Utilizing Facebook to Network Yourself and Your Content

A few days ago, Facebook unveiled changes on their site meant to improve usability and also enhance interactivity. What once was a student-only site has turned into a full-featured social site that offers you a multitude of networking options. MySpace may have more users, but Facebook has more options in terms of how they can help you spread your content to a wide variety of people.

Many people don't realize that Facebook's Notes section can easily be set up to import posts you make from your website. The 'Import a Blog' feature allows you to enter in your feed URL and it will automatically import you latest posts as you publish them. These notes are then placed on the News Feed home screen of all your friends in very much the same way that your posts appear in the RSS readers of those who subscribe to your site.

On Facebook all of these notes have a 'Share' button in the upper right corner that will allow any reader to share it with others at the click of a button either via email or by posting it to their own profiles. If a post of yours becomes popular enough it could literally gather a viral following just within Facebook itself.

The redesign has made two other features more prominent: Status and Posted Items. 'Status' has been around for a few months but it was failing to catch on in the way Twitter has even though they are very similar. Its new placement to the immediate right of your profile picture will undoubtedly make it more popular, and as such will make it something to consider for further interaction with your readers when you start importing your posts into Facebook.

The 'Posted Items' feature benefits from a more prominent placement as well (one of the main buttons on the new 'main' side menus). This feature seems to be gaining in popularity as it is almost a more personal Digg. It might be a good idea to include one of the new Facebook social bookmarking share buttons on your content that will allow users to post any post they find interesting to Facebook with the click of a button. Posted items are displayed very prominently on the News Feed page and could garner you a lot of readers.

Given Facebook's rapid growth it makes sense to utilize it as a great asset in networking both yourself and your content.

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Joshua Dorkin, April 13, 2007

Thanks for sharing this. I hadn't realized that this was an option. I have some fears about this, though. When I tried an import, I noticed that thre was no permanent link to the blog or the blog post itself. I think this can present a problem if you're trying to build traffic with the feature. All it seems like it will do is bring traffic to Facebook and your profile . . . am I wrong about this?

MG Siegler, April 13, 2007

Hey Joshua - yes they include a link back to your original post. it's near the top of the post right under the headline - it will read "This note is imported. View Original Post." The 'view original post' is a link back to the post on your site.

Perhaps you were looking at a post that wasn't imported so you saw no link, but it should be there.

You could also utilize a service like Feedburner and create a summarized version of your feed for posting on Facebook that would include a link to read more at the bottom.

Hope that helps.

Chip, April 14, 2007

I know this is off-topic but maybe you could check out www.tweako.com and write a blog post about it. It is a very new social bookmarking site and its owners are very young and passionate about it.

They deserve to be promoted.

Mike Bogo, April 14, 2007

Ehh, I don't know how effective facebook will be for viral content promotion. Until you can separate people into your own groups, it's difficult to promote targeted content, and I know 99% of my friends don't give a damn about web stuff. So basically I'd just be annoying the people I actually know and like, but maybe that's because I use it as a social networking tool.

engtech, April 15, 2007