Viral Marketing

How To Add Facebook Connect To Your Blog

March 19, 2009 by ian david chapman 106 Comments

The Easy Way To Integrate The Viral Power Of Facebook Into Your Blog

This blog post will show you how you can integrate the viral power of Facebook Connect with your wordpress blog without touching a single bit of code. Its done by using a neat plugin created by Spanish blogger Javier Reyes

Most people get put off by mentions of API keys and messing with the code on their webpages. Luckily I stumbled upon this cool plugin that does all the work for you. If you follow each step carefully you will be up and running in no time

Even if you don’t have a wordpress blog, make sure you scroll to the bottom of this post where I will be explaining exactly how I will be using Facebook connect to initiate social activity and get immense viral exposure.

Click here to download the Facebook Connect WordPress plugin

http://www.sociable.es/facebook-connect/

Take a few minutes to watch the tutorial video that explains the features of this plugin

The next video gives an explanation of how to install this plugin and set up your API code

After you have downloaded the plugin to your computer you need to go to your blog and upload the file into your wp-content/plugins/ folder, you can do this by FTP or by going into the backend of your website if you have CPanel hosting.

Now login to the admin panel of your wordpress blog, I am using Wordpess 2.7 in this example, your screen might look slightly different if you are using earlier versions. Go to your plugins and activate the Facebook connector plugin

Now in your settings menu open Facebook connector you should have this screen visible

Get Your Facebook API Code

This plugin is an easy way for you to create your own Facebook application unique to your blog. In order for it to function you will need a Facebook developers account and obtain your Facebbook API key and Facebook API secret. These are just codes so Facebook can give you access to the user data that will be transferred to your blog. In a new browser window login to your Facebook account and scroll down to the very bottom of your profile page.

Now enter the name of your new application, agree to the terms of service and click save.

Now you have been given your API Key and API Secret, you need to copy and paste these numbers into your wordpress plugin settings

Now open the Connect tab and enter the URL of your blog.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click save

In another browser window, copy and paste your API key and API secret into your Facebook Connector Options; check the boxes to allow full functionality on your blog

Scroll down to create the message template; if you want to customize the messages you can edit the text in the boxes

After you have clicked create template the plugin should have two yellow boxes at the top indicating that everything is now functioning

You can now place a widget on your sidebar so your blog visitors can login and interact with your blog. Any comments they make will be posted directly to their Facebook profile

drag and drop the widget to your required position and adjust its settings

Your Facebook connect plugin should now be fully functioning. Go to your blogs homepage and check everything is working

The sidebar widget should look something like this

Click on the Connect with Facebook button and start interacting

Now you can invite all your friends to come and visit your blog and more importantly all your visitors can invite all their friends too

Social Interaction Goes Viral

What does all this social activity mean, and how is it going to help you? As an example I am going to see how much activity I can generate from this blog post using a variety of means. Immediately after I publish this post I am going to go to go and invite 16 of my friends to come and visit my blog post using the friend connect widget.

I am going to ask those 16 people to invite 16 of their friends to come and see this post too. I hope to start a viral chain reaction that will impact into Facebooks newsfeed.

Syndication

My blog is syndicated to my Twitter account and to my Facebook profile so as soon as it gets published a tweet will get sent and the full RSS feed will be imported as a Facebook note. The next day I am going to go to my Facebook note and tag a further 30 people in this note. I am going to ask people to give it a thumbs up or to press the share button

It’s a fine balance when doing this kind of thing, Only people who have wordpress blogs will be really interested in this post, but I hope other people will want to see the real viral power of Friend Connect in action

Using Groups

Once I have some impact in Facebooks newsfeed I am going to send a message to my Facebooks groups, inviting them to learn about Facebook Connect. I hope that some of my other friends who have big groups will do same.

Become An Early Adopter

There is a huge advantage to becoming an early adopter of the community building tools like Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect. You have the potential to take your friends with you wherever you go on the web. So if you see a great blog post you can leave a comment and it will go straight into your newsfeed for your friends to see. Bloggers can expect more traffic to be circulating back and forth from social sites like Facebook opening up a huge potential of viral social interaction.

How Viral Is Facebook?

With your help we can find out; only by testing new strategies can we discover what their limitations are and how much exposure they bring. I will be tracking the results and monitoring the newsfeed and comments on this blog. Of course I am taking a big risk because I might end up annoying some people, I am willing to do this because I see there is a huge potential available and I love sharing with my online community

What You Can Do Now

1. If you are on my blog http://www.iandavidchapman.com you can sign in to Facebook Connect and leave a comment
2. If you are on Facebook reading this you can leave a comment either in the newsfeed or at the bottom of this note. If you like the post click the share button at the top. or give it a thumbs up. You can visit my blog to see the plugin in action by
clicking on this link http://www.iandavidchapman.com

3. If you have a wordpress blog you can follow this tutorial and get started right away. For those who are technically challenged and don’t know how to add new plugins get your webmaster to do all this for you. Implementation is the key. Come back and leave a comment in this thread so other people reading this post can visit your blog and share it with their friends.

4. If you have any friends who have a wordpress blog or might be interested in Facebook Connect you can invite them to come and see this post, by clicking on the Invite Your Friends button on the Connect Widget

5. If you are Google Friend Connect user why not join my site at the same time. Feel free to leave a comment in the social bar at the bottom of the page.

Thanks for taking the time to read this article, I hope you got some benefit from it and choose to help me in my experiment to prove that Facebook Connect is worth taking seriously. If you experience any problems with this plugin please contact the developers and read all the comment threads carefully, making sure you have completed all the requires steps.

Ian David Chapman

Filed Under: facebook, Popular Posts, social media marketing, Viral Marketing, web 3.0 Tagged With: blog, blogging, facebook, facebook connect, plugin, Viral Marketing, viral visibility, wordpress, wordpress plugin

Facebook Groups – 10 Steps To Make Your Facebook Group Go Viral

October 21, 2008 by ian david chapman 1,000 Comments

Are You A Lion Or A Sheep?
A Facebook group needs strong leadership and clear direction if you want it to succeed. If you act like a sheep, the herd might follow you for a moment and then lose interest or move in a different direction.

Launching a successful Facebook group is a definite art. If you are thinking of starting a new group or already have an existing group, here are a few essential pointers to get you going viral and effortlessly attract new members.

1) Choose a Killer Title For Your Group Name
Without a memorable name that is both colorful and sticky your group will fail right from the beginning. It has to be compelling and dynamic and press peoples emotional hot buttons. For Ideas look at the groups that have grown to over 1000 members and compare the names to those that that are still stuck at around 150 members. If your name is boring most people automatically assume your group will be too.

2) Pick A Graphic That Captures The Essence Of Your Group
A picture speaks a thousand words, does the image you choose convey the essence of your group. Get a striking image and then use photo shop to add some text on top of the picture. Make sure it can still be read when it is reduced in size. Many groups make their Logo much longer than its wide it then becomes a full banner advertisement and takes up more space when its listed on the group page giving it more prominence.

3) Leverage Your Friends
You can’t grow a group huge without the help of other people. Groups go viral because people invite their friends to join. If your initial network hasn’t reach 500 people you will have a hard time getting enough momentum for your group to take off. In that case find another friend and launch together. Make them a group admin too. Its much more fun launching a group with several people than having to do all the work on your own.

4) Target Your Initial Members
Having powerful and influential friends as core members of the group is vital. Hand select the people who you want to be there and send them personal invitations. Make them feel special. You need to choose people who are dynamic on Facebook or Twitter, people who are famous, people who have huge followings, people who have large networks and people who are already experts and leaders within your niche. Having these people as initial members instantly gives your group credibility. Honor those who first join by making them officers and ask them what title they would like under their name.

5) Create A Whisper Campaign
Tell your friends about the group in an indirect way long before you are going to launch, hint about it in blog posts, in teleseminars and in wall posts and in all your communications with your potential core members. Get them excited and they will start to talk about your new group even before you open the doors. Get your favorite bloggers to write an article about your group. Start a discussion using Facebook Notes and make your group the logical solution to a problem that people might face. Create the content for your group before you launch and tell people what you are doing.

6) Turn Your Group Launch Into An Event
By turning your group launch into an event you automatically stand out and get noticed. Plan it the same way you would a big party, You want all your guests to arrive at the same time so that the dance floor is packed. People won’t join if they turn up to your group page and find a cold empty room with no music and no refreshments.

Use Facebook Events and hold a teleseminar to publicize it and/or write Facebook notes and tag all your initial members, get them interacting with each other and keep sending them back to the group page to post on the wall and participate in the discussions.

Groups are not just confined to a single location, they spill out all over the place. Like a crowded house party that ends up with lots of people milling about on the front lawn. Anyone who drives down the street will always know which house to go to.

7) Include An Irresistible Offer
Offer an incentive for people to join, give away a free ebook, mp3 recording or video straight away.

Promise to supply more exclusive content in the future for those who join the group early and become active participants. Identify those special members by signing them up to your optin list or joining your Fan page.

Focus on adding value and encourage your group members to share their own talents. Your group will become a valuable resource instead of a derelict notice board for spammers

8)Aim For Viral Visibility
The more activity you generate the bigger your viral foot print will be in Facebook’s newsfeed.

You want to get your group to 500 members as quickly as possible so that it maintains its growth velocity. After this point it will hit critical mass and continue to grow on its own.

Stimulate activity on the group wall and discussion board, ask questions and continue to supply fresh content on a regular basis. You want you members to keep returning and posting within the group.

9)Advertise Your Group
If you are holding a party you need to put up some posters and give out flyers. Use your status updates wisely; be creative, use humor, and learn about link baiting. Attract members from a whole range of social media platforms, like Twitter, YouTube, Ustream, Friend Feed, Ning. Advertise in other similar groups and online forums. Get your group members to help you and reward those who put in the most effort by helping them to promote themselves using your group as a platform. Self promotion before contributing value should be discouraged.

10) Launch Strategically And In Several Stages
Have a clearly defined and mapped out strategy. Create a revolving door Pre launch, launch, post launch, relaunch. Sequence. After initial activity your group may need restimulating. By holding regular events you keep your group in the public eye and your members will continue to feel connected. Get your active members to participate in your relaunch process, and make it a win win situation for all involved

If you have enjoyed this post, you might want to consider subscribing to my full RSS feed

Follow me on Twitter so you never miss a post

http://www.twitter.com/iandavidchapman

Filed Under: facebook, membership sites, Popular Posts, social media marketing, Viral Marketing Tagged With: conversational marketing, Facebook Groups, Facebook Strategies Guide, Group Launch, ian david chapman, social media marketing, Viral Marketing, viral strategies

Conversational Marketing – How To Stand Out From The Crowd

October 11, 2008 by ian david chapman 4 Comments

Stand Out From The Crowd

Every now and the I meet someone who really stands out from the crowd, someone who is thinking outside of the box and is interested in pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

I get really creative when I meet people like this, their enthusiasm is infectious and makes me realise what potentials I am capable of achieving.

Understanding Facebook Strategy

While I was completing the Facebook Groups section of my Facebook Strategies Guide I got a message from a new friend asking me to join his group. I get these kind of messages every day and usually I just ignore them. The reason I paid attention to this person was because he had adopted the exact strategy I had just been writing about and had followed it to the letter.

A Select Group Of People

I was interested because I pay attention to synchronicity like this, and when I checked out his group I could see he had done his preparations very well. There were only a few members but already it had a lot of good content and some interesting discussions. He wasn’t just inviting anyone he was inviting a select group of people who would appreciate what he was trying to teach

Promoting An Event Launch

His group was set up to promote his new book that teaches event launch strategies, I clicked through to his website and that was where I got the biggest shock. It was right on the cutting edge with a very informative video, stunning flash graphics and a cool contact/follow widget. I decided I had to find out a bit more about who was behind all this so I opted in to his list and then sent him a few personal message and we started building a relationship

Pay Close Attention

I would advise all of my friends to pay attention to what this guy is going to do in the next month. He’s already started to make some waves and get himself noticed with some great Facebook Notes on a wide range of topics. I am now one of the privileged few who gets to see this launch from the inside and I will be paying very close attention and assessing the results. I could probably write 3 killer blog posts just from the half hour conversation I had with him on Skype yesterday.

Invitation Only

If you want to find out more and get an invitation to the group please message me on Facebook and I’ll send you a link. Or you can go to my profile and you’ll probably find it hidden on my wall somewhere.

This group is really only for those who are serious about learning how to use Social Media to build viral synergistic networks. Synergistic networks are built from personal connections and solid relationships.

Unwritten Rules

This type of network responds when you ask it to do something and its one of the most valuable assets you can ever become a part of. Its not something you can ever own. If you abuse it’s power and break any of the unwritten rules you will find yourself excluded and left out in the cold. On the periphery and away from the place where the main action is taking place.

Laser Targeted

This isn’t going to be a typical launch where you send out generalised impersonal messages and spam all your contacts using a shotgun splatter approach. That sort of thing can be left to the lazy affiliate marketers and amateur MLM newbies. Being laser targeted and selective means that you expend less energy and get much better results.

Come Along For The Ride

Regardless of your particular niche there is definitely going to be something that you can learn.You can watch from the sidelines or you can join the party, it’s your choice

Understanding the principles and adopting a strategic approach is whats most important in any launch, as well as learning the right ways to engage people in conversations.

Follow Me

If you want to know what I am up to and ensure you get to observe things as they happen be sure to follow me on Twitter if you haven’t done so already