About communication

Darren Rowse from problogger.net has posted an article on “How to use facebook to promote your blog” today describing what you can do with facebook groups. Another way to connect your blog with facebook is to use the application “Networked Blogs”. Here’s how it works:

Or you go to the above linked application page first and then log in to your profile or once you are logged in to your facebook account you click on the applications-button on bottom left of your profile page. Then search for “Networked blogs”.

Both ways will lead you to this page:

Now click the blue “Go to Application” button on top right and allow the application to get access to your profile. Skip the next page “select your favourite blogs” for now and click on the tab “Home” instead. Then you get on this page where you can add your blog:

The page you get to then is a form about the blog you want to add to your blognetwork asking you about

• the blog’s name
• the URL of the blog
• 3 tags to characterize the blog
• the language the blog is written in
• a short description what this blog is about

Then click on “Next” and confirm you are the author of the blog you want to add. The application will then ask you to verify your authorship. You can ask friends to confirm this but the faster and more useful way is to select option 2: “Edit html on your blog”, even if it says “some technical skills required”. If you have been able to custmize a blog then this should be easy for you.

Now follow the instructions:

1. Copy the html code given in the box.
2. Log in to your blog administration and open a new text widget in your right side bar
   (in WordPress the widgets can be found in “Appearance”)
3. Insert the copied html code in this widget and save this. If you visit your blog now a widget like this should appear in the sidebar:
   
4. Now you can get back to the facebook page and click on “Verify Widget”. If everything was done correctly it will now tell you that the verification was successful.

Aside from using this widget to verify your authorship you should keep it on your blog now to invite others to join your network. It is possible to customize its appearance by adjusting its code – to match the colors of your blog for example.

Going back to your facebook profile you can add this application to your profile tabs by clicking the “+”-button on top of your wall. That way you’ll have direct access to your networked blogs page. Then click on this new tab and chose “Home” within your blog page.

You can customize the application now by clicking on “Settings” on top right of your facebook profile. Networked Blogs will appear as an extra category in there:

Here you can chose from several options. Make sure you allow the application “to publish one-line stories automatically, but prompt me for larger stories”. That way you will have an automatic mini-feed on your facebook blog page once you have more than 10 readers (the app is still in beta).

If you want the application to publish your blogposts on your profile too, click on “Feed Settings” on your blog page:

The field “Selected content” allows you to link to your blogposts (3 per week) which is particularly useful as long as you don’t have enough readers yet to get your mini-feed displayed. You can also invite your facebook contacts to join your blognetwork (and rate your blog).

You can of course add more than only one blog to your networked blogs page and join other people’s blognetwork.  And make sure you tell people about your blognetwork!

Let me know if you are using this application so I can join your blognetwork too!

You can join mine HERE!

Was this post useful to you? Do you have any good or bad experiences with this application that you’d like to share?