracy. You will see a summary of your target audience, your CPC and the total budget along with the duration of the ad. If you need to make any changes to the ad, now is the time to do so by clicking “Edit” otherwise click “Place Order”.

Manage And Refresh Your Ads

You’ll want to monitor your ads to determine the effectiveness of them. Within the Ad Manager, you’ll be able to see which ones have the highest click through rates, lowest cost per click, etc. The Advertising Performance Report and Demographic Response Report can be accessed in your Ad Manager by going to the Reports tab. Tracking and adjusting your ad content and target may be necessary as you first start out and these reports can help you determine what’s working and what’s not. It’s also recommended to refresh your ads weekly to prevent your click through rate from dropping. That can be anything from changing text or simply changing the image of the ad.

Now it’s your turn to go create an ad for your business! Come back and share your experience of creating and using Facebook Ads with us! We’d love to hear how it has impacted your business and marketing strategy.

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App security

Did you know that even if you think you’re careful of what you view or allow, it’s not only what apps and websites you allow to access your Facebook account, it’s also what your friends allow on theirs that attach to your account and impact what information is shared about you. Malware is a piece of software that is automatically installed on your computer without your knowledge. Apps are a common place for Malware to hide and can be easily added to your computer when you visit sites while logged into your Facebook account. Managing and cleaning up this section of your account requires more vigilance than simply checking a security setting box. When you open this section, you may be surprised at how may apps are actually attached to your Facebook account.

To check your profile for a list of Facebook Applications, click on the “Edit Settings” in the Application Settings.

When you click on the “Edit Settings” link for one of the applications, you’ll see what the app has access to and you can edit those settings. If you no longer want that app on your Facebook account, click the “X” to delete the app. It will be deleted temporarily but you’ll eventually see it back in your list. The best way to avoid apps attaching Malware to your computer is to log out of Facebook before surfing the Internet.

You may not realize it, but the apps your friends use on Facebook can also access information about you, like your photos, hometown and current city. If that’s a concern for you, there are two ways to manage how your information is shared. The first and most extreme is to disable all platform apps to completely prohibit any third party Facebook apps from accessing your account. You can do this by clicking “Turn Off All Apps” in this section.

The second option is to deselect the boxes of information that you don’t want shared with the world. You can do this in the “This App Can” section of each app. As seen above, I allowed Pinterest to post on my behalf but I deleted the rest of the default sharing options.

Blocking People

If someone is contacting you or posting negative comments on your wall, you can block them from being able to access your account. Go to that person’s Timeline and hover over the “Friends” tab. You’ll see a drop down menu of options to choose from. You can simply click “Restrict” to block them from accessing your Facebook page or you can “Unfriend” them altogether.

Custom Privacy

In addition to each category setting above, you can customize your Facebook account further so that only specific people can see certain updates and the same can be done if you want to hide updates from certain people. Just change your “Privacy Setting” to “Custom” and the window will open where you can select who will see that information. Making lists of family, coworkers, or whoever you will send bulk email to will make this step much quicker.

Post Security

Facebook is a place where you share all of the big things and small things with your family and friends. Though we should always keep security in mind, it shouldn’t keep you from sharing pictures of your family or a vacation for fear of it being seen by the wrong people. When you write a status update, you can select who sees that update by clicking on the padlock icon next to the “Post” button. Then only those people you select will be able to see the post and comment on it.

If you follow all of the security steps in part 1 and part 2 of Putting Your Facebook On Lockdown, you shouldn’t have any trouble with a hacked or compromised account. I will be making some changes to my account and cleaning up some things that don’t need to be there. Will you join me in making Facebook more secure for you and your family?

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1. Create An Account

• If you are new to YouTube, you can set up an account in a flash using your Google credentials. If you don’t have a Google account, then create one and return to the YouTube sign in page.
• Once you have an account, a channel will automatically be created for you. To begin adding video, click the “Upload” button in the top right corner. The video will be added to your channel. To view your channel, click on your username at the top of the screen.

2. Link Your Accounts

• On the left side of the screen, under the “Subscriptions” tab, you will see “Social”. This is where you will begin the steps to link your social media accounts to your YouTube channel.

• In order to start sharing your content and viewing your contact’s video feed, begin by connecting your social media accounts. Connect your Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Orkut accounts by clicking “Connect” next to any you want to share content to. It will prompt you to sign into those accounts during the setup process, but not again after it is linked. If you ever want to unlink an account, simply click “Disconnect.”

• Once you are connected to your social media accounts, the feed on your YouTube channel will auto-populate all the video’s that your friends and social media contacts have been watching.  You can get a better feel for your subscribers interests by clicking their name. Doing this will bring you to the social media account from the social network the content was shared on. This method is fine for specific viewing but not the best way to see who your audience is. A better way to build better content and gauge demographics and interests, is by using YouTube Analytics.

Linking your social media accounts will save you time, by seamlessly updating all linked accounts whenever you upload or favorite new content. This method will increase the exposure your content receives, increasing your chances of creating viral material.  Whatever method you choose to promote your business, make sure that all of your social media accounts represent a cohesive view of your business.

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At the moment, the social tracking feature in GA only supports Facebook, Twitter and Google +1. The Google +1 tracking is already integrated to GA, so you don’t have to add any extra code. This article will show you how to implement the tracking code for Facebook and Twitter.

Assumption

Before we start, I have to assume that you are using the newer asynchronous Google Analytics code on your site. It should look something like this:

<script type="text/javascript">
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-xxxxxx-x']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
</script>

If not, go to your Google Analytics account, grab the new code and add it to your site.

Adding the tracking script

Download this minify javascript and upload to your server (the original script can be found here).

Add the following code to your header file, just before the </head> tag:

<!-- Google Analytics Social Button Tracking -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://url-to-script/ga_social_tracking_min.js"></script>

Replace “url-to-script” to the actual URL where you upload the javascript file.

Adding Facebook Like button tracking code

In your web page, locate the section where you display the Facebook Like button code. It should look something like this:

<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#appId=222584734419298&amp;xfbml=1"></script>
<fb:like href="" send="true" width="450" show_faces="true" font=""></fb:like>

Just below this code, add the following:

<script type="text/javascript">_ga.trackFacebook();</script>

The complete code should look like this:

<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#appId=222584734419298&amp;xfbml=1"></script>
<fb:like href="" send="true" width="450" show_faces="true" font=""></fb:like>
<script type="text/javascript">_ga.trackFacebook();</script>

Adding Twitter button tracking code

For Twitter’s Tweet button, we need to add a callback function to activate the tracking. All you have to do is to copy/paste the code to your <head> tag.

<script>
(function(){
var twitterWidgets = document.createElement('script');
twitterWidgets.type = 'text/javascript';
twitterWidgets.async = true;
twitterWidgets.src = 'http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';
// Setup a callback to track once the script loads.
twitterWidgets.onload = _ga.trackTwitter;
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(twitterWidgets);
})();
</script>

Implementing Social Tracking in WordPress

If you are using WordPress, one plugin that you can use to implement the tracking code is Social Media Tracking.

Viewing the Analytics

Log into your Google Analytics account. If you have not switched to the new version, do it now.

Under the “Visitor” section, you should see a “social” link. click the “Engagement” link and you should be able to view your social engagement statistics.

That’s it.

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What you could really use is “Storify” – a web service that merges the most popular information sites and a story-writing interface. Not only will you save time on the research, but you will also form and publish your stories quickly.

Introduction

Storify is a web service currently in its beta. It lets you write stories on any topic and then quickly publish. The site offers an intuitive interface that lets you find and import various types of media and data from Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube, and other websites. Your story is then published under a public URL that you can share with your friends. Visiting stats of the story are recorded and displayed to show how popular a story is.

Usage

You can sign into Storify using your existing Twitter account. With your Twitter account linked to the site, you then have to provide your email address.

You will see an interface with the Twitter feed on the left and your story pane on the right. The left pane is for your resource material. The right pane is where you enter the story’s title and description, select its image thumbnail, and drag sources.

To find sources, focus on the left pane. Select a site available from the sidebar. Enter your search query and the type of results you want. For example, if you have chosen Google as a source you will need to specify whether you are looking for web results or images. The results will load up in the same pane.

You can drag your desired results to the right and make them a part of your story. You can switch between different sources and add various types of data to your story: tweets, Facebook pages, URLs, videos, images, etc.

When you have a sufficient number of sources you will be able to change the story’s thumbnail image in the right pane. The image options will actually be thumbnails retrieved from the sources you added.

If you feel like you need to add your own comments between the stories, you can click on the ‘T’ icon.

This icon presents a text box where you can write text with bold, italics, strikethrough, underlined, and hyperlinks.

You can add as many text boxes as you want, even on top of one another.

With your story complete, you can either save it as a draft for future editing or publish it right away through the buttons located on top.

Your story is published on a unique URL and displayed exactly the way you ordered your sources and text.

Links at the bottom of the page allow you to quickly share the story on Twitter, like it on Facebook, and obtain its embeddable code that can be easily used on your own site or blog.

To share the direct URL of the story, just copy it from your browser’s address bar.

Visits to the story page are recorded and displayed as a sign of the story’s popularity.

Conclusion

Storify offers a unique and user-friendly way of telling a story and sharing chunks of information from social media sites. Its clean interface and ease-of-use will surely be appreciated by all its users. The next time you are looking to create a mosaic of information from the web, remember to pay a visit to Storify. It will definitely pay off.

You can visit Storify’s homepage over here.

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If you are not trying to market something and using Twitter to be social, the 140 character limit can be a pain sometimes. Tweetdeck has added a feature called Deck.ly. The long and the sort of it (pun intended), is you can create longer tweets through Tweetdeck.

How Deck.ly works

Here is a rundown on how Deck.ly will work. The pictures were taken of the Tweetdeck desktop application. Below there are other options which work in a similar way.

As you are typing and using up your allotted 140 characters, you will see a notification like this.

You can continue to keep typing and post your update like normal.

When you send your update, you will see a tag at the end of your tweet saying Read More. If the people viewing your update are using Tweetdeck, they will see the same thing.

If they are viewing your update from a different application or a site like Twitter, there will be a Deck.ly link at the end.

When they click on that link, they will see a pop-up or a new page showing the longer message. In this page, there is an option to post a comment and see other people’s comments.

Where is Deck.ly?

There are several ways to use Deck.ly. Below are the 3 options you have to choose from. All of which will have the same end result:

Desktop Application

The first method, as you would expect, is within the Tweetdeck desktop application. As long as you have the most recent version, you do not need to do anything special to use Deck.ly.

All you will need to do to use Deck.ly is type more than 140 characters into the status bar. Once you reach 141 characters you will see an option box for Long Update.

When this box is selected, the tweet will not be cut off or split up into several tweets. As mentioned earlier, you will see a Read More tag or a Deck.ly link instead.

Chrome

The Google Chrome extension is a great option for those of you who don’t want to want to install anything on their computer. The Chrome extension works in the same way as the desktop application. Type everything you’d like to say, then the Long update option will automatically appear.

Android

The Tweetdeck for Android application works like the Google Chrome web application does. There is nothing you need to do to activate Deck.ly. You will be able to type and type and type then post your update.

Conclusion

Using Tweetdeck by way of the desktop application or the Google Chrome web application is very user friendly. Adding in a longer tweeting option is great for those posts that I want to RT but there isn’t enough room with hashtags, giving credit and adding in a comment.

As for Tweetdeck for Android, I do not use it regularly. The reason I prefer other applications is Tweetdeck for Android does not allow scheduled tweets. If it offered that feature I would use all three versions religiously.

What are your reasons for needing more than 140 characters?

image credit: jm3

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Frid.ge is a private social site offering a lot of what you are used to without the prying eyes of everyone who have friended or followed you everywhere else on the web. If you are familiar with any other micro blogging sites, Frid.ge most resembles Tumblr.

A little about Frid.ge

Frid.ge is invite only. If you are not looking to air all of your sharing and messages to the whole world, you found the right application. Organizations, businesses and clubs will greatly benefit from the social aspect coupled by privacy of Frid.ge.

Inviting others

Once you get the basic setup completed, you will need to invite others. The great part of using Frid.ge is it’s an invitation only site. If you want to make a forum to complain about work, you can invite everyone who has a beef with your employer. This can be done in a couple ways.

Like a lot of applications out there today, you can have your Gmail contact list scanned for people you may want to invite.

The other way is to send the potential participant an invitation link. This link is specific to your “fridge”.

What Frid.ge does

You create a post or update just like on many other sites. You can use text, a picture or video. When you post an update, you will see it in chronological order. If you are a business working on a project, this is great for keeping the group up-to-date.

More than one group

What I like is you can have more than one group. Each group has a different invite link. That means you can have several segmented groups with similar members in each group.

How to post

Posting can be done in a couple ways. While there isn’t a mobile application for your iPhone or Android, you can email in your post. Each person you invite to participate will have a unique email address to send updates to.

If you have a standard phone, you can send a SMS message to the email address and update while you are on the go.

Your wall

You have your own wall and it will show your recent posts, whereas “my fridge” will show everyone’s updates.

Update notifications

If you aren’t tied to your computer all day and therefore might not have the Frid.ge open all the time to see when new updates are available, you can get it to email you whenever a new update is posted.

Much like Facebook and Twitter, this can be a bit much if you have a lot of active users. I would recommend setting up a folder and a filter or rule to separate the emails you get or you may get overwhelmed.

How you might use Frid.ge

I could see a lot of potential uses for something like this. Right off the top of my head, I see people using this for collaborating on a project, planning an event, inter-company updates, client updates, club events, managers communicating to employees, editors to writers, apartment managers broadcasting information to renters, site owners communicating to loyal readers in place of a newsletter…

What are some uses you might have for a private social network?

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RockMelt is a new web browser, backed by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, which aims to bridge the gap between social sharing and web surfing. The browser is build around your social circle, feeds, search results and friends.

Request an Invite To Download Rockmelt

Rockmelt has recently entered a public beta but you will need an invitation to download the application. To request a free invite, head over to the RockMelt website and connect your Facebook account.

You will soon receive an email invitation with a link to download RockMelt for free. Once the setup file has been downloaded to your computer, double click to launch the web installer – yes you will need an internet connection to install Rockmelt (just like Google Chrome).

Getting Started with Rockmelt

When you run the browser for the first time, you will be asked to sign in with your Facebook account and grant all the required permissions.

The browser will continuously check your Facebook news feed among other connected sites, hence you should not revoke the permissions later.

Rockmelt completely mimics the look and functionality of Google Chrome. The browser has three main panels – one each to the right, left and top. The right panel is for connected sites, the left panel for social friends while the top panel is for search results and feeds.

Your Facebook Friends Panel in Rockmelt

The left panel of Rockmelt revolves around your Facebook friends, you can create a list of favorite Facebook friends, read their latest status updates and do a lot of other interesting things.

Clicking a friends thumbnail shows you more options – you can start a chat right away without logging in to your Facebook account. The person need not necessarily be using the RockMelt browser, he will receive your chat message on his Facebook profile or any desktop client he might be using.

There are other useful options as well, navigate to the “Recent Activity” tab and you can see the recent links shared by your friend on his profile. You can click through any shared link, image, video and it will open in a new browser tab.

Double click the profile thumbnail to open your friends Facebook profile on a new tab. You may hit the “Write” button to write a message on your friends wall or send a direct message.

You can again “Like” an update or post comment directly from the RockMelt window, it’s very sleek and fun to play around with.

The browser will also show live desktop notifications near windows system tray, whenever there is a new status update from a friend or someone sends you an IM. These desktop notifications can be turned off from the browser’s preferences and you can completely customize which notifications you want to see.

Should you want to take a quick look at your Facebook news feed, simply hit the Facebook icon at the right of the browser window. This will open a small pop up  with all the links, posts, videos and images shared on your Facebook wall.

Adding Connected Sites And Feeds in Rockmelt

Social media is not only about people but also about the websites you visit on a regular basis. If you read a lot of articles on blogs, RSS feeds and watch YouTube videos – RockMelt’s connected sites panel will come in handy.

The connected sites panel is on the right side and lets you do a few important things. First, you can add RSS feeds from blogs, websites and other sources and read them one by one on an overlay window. You may also add your other social networking profiles e.g YouTube channel, Twitter account or Friendfeed lifestream and then read the corresponding updates in their own overlay window.

For example: I added the Maketecheasier RSS feed as one of the sites and now I can read the recent articles in a new overlay window:

Agree this is no alternative of a full featured RSS reader like Feeddemon or Google reader but can be useful if you follow a handful of blogs and want to read the updates directly from the browser’s sidebar. The social sharing options are also tightly integrated, hit the share button next to any feed item and the blog post is shared over your Facebook wall, with your custom comment of course.

Whenever there is a new update on any of your connected sites, a notification is shown in another overlay pop up. This differentiates the connected sites panel with your bookmarks toolbar, which sadly never shows any notification or recent updates.

Using RockMelts Search Bar And Sharing Features

One of the nice things about RockMelt is the ability to preview search results directly from the browser’s search bar. Type a keyword or a phrase and hit the return key to preview Google search results on a browser overlay, as shown below:

You can again use the “Share” button place just right to the address bar to share any webpage on your Facebook wall. The webpage can either be shared as a link or can be sent as a message to selected Facebook friends.

All in all, RockMelt is a must used browser if you do a lot of social sharing and use Facebook as the primary medium for online marketing. It doesn’t get better than this – from surfing websites to sharing links to getting instant notifications, RockMelt will keep you ahead of the curve.

Try out RockMelt today, if you do not have an invite yet – ask some of your Facebook friends because chances are that they have already given RockMelt a try.

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What makes Twimbow different is that it color codes your tweets and let you personalize it to your liking.

Columns

For starters the column layout is different from most other Twitter clients. You will only ever see 3 columns when using Twimbow, but you can access many columns worth of information from these 3 pillars. In the combined columns you have access to information which would normally take up 3 or more columns in other applications.

In the Home Buzz, you can click on the ladder looking icon on the top left of the column. Doing this will drop down all of your Twitter lists and lists you follow.

In the search column, clicking on the magnifying glass will let you select from all of your existing searches. These searches would be additional columns in other apps.

Personal Buzz

Your Personal Buzz column combines your Direct Messages, @ mentions, RTs from and about you, and your favorite saved tweets. If you do not want one of these categories to show up in the column, you can delete it.

Home Buzz

The Home Buzz column is your normal stream of incoming tweets. You can see all of the normal information in this column.

If you are reading your main stream of tweets and see part of a conversation, you have the option of expanding a tweet to see all the tweets making up the thread. This feature is a big time saver if you start reading half way through.

Searching

Searching in Twimbow can be done by the search bar in the top right corner of the window. You can perform 2 types of searches, for a person or a keyword. To toggle between the searches, click on the word Search or People.

When you complete a search, you will see the results in the third column. You can search for numerous terms and people, all will be displayed in the third column. Each new search will appear on top of the last search. Access the previous searches by clicking on the magnifying glass.

Also part of the search is the Monitor. The Monitor is a popup screen displaying a collapsed search window. You can quickly see how many new tweets are in the search. If you want to see the tweets, you can expand the search window.

Sending a tweet

Sending a tweet is pretty straight forward, click the New Post tab and type your 140 characters. The built-in URL shortener is Bit.ly and the pictures are added via Pikchur.

One feature I wasn’t used to is being able to add a song to a tweet. I’ve usually used Blip.fm or share options within Pandora. Being able to type in the artist name and song title then add it right there is very convenient.

In the body of the tweet, you can change the colors of the text to add a little flair and make your tweet stand out from the rest of the stream.

Conclusion

I really like the use of space. It saves time not needing to scroll to the right 8 columns to check on a search term. Being able easily add a song is a cool feature. The tweets I sent using the colors and songs did not show up correctly in Tweetdeck or the new Twitter. I am sure that will be taken care of though.

Right now Twimbow is invite only. Head over to Twimbow, fill in your Twitter username and email and they will send you the invitation code. If they have run out of invite, simply leave a comment here with your Twitter username and we will help you get an invite. Limited slots. First come, first serve.

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Twitter, Tumblr, Friendfeed and others use this method to display updates. It is fast, fluid and searchable; all of which are essential in today’s fast pace business environment. Wouldn’t it be great if you could have your own inter-company Twitter? Present.ly gives you just that!

Two Versions

There are 2 versions, an enterprise version to download and run on your own server. This option is more geared for larger companies.

For smaller groups, there is a free hosted version. It is all web-based and can be accessed from either a computer or a mobile device such as a Blackberry or Android. This is the one we will be talking about.

Setting up an account

Setting up an account is pretty straight forward. You need to input information about your company and a administrator’s name and email address. If you would like to add other branding information and a description of some kind.

The next part of the setup is to choose how people are invited. You can have the admin send invites to people, allow access to anyone on a specific domain or via an access code.

Sending an invite

Sending an invite from the administration screen is a breeze. Click on Invite from the navigation bar near the top of the window. A sidebar will appear on the right with several spots for the invitees email addresses.

Using Present.ly

If you are familiar with Twitter, you pretty much know what you need to know for basic usage. You can use hashtags, follow people and even create groups. The groups are great for collaborating on a project. You can send an update out to the group group only.

There is an option to see topics which are sorted by hashtags. This is another great way to share updates with everyone, but make it easy to search for by your group.

Works with Twitter

Present.ly lets you use your already established Twitter account too. The admin can choose a specific hashtag to include in your tweets. As long as you include that hashtag, Present.ly will scour Twitter for it and place the tweet to your Present.ly update stream.

RSS

Sometimes you may not need to interact, but need to keep an eye on several update streams. In situations like these, you have the choice of getting your information delivered via RSS feed. This is pretty cool if you are already a RSS reader user; it can be a normal part of your daily routine.

Conclusion

I really like this service a lot. It offers operations of all sizes a great way to get real-time information on anything going on in the organization. I think for some older companies, it may take a little bit of effort to get the employees used to using a new tool, but it can tremendously decrease the inter-company email volume .

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Let’s turn the situation around. What if you can find out which social networks your friends are involved in when you received emails from him/her? Rapportive does just that. Rapportive is a browser extension (available for Firefox, Chrome, Safari and MailPlane) and it works with your Gmail or Google Apps account. When you are reading your email, Rapportive will scan the sender’s address for the social networks he/she is in and present all the info on the side pane, right where the Google ads are.

Using Rapportive

Install the browser extension from here.

Once installed, login to your Gmail. The Rapportive link should be visible at the top of the page.

Overall, the application is pretty hands-off. When you are reading your email, Rapportive will grab the sender’s address and scan the various social networks for detail.

You are not asked to do anything except read the information displayed. If you choose to interact, you only have a couple actions you can take. You can:

• Click on the links in their displayed information
• Create a private note
• Add information

Why use Rapportive?

The biggest reason I can think of is the building your day to day business connections. People like to buy things from people they are comfortable with. This means friends are high up on the list. If you court potential clients within their comfort zone and do not push your product or service on them, they won’t feel like you are stalking them on their social networks. You will however, get to know them.

Info you see in Rapportive

As mentioned, you see information about your Gmail pen-pal in the sidebar of your message window. This information is pulled from social sites all over the web. Information from Linkedin will show your job history, recent tweets will show up along with links to all of your known social accounts.

Your Rapportive profile

You may be wondering what YOUR profile will show. Well, you’re in luck. You can click on the link at the bottom of the Rapport window. You can see what others will see.

When I clicked on the link to see my profile, I had a good laugh. It displayed a profile picture I uploaded to Myspace quite a while ago to be funny. If this happens to you, fret not. You can change your profile pic at Gravatar.com

Rapportive notes

With all of the information flooding our head on a daily basis, it would be a miracle to remember small details about your Gmail contacts. Rapportive puts a notes option in the window. Using the private notes allows you to jot down a quick thought or tid bit to help you late connect you with your contact. The note can be anything from a mention of their birthday to an interesting tweet.

Conclusion

I have been testing out Rapportive for a couple weeks now. While you could use Rapportive to track down what social applications friends and family are on, It has a greater value for a small business owner or someone in sales.

My take on the overall goal of the add-on is to find out information to help you make conversation with people you might not know too well. Having a list of sites they might frequent will give you some insight into how they interact socially with people online.

Do you know of other applications like Rapportive? Leave a link in the comments.

Image credit: Rapportive

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The two leading smartphone operating systems, Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, both have some backup functions built-in. In the case of Apple, it is possible to backup to the cloud through MobileMe. However, this is a relatively expensive solution and reviews suggest that it has some serious limitations. Google’s offering is also limited, but it is completely free. In both cases there are restrictions as to the type of media that can be backed up. Android only syncs your contacts, calendar and email and neither syncs bookmarks, messages or calls.

With such poor offerings, I was pleasantly surprised when I came across m:IQ. This app is a simple tool to ensure all the data (including photos, videos, calls, messages and bookmarks) on the phone is backed up.

Note: This app heavily consumes data (as uploading photos and videos takes up a lot of bandwidth). Hence, it is advisable that you have an unlimited data plan on your phone.

1. Setup

Although it is possible to register this app directly from your phone, I prefer to start with the web. First, navigate to the m:IQ and sign-up for an account.

M:IQ supports a large catalogue of devices including phones running Android, Symbian, Windows and Blackberry.

Once you have signed-up on the web, navigate to http://m.miqlive.com/ on your phone. On my Android phone this opened up the marketplace and displayed the m:IQ application (other systems may produce different different results).

2. First Use

Once installed, launch the application and login.

That’s it! Providing your phone has a stable connection, your data will immediately start backing up to the m:IQ dashboard. You can also click on the big green button to start/stop the sync.

There are a few (limited) settings that allow you to select the type of data that you would like to backup (contacts, calendar, messages, calls, bookmarks, photos and videos).

Further, you can set whether you want your data to be private or made public. M:IQ integrates a number of social features (discussed below), but these can be universally blocked by switching on the Privacy Mode.

3. Dashboard

The m:IQ dashboard is the control centre for all your backed up data.

The Home page displays a summary of all your data. Along the top, you can select the type of data you want to view. You can also upload photos and videos and add contacts directly from the dashboard.

Each of the dedicated pages also offer a number of useful features, including the ability to search your data.

Contacts

Your contacts names along with their contact details (email, phone, address, etc) are displayed.

Messages

The contacts who you have received message from or sent to you are displayed alongside the text of the messages. You can also send messages directly from this page.

Calls

The names of the persons who called and who you called are displayed alongside their telephone numbers.

Calendar

The Calendar page displays all the events in your default Google calendar. In my case it has also backed up my “Phone Calls” calendar (added through CallTrack), but has not backed up any of my other custom calendars.

Photos and Videos

The photo and video pages allow you to share and download the photos that have been uploaded to m:IQ. If you have set up your sharing to public, you will be able to select which photos you want to share with the public.

Only photos and videos from the following folders are uploaded (so ensure you move your data to these folders):

• BlackBerry: Pictures, Videos
• Android: Gallery
• Symbian S60: Images, Videos
• Windows Mobile: My Pictures, My Videos, DCIM

There is also a 1GB storage limit for all your photos and videos and your photos and videos remain on m:IQ even after you delete them from your phone, so ensure you keep an eye on your data limit.

4. Social Features

What really set m:IQ apart is the social features that come with this app.

Firstly, all m:IQ users get a dedicated “social” page at http://miqlive.com/your-username. Here your shared photos and videos are displayed.

Next, it is possible to have the photos and videos synced with m:IQ to be automatically uploaded to your social media sites. You can do this automatically, or on a piecemeal basis.

To automatically share your photos, first click on “Social Settings” from the Home page of the dashboard.

Here you can allow Facebook and Twitter to automatically share your status and photos, and have Flickr and FriendFeed automatically share your photos. Unfortunately, the number of social networks is limited and there does not appear to be any method of automatically sharing videos.

Now, whenever a photo or video is synced to m:IQ it will automatically be uploaded to your social networks.

To share individual photos navigate to the Home page and look for the “I WANT TO…” section.

Click on “SHARE A PHOTO” and a small box displaying the four social media networks will pop-up. You can then drag your photos to the social networks to have them upload.

Remember, if you have enabled privacy mode on your phone, no matter what you select on the dashboard, your data will not be shared.

5. Conclusion

M:IQ is not only a powerful backup tool, but has also managed to develop robust social features.

Backup is not something we want to have to think about on a regular basis. In that respect m:IQ exceeds my expectations: once the app is turned on I don’t ever have to worry about my data. In addition, the integration of social media networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, allow you to easily share your photos with your friends.

Finally, if you change phones syncing all your data to the new phone will be a breeze (I have not tried this feature).

Can m:IQ be your solution to mobile backup? Can us know in the comments.

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All these extensions work from Google Chrome and you can manage your Twitter account, Facebook profile, shorten URL’s, Digg blog posts, watch YouTube videos and do many more interesting things.

1. Twitter Share This Page

The Twitter share this page extension adds a Twitter button in the address bar of Google Chrome. When you are reading a webpage and want to tweet about it, simply hit the Twitter button from the Chrome address bar. The extension will shorten the link using Bit.ly, copy the page title and take you to your Twitter account.

If you are already signed in, the extension will use the same browser tab to send the update to your Twitter profile. Overall, the extension makes it dead easy to tweet a link but fails if you want to manually type something and tweet it.

2. Facebook Photo Zoom

The Facebook photo zoom extension is very useful when you want to view a photo without having to click through to view the entire Facebook album. Normally, whenever your friends publish photos in their Facebook profile, a thumbnail of the image is shown. To view the original image, you have to click the photo album and load the photos one by one. But the photo zoom extension makes it dead simple – just hover over a thumbnail and the larger version is shown instantly.

This extension works for profile photos, wall photos and photo albums. You can view a photo directly from your news feed and when you hover over any image, the larger version is shown automatically.

3. URL Shortener

The URLShortener extension for Google Chrome lets you shorten URL’s using a lot of URL shortening services. This include: Bit.ly, Goo.gl, Youtu.be,  TinyURL, Cli.Gs, Is.Gd, Chilp.it and many other popular services. Once the extension is installed, go to the options page and choose which URL shortening service you want to use.

The extension also supports retrieving the Title of the shortened web page along with the URL, so you can use this extension to post updates to your Twitter account, share links with followers etc. Also read: 12 Google Chrome extensions for RSS addicts.

4. Digg for Chrome

The Digg for chrome is an official extension and it’s a must use for Digg fans. If you frequently Digg pages and find it difficult to see the votes of a particular webpage, this extension will be immensely useful.

Once the extension is installed, first enter your Digg username in the extension settings.

Next, you will find that the Digg count of a webpage is shown in the extreme right of the address bar. Click the Digg count button and you will see the comments and a button to Digg that page. There is also a random button which lets you discover new content and popular stories on Digg.

Want to Digg the story as well as share it on Facebook and Twitter? Hit the “Tweet” or “Fshare” button and the page is shared in your Twitter and Facebook account.

5. Stumbleupon for Chrome

The Stumbleupon extension for Google Chrome lets you find new and interesting websites that matches your interests. This extension works like a bookmark to the Stumbleupon toolbar, just hit the “Stumble” button placed in the right of the Chrome address bar and start discovering stumbled pages. Current features include: stumbling, sharing, rating and reviewing.

6. Delicious Bookmarks for Chrome

Delicious Bookmarks integrates with Google Chrome bookmarks and keeps them in sync. You can save a bookmark in your Delicious account using the “TAG” button and search within Delicious bookmarks right from Google Chrome.

The extension can sync bookmarks but given the fact that Google Chrome can itself backup the bookmarks to your Google account, this might not be that necessary. However, if you are a heavy weight Delicious user and often bookmark pages at your Delicious account, this extension will make things simpler.

7. My TubeSmart Video – Customize YouTube Video Buffering in Chrome

The MyTube Smart Video extension provides better buffering of YouTube videos and provides more playing options. Works with all embedded YouTube videos – be it on your Feed reader or in Facebook. You can choose to play the YouTube video when the buffering is complete, or when the page has finished loading completely.

The extension also has an option to calculate the time left before the video starts playing. If your internet connection is slow and videos take a lot of time to load, this extension will come in handy.

Enjoy using Google Chrome extensions as much as we do? Check out this definitive list of must have Google Chrome extensions and do tell us about your favorite extensions in the comments section.

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Fizzik aims to help you find, enjoy and share the best media on the Web. What makes it different from the rest is that it is built from the ground up and focus solely on solving your social media needs. It is minimal in design and does not comes with extra things that will slow you down.

Fizzik interface and usage

The default background color for Fizzik is black, which is kind of surprsing to me as I always feel that black is the worst color to bring out the best from the web (I could be wrong though). Personally, I always find it hard to navigate around with a dark background.

When you first run Fizzik, you will see nothing familiar that you expect in a browser. There is no address bar, bookmark bar, status bar, menu bar or any other bars that you can think of. You only see the Fizzik logo at the center, a search icon on the top left and a + icon on the far bottom right. I do find it scaringly simple, and it took me several seconds just to figure out where should I press to proceed.

The whole area is divided into three sections. The left is where you perform all your searches while the center column is the actual browser. The right bottom features a share section where you can share the content quickly across Facebook, Twitter and Gmail.

The first thing to do is to press the search icon. It will instantly show a series of social media sites that you can search on. List of sites that it currently supports include: Bing news, New York Times, Huffington Post, Washington Post, Youtube, Twitter and Bing search engine. There doesn’t seems to be any way for me to customize (add/remove) the sites and surprisingly, Google is not in the list.

When you perform a search, the results are shown below the search bar. When you click on the search result, it will load the search page on the center browser. The browser is fixed in width, so if the web page is bigger than the browser, you will have to scroll left and right to read the content. One good thing that I like is that the web page is optimised for the best viewing. For example, if you click on a youtube video, it won’t bring you to the youtube site, instead it will load the video in the browser and auto play it. Another example is that if you click on a Twitter search result and that particular tweet contains a link, it will automatically load the link in the browser. Cool.

For the Share section on the right, you can set up your Facebook, Twitter and Gmail account and share the page instantly. One thing that I would love to see is the ability to post to multiple social media sites at one go. For the current version, you have to post to individual site manually. So if you are posting to Facebook, Twitter and Gmail, you have to do it three times.

There is also a Fizzik bookmark that you can add the current webpage to. As soon as you add content to your bookmark, you will be able to search your bookmarks from the Search section.

Conclusion

Fizzik is currently in beta and apparently, it is not very polished yet. It does has great potential though, if it can improve some of the annoyances that were mentioned above.

Fizzik is not available for public download yet. If you are keen to test it out, you can register your email with them and they will send out the invitation to you.

What do you think? Will it be the latest force in the wild or just another startup heading to obscurity?

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This practice has been a little controversial because some people believe that it can sometimes feel a little bit like spam.  Therefore, you have to be careful on what you are auto-posting, and how much.  If you do it right, then it can definitely help with your productivity.

Here are ways to automate your accounts on the top social networking sites, so that you can enjoy other aspects of your life.

Twitter

MakeTechEasier has an article, “5 Easy Ways to Schedule Your Tweets,” that details five services for Twitter that allows you to schedule your tweets.

Facebook and LinkedIn (HootSuite)

HootSuite, already featured as an auto-scheduler for Twitter, is the ultimate way to auto schedule your posts in just one central location. It is a web-based application that provides a way for you to manage your different social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, etc.).

When you are ready to schedule your posts (or tweets), you just have to type it and change the date and time. The neat thing about HootSuite is that you are able to pick-and-choose which accounts these scheduled posts will go to. It can go to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. It’s very easy and quick, and you don’t have to recheck to ensure that the date you chose is still correct.

Posterous

Posterous now provides its users a way to schedule tweets. When you are creating a new post via the web or the bookmarklet, you now see a check box called, “Schedule this post for the future.” When you check it, you are given instruction to enter the number of days or weeks that you want the post to appear. The only thing that I don’t like is that I prefer a way to enter a time and date. You actually can enter it, but the instructions a little misleading.

If you edit your post, you will see the date and time. The post is marked private until it is published.

When it’s scheduled the way you want, then you will see a little clock icon next to the post. Definitely something that many people have been looking for.

Tumblr

Tumblr provides an easy for you to share anything. It helps anyone, regardless of his/her interest, be able to setup a blog quickly and seamlessly. Tumblr is easy to customize to make it look and work the way that you want.

Like Posterous, if you try to post something using the bookmarklet, it is a little misleading. I placed the date and time as shown below. However, when I went to edit the post, the date and time was completely different than what I placed.

In this area, you are able to set the actual date and time that you want to use.  As Posterous, Tumblr needs to work on the way they schedule their posts.

What kind of application do you use to schedule your posts? Do you think it’s a good idea for people to do that?

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There are individual desktop clients like TweetDeck for Twitter, Twhirl for Friendfeed and Facebook photo uploadr for managing your Facebook account. Each of these social networks can be used from the browser but then again, it’s not quite comfortable stacking all of them in your browser window.

Yoono helps you get out of this situation by bringing all the popular social networks at one place. We have reviewed the Yoono Firefox plugin earlier but if you want a dedicated desktop client, try the Yoono desktop.

Setting Up Yoono and Connecting Your Social Networks

After you have downloaded and installed the Yoono Desktop, start the program and click the social network icon which you want to add in the client.

For the sake of this article, I will be adding my Twitter account and show you the entire process of authorizing Yoono to show updates from my Twitter profile. As soon as you click the Twitter icon, a new sidebar pops out of the client. This is called the Yoono browser – which opens web pages and links clicked from the Yoono desktop client.

Sign in to Twitter with your Twitter username and password and this will authorize Yoono to fetch the Twitter updates in the client.

Click Finish and you are done. You have successfully added Twitter and can follow the same procedure to add Facebook, Flickr, Friendfeed and your AIM or Gtalk accounts. Please note that the Yoono browser can not be used to open custom web pages, links because there is no address bar. This browser window will open only those pages required by Yoono to complete the set up process.

To add other social networking accounts, click the wrench icon placed at the top of the Yoono window and select “Add Social Network/IM”.

Customizing Yoono Desktop

Once all your social profiles are connected, you can start customizing the client according to your need.

Turn On/ Off desktop notifications

You can configure the client to show live desktop pop ups as and when they appear. Yoono will show you aggregated desktop alerts after a specified time interval set by you. The desktop alerts can also be accompanied by a sound notification and you can “snooze” notifications for a particular time interval.

To manage desktop alerts and notifications, go to “Options -> Popup alerts” and configure the required settings.

Reading your profile Timeline

Yoono makes it very easy to read Twitter updates and Facebook status messages. When you click a link, the resulting web page is opened in the Yoono browser window.

Reading your Friends Updates and News feed

Yoono Desktop provides 4 tabs to read profile updates. The first tab contains all the updates from your friends. The second tab shows you which of your friends are online right now. The third tab shows the direct messages sent to you while the fourth tab shows other important notifications.

Sharing Messages, web pages, links and Uploading photos

To upload a photo from your computer to one of your Facebook albums, click “Upload photo” link in the main Yoono window. You can also receive event notifications, invite friends to an event and chat with friends right from the Yoono Window.

Organizing Timelines in Columns

Like Seesmic desktop and Tweetdeck, Yoono has support for columns and you can customize what appears in a particular column. Having said that, it would be more productive to add Facebook stream in one column, Twitter updates in another and the Flickr photostream in another column rather than messing them up in the single default column.

To add columns in the client, click the columns button and choose what you want to show in a column. All the columns are restored and thus you need not add columns all the way every time you start the client.

On the ending note, I would say Yoono is the social networking client of the hour. It’s very easy and friendly to use and can be customized without much effort. You can manage the most popular social networks at one place, upload photos at Facebook, read Twitter updates, upload photos to Flickr, chat with AIM buddies. Do you need anything more?

Which desktop client do you use to manage your social networking accounts? Do you think they make your work easier? Let us know your ideas in the comments section.

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Cadmus is a web app that manages your social media stream (Twitter, FriendFeed and RSS) by displaying the most relevant content and hide the noise from the rest. It enables you to see at a glance what is happening out there without having to read through each and every tweet.

What make Cadmus so special?

When you sign in with your Twitter account, Cadmus will scan through all your incoming tweets and group the similar one into conversations (with the latest update on top). There is no need to scroll through your whole stream to find out what everybody is talking. Simply click on the Related Post button to collapse/expand the thread and see what others are discussing.

There is even a retweet and reply button within each thread so you can quickly reply to others or retweet the post.

In addition, Cadmus also find trending topics within your group of friends and display them on top of the list. There are two main kind of trending topics that you can access. One is the trending topics around the Web while another is the trending topics among your group of friends (or those you are following).

Cadmus also sort all your replies to make it more like IM style. You can get a quick overview of the conversation you held with your friends, even though he/she replies only two days later after your message.

Support for Friendfeed and RSS

Other than Twitter, Cadmus also supports Friendfeed and RSS. You can add them via the services button.

How can Cadmus get better

Personally, I have found Cadmus to be an useful tool, but I would be happier if it:

1. comes with a desktop app (some of us just prefer a desktop thingy)

2. supports multiple Twitter accounts

3. supports other social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn.

This is definitely not the first app that gathers all your feeds/tweets/updates from various social networking site and displays them in one place, but it is among the first (if not, the first) to be able to sort your streams and arrange them in order of relevance. It may have some deficiency, perhaps because it is still in early stage of development, but its computer algorithm is pretty impressive and have done a great job in filtering out the signals from the noise.

Have you tried Cadmus? What’s your take on this?

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Although most blog services and blogging content management systems allow users to post directly on their websites, there are many advantages to using client software on a local computer, such as the ability to work offline. In past years, KDE had no full-featured blogging client.

Then, along came Kblogger, which was originally a panel applet and began to slowly morph into a full client. Another project called Bilbo finally emerged as a true full-featured client and working in conjunction with the Kblogger developers, managed to develop a blogging client that is now included in KDE releases.  Due to trademark issues, they changed the name to Blogilo, and will release it with KDE 4.4.

Blogilo featurs a WYSIWIG editor and support for Blogger 1.0, MetaWeblog, MovableType, WordPress, and Google GData APIs. With it, users can create, modify, schedule, and delete posts. The right column is called the “toolbox” and includes tabs containing the most recent blog posts from a user’s blog, post categories, options such as whether to enable comments, and local entries not uploaded to the blog.

Because the main editing window is WYSIWYG, the toolbar includes typical word precessing-like features: bold, italics, font size and color, and spell check. Users can also add images directly from their computers (uploaded with the blog’s API) or from the the Web.

Despite the outstanding features, Blogilo does have its limitations. I could not find a way to use the graphical interface to set some styles, such as floating an image to the left or right. Its alignment tool seems to work on text, but those users who insist on following XHTML standards will find that Blogilo is a little loose in this area.  Fortunately, it also includes an HTML editor if users need to add styles rather than using the client’s own formatting tools.

Getting Started

Setup is very easy with Blogilo. Simply click “Blog” in the menu, followed by “Add Blog…” This will open a dialog asking you for four things: A title for the blog, your blog’s URL, your username, and your password.  If you click “Auto-configure” Blogilo will magically seek out your blog, login, fetch the latest posts and categories, and have you ready to start posting. You can also manually specify the settings and then click OK.

Typing a post is a pretty natural experience and normally goes without a hitch. If you need to stop in the middle of a post, you can click the “Save Locally” button or save a draft on the server by clicking submit and checking “save entry as draft”. Once you are finished, you can preview your post within Blogilo and view it using your blog’s own CSS styles.

Since Blogilo is a native KDE app, you can manipulate widgets like the Toolbox, moving it to the left side or even detaching it, forming its own separate window. It also supports KDE’s auto spell check to correct your spelling as you type. Furthermore, it allows you to open or create multiple posts, which are all conveniently tabbed and easily accessible.

Overall, I have found the blogging client very reliable and feature-rich. I have corresponded with the developers on more than one occasion and found them to be easily approachable and willing to quickly fix any of the early bugs. With this official KDE release, Blogilo seems more than ready to take on any new tasks that come its way, even if that includes changing its name a second time.

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1.  Twitter Notify Plugin

The Twitter Notify Plugin provides a way for you to tweet your blog post to your followers when publishing using your Twitter account. You are able to customize the format of the tweet in the Options area, or when you press the Publish button. In addition, there is a built-in URL shortener in the plugin. If you are a Twitter user, then this is a must-have plugin for your Windows Live Writer.

2.  Delicious Notify Plugin

The Delicious Notify Plugin allows you to notify Delicious whenever you publish a blog post. In the Options, you are able to enter your Delicious userid and password, and check if you want to automatically publish your blog posts to the service.

3.  TweetMeme Plugin

The TweetMeme Plugin lets you add the TweetMeme button into your blog posts. The Options allows you to add your Twitter name, use an URL shortener, and position the button on the top or bottom. When you publish your blog post, the TweetMeme button will appear. This allows your readers to tweet your blog post, so definitely a plugin to add.

4. DiggThis Plugin

The DiggThis Plugin adds the Digg button to your blog posts, so your readers are able to Digg it, if they want. In the Options, you are allowed to decide on four different types of button styles: badge, compact, button, or the little guy.  You are also able to choose the alignment to be either to the right or left.  Digg users will love this plugin.

5. WLW Bit.ly Plugin

The WLW Bit.ly Plugin lets you shorten all of the URLs in your blog post using the Bit.ly URL shortener. If you have a Bit.ly user account, you can enter it in the Options area. This allows you to use the Bit.ly statistics to view information like how many people clicked on a certain link.

6. Twitter Inserter Plugin

The Twitter Inserter Plugin provides a way for you to add your tweets into your blog post. You are able to select the number of tweets in the Options area.  It’s great to use once in awhile. However, if you use too much, you might alienate your readers.

7. Flickr4Writer Plugin

The Flickr4Writer Plugin lets you add Flickr images from your albums or any image that is allowed to be blogged. You are able to select the image size, spacing, positioning, and alignment. It’s a way to add images to your blog without stealing images. One of my favorite ones, and I use it often. Definitely a must.

8. Zemanta related articles & images Plugin

The Zemanta related articles & images Plugin provides a way for you enter add links, related articles, and images to your blog posts. It is on the side of the Windows Live Writer window, so it provides easy access in allowing you to save time in finding items for your blog posts. Another one of my favorites.  It helps you save time and enriches your blog posts.

9. Amazon Book Linker v1.3 Plugin

The Amazon Book Linker v1.3 Plugin lets you add book information to your blog posts. You are able to modify the image size and the template, which is how your readers will view the Amazon item. If you have an Amazon Associates ID, you are able to add that as well, so you can make profit on the books you add.  Great for people who reviews books or want to share a great book with their readers.

10. xPollinate – Cross Post Plugin

The xPollinate – Cross Post Plugin allows you to cross-post a blog post, or a snippet, to your other blogs and post to Ping.fm when you are publishing.  Ping.fm allows you to post to different social-media networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., so you are able to notify your followers of your blog post by using this plugin. I am starting to use this plugin more often now. Ping.fm is one of the social media tools that I use often, so this saves me plenty of time.

Which social media plugins do you use for your Windows Live Writer?

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FriendFeed is increasingly becoming a popular social media tool for being a social aggregator with community features. It was one of the first to use the “Like” functionality that more and more web sites (e.g. Facebook, Digg, Seesmic, etc.) are adopting. Additionally, FriendFeed has built a social community that allows you to quickly find an answer to any kind of question that you ask, or get to know other people who share similar interests. New users are usually overwhelmed by the social media site, and are not sure what to do or where to begin. Here are ten useful tips to enjoying all that FriendFeed has to offer:

1. Aggregate All (or Majority) of Your Feeds

If you plan on only aggregating Twitter into FriendFeed, you won’t get the full experience of the service. Add as many feeds as you can, so others are able to get a full picture of your interests and you.

2. Setup Your Notifications

You are able to receive email, IM, and/or desktop notifications for your and other people’s posts. It comes in handy when you are away from your computer, but want to ensure that you respond to users’ comments.

3. Select Twitter Publishing Preferences

FriendFeed provides a variety of options to publish items to Twitter. Select the options that you want to post to Twitter. It’s a good way to bypass the Twitter character limit, but still have your Twitter followers see your posts.

4. Choose a Theme

There are seven themes to choose from so you can have a more personalized feel to your page.

5. Edit Your Profile

Enter a brief description about yourself, so that people can get to know you better. An avatar also helps. It doesn’t have to be your picture, but something that represents you.

6. Follow Some People

To get the most out of FriendFeed, follow some people. FriendFeed offers a suggested list that will start you off on the right path. Another great resource is Louis Gray’s monthly list of the “Top Ten People to Follow. It compiles a list of people with a variety of interests who provide value to FriendFeed.

7. Join Some Groups

FriendFeed users have created all kinds of groups that will appeal to someone. This is a great way to find users, who are not on the FriendFeed Suggested List or Louis Gray’s list, who will have items that you are interested in.

8. Get the Bookmarklet

Add the FriendFeed bookmarklet to your browser and ease the way you share interesting items. The great thing about the bookmarklet is that it allows you to share with different groups or individuals, embed images, and publish it to Twitter.

9. Comment and Like on People’s Posts

The only way that people are going to get to know what you think is by the comments and clicking “Like” on their posted items. One great feature is the Friend-of-a-Friend option. You are able to view the content of the people your friend has subscribed to. It helps because you are able to also get to know people who you were not initially subscribed to.

10. Have Fun

Regardless on the reason you are using FriendFeed, whether for business or pleasure, remember to have fun. I have met many wonderful people on FriendFeed and I’m still loving it after being on there for over a year. It can be addicting, so be careful. Other than that, enjoy yourself!

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