Facebook have added a new “Send” button that compliments the “Like” button or can be added on it’s own. It allows the page to be sent to Facebook users, groups or email addresses and is as simple as adding an extra ‘send=”true”‘ to your current code if you’re already using XFBML.

Here’s [...]]]>

Facebook's new Send button

Facebook have added a new “Send” button that compliments the “Like” button or can be added on it’s own. It allows the page to be sent to Facebook users, groups or email addresses and is as simple as adding an extra ‘send=”true”‘ to your current code if you’re already using XFBML.

Here’s a couple of examples I set up today at http://www.bridgnorthmusicfest.com/ and within a Facebook application at https://www.facebook.com/bridgnorth?sk=app_194807670561047

More from Facebook here – https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/494

Here’s the new link – http://www.facebook.com/groups/ – plenty of new features and a new interface. [...]]]> I couldn’t help myself when I found the new groups feature, I HAD to have a play with it. And sad as it maybe I love playing with social networks new features and wondering at new possibilities. It’s endless!

Here’s the new link – http://www.facebook.com/groups/ – plenty of new features and a new interface. A full breakdown would warrant a new article.

I’ve been recommending that businesses and organisations set up Facebook pages and not groups for quite a while as the writing has been on the wall for sometime now.  Not the “Facebook wall” that would be a pun too far.

This new feature is enormous though. I listened to the live press conference and my first reaction was that this was Facebook emulating Diaspora‘s “aspects”. Diaspora is built on the foundation of separate social groups called aspects. You can share with each of your aspects separately or share with them all at once. [Interestingly Diaspora also ties in quite nicely with Facebook's other big new announcement yesterday - the ability to "own" and download your own data. Diaspora promises to be able to import data from elsewhere to help build new accounts.  Mark Zuckerberg has supported Diaspora publicaly and financially too.]

Google Me – Google’s own new social network is rumoured to hit any time now and research from the company suggests that social groups will be fundamental to this too.

Facebook has the user base though and it looks like they got in there first.  It’ll be interesting to see where this goes next.

Not all networks suit the same content though.

Like a lot of people I’ve used the official twitter facebook application on occasion to post tweets to facebook.  It’s [...]]]> Not always a good idea but it can be a real time saver and a great way to reach different networks without multiple logins, duplicate posting or re-editing content.

Not all networks suit the same content though.

Like a lot of people I’ve used the official twitter facebook application on occasion to post tweets to facebook.  It’s a fairly easy solution to get status updates and tweets in sync but it’s important not to forget to engage with the audience.  It’s not just a one way conversation any more.  It seems obvious but it’s all too easily forgotten, social networking is social by definition.

Using the old retweet syntax (RT ….) on twitter means that your tweet will show up on your facebook status via the application so will that make sense?

Building active facebook pages can be much more useful than just building a personal account and here the solutions to automate posting seem a little more restricted.  I’ve used Social RSS and NetworkedBlogs facebook applications to send a website RSS feed to a facebook page.  Social RSS seems to work the most seamlessly and unintrusively of the two although to use it beyond a trial period you need to pay a subscription.  Or you’ll see the speed of posts slow right down until it seems almost intermittent.  Social RSS does also have the option of a box on the front page too though, not just a tab.  Which is a great way to link to previous web articles.

I’m still not sure about NetworkedBlogs.  It seems OK but the hoops that you’ll need to get through to set it up and manual refreshing of content make me wonder if I’m saving any time at all.

My favourite solution for juggling multiple accounts is still Hootsuite and in the few weeks that I’ve been using it I’ve been really impressed by new features, ease and speed of use.  It’s easy to modify each post to suit each social network from one place and you can monitor the networks up to a point too.  One new feature just this week implements automated RSS feed posting.  Not so detailed a post as the other two solutions but it’s fast and it’s free.  If only it didn’t use Hootsuite’s ow.ly URL shortening service which pops up a Hootsuite toolbar when a user clicks on the link.  Apart from that it gets my vote.

Ultimately it all comes down to time though doesn’t it.  Ideally each social network should be approached according to it’s target audience and it’s own technical or defacto protocols.  But if it’s a simple one or two liner with a link you can probably share it across them all.

We have a brilliant team together and this year we’ve also formally changed our name and become an Arts festival, including Literary events and more [...]]]> I’ve been involved with the Bridgnorth Music and Arts Festival for the past four years now and for 2010, with the festival in it’s fifth year I’m more involved than ever.

We have a brilliant team together and this year we’ve also formally changed our name and become an Arts festival, including Literary events and more Arts events than ever.  My involvement started out with running an acoustic/unplugged event down on the Quayside next to the River Severn.  Superb backdrop to what’s been a great afternoon of music for the last four years.

Now I’m also running the festival website http://bridgnorthmusicfest.com/, twitter account http://twitter.com/bnorthfestival, Facebook pages http://www.facebook.com/bridgnorthfestival plus a fair bit more.  I’m dragging everyone kicking and screaming into the 2010′s despite struggling to get some even using email not so long ago.  It’s really paying dividends now though, we’ve made some brilliant contacts via social media and our reach is spreading all the time.

We’re open, inclusive and more diverse than ever.  If you’re interested get in touch and get involved.

It’s simple to add twitter, facebook account pages, facebook fanpages, myspace and several other social networks and manage them all from a well laid out tabbed web page.  I can finally get rid of the (slightly [...]]]> I’ve been using Hootesuite http://hootsuite.com/ to manage a Festival website that I look after and I’m very impressed so far.

It’s simple to add twitter, facebook account pages, facebook fanpages, myspace and several other social networks and manage them all from a well laid out tabbed web page.  I can finally get rid of the (slightly flakey) facebook twitter pluggin and quickly send specific updates to all of our social networks from the one screen.  Not only that but you can view the streams too so it works both ways.  Socially as these things should.

I first spotted it being used by the brilliant @designblend http://www.designblend.co.uk/

It’s probably over the top for an individual account but invaluable for any business or organisation that’s spread across social networks and making frequent updates.