Posts Tagged ‘Posterous’

One of the best ways to tell your blog visitors about your Facebook presence is by using a Facebook Fan Badge. This allows users to click a button and join your Fan page and to click through to your Facebook account.

Quick note, are you looking for information on the Facebook Fan Widget? If so, click here.

To add the Facebook Fan Badge Widget:

1. Go to the Facebook Fan Badge Widget page. You will need to be logged into Facebook to access this page.

2. The “Select a Page” drop down box will show all of the fan pages you have joined. By default, the Fan Badge Preview section on the right will show the first fan page in your fan page list. Select your fan page and the Fan Badge Preview will update.

3. When you select your fan page, the “Copy the code below and paste it on your website” textbox will update with the correct code. Copy the code. Pro-tip: I like to keep a text file open (like Notepad) so I can paste in and label code. I do this in case I totally forget what I just copied and end up copying something else into my clipboard. It saves time and my sanity. ;)

4. Log into your blog, and add a text widget to your blog, paste in the code, and save your changes. This part of the process will be different depending on your blogging system.

For WordPress.com and WordPress.org (custom install) users
1. Log into WordPress.com
2. From your blog’s dashboard, go to the Appearance> Widgets page
3. Assuming you have at least one sidebar, click + drag a Text widget to your sidebar
4. Set a title. I used “Join My Facebook Fan Page” as the title
5. Paste in the code that we copied from the Facebook Fan Badge page. If it is no longer in your clipboard, you can copy it from your temporary text file mentioned in the Pro-tip above.
6. Save then Close and you’re set.

This is a screenshot of adding the badge to WordPress.com (click to enlarge):

Adding the widget to WordPress.com and WordPress installs is fairly easy but to add them to Tumblr and Posterous take more work and you have to muck around in the HTML. I’ll show you exactly how to do that.

For Tumblr users:
1. Log into your Tumblr account
2. Click on the Customize link button (upper right part of the page with the wrench icon)
3. Click on the “Theme” tab at the top of the page. We’re assuming you have Advanced HTML turned ON for your theme.
4. Navigate to the part of the theme where you want the badge to show up. I put mine right below a FormSpring widget which shows up under the Archive/RSS segment.
5. Click on the Update Preview button to see your changes.
6. After adding the exact code the box was slightly our of whack so you may have to tweak the colors a bit. Once you’ve done that, click on the Save & Close button and you’re set.

This is where I added in the Facebook code (click to enlarge):

For Posterous users (requires Advance Theme view to be turned on):
1. Log into your Posterous account
2. Go to the Settings page by mousing over the upper right section of he page and clicking on “Settings” button
3. Click on the big “Theme and Customize My Site” button
4. Click on the Advanced tab in the upper left hand side of the page
5. Once again, you’ll need to have Custom Theming turned on to proceed. If you do, you’ll see HTML template code in the top window. Expand the window by clicking on the “Expand” link
6. Navigate to where you would like to add your badgeand paste it in. I added my badge right below the “Subscribe via RSS” link

This is what the RSS link template code look like. Paste your badge code right after this section (it ended up being 90% down towards the end of the template page on my theme). Click to enlarge:

So we just learned how to add a Facebook Fan Badge to your blog site. If you desprately need help with doing this with one of the other blogging platforms, leave a comment below and I’ll update this blog post with those instructions. M’Kay?

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Whoa there big feller, how to I display the fan pictures and my Facebook feed like on some other sites?

Facebook has several types of goodies for sites and one of them is a Facebook Fan Widget (not the same thing as the badge). The Fan Widget uses JavaScript code so some blogging systems do not allow them. WordPress.org blogs do allow them since they are installed on one’s own server but WordPress.com does not allow them because of the JavaScript.

I love promoting awesome people, great causes, events, and organizations/businesses that are doing interesting things. My favorite tech tool to help me do this is the Apple iPhone 3Gs.

There’s a reason the iPhone 3Gs is such a hot seller, it is a mobile promotion machine. I use it to check email on the road or at home when away from my laptop. I use it to take pictures that I post to my Twitter and Facebook status feeds and to various blogs. The built in video allows me to post to my YouTube Channel, post via email to my Posterous account, send short videos via 12seconds.tv, and to live stream using Qik.com and UStream. With this single tool, I can immediately share what’s going on with my life or at an event.

Here’s an example of how I used my iPhone for shameless self-promotion. A couple of months back, I noticed Nancy Rodriguez’s Twitter update where she mentioned that she and the crew from Q1047, the local Hip-Hop and R&B station, where going to be live broadcasting from a nearby McDonald’s. It was around 7am so I grabbed a fast shower then zoomed over to McDees. I had chatted with Nancy before via Twitter so it was great meeting her and the rest of the Rico and Mambo show. I took a couple of photos of them in action, posted the pictures to Twitpic and Twitter, spoke to Nancy, then headed back to go home.

Now, I’ve been listening to Q1047 since I moved to Ventura County and it’s my favorite station. So I was glad to post pictures and tweet about them on Twitter. But as I headed back to the car I realized that I could have plugged my new online blogging course. So I decided to grow a sack and went back to ask Nancy to send a shoutout to my BuildYourFanBase.com readers and she kindly did so.

Fifteen minutes after I left the live broadcast, I had uploaded the video shoutout to YouTube and had already tweeted out a link to my blog post on the event. Minutes later Nancy retweeted the link and gave my blog and new blog class an on-air shoutout.

Now that’s promotion at the speed of light!

Do you have any other mobile promotion tech tools that you swear by?

Yesterday’s iPhone 3.0 software download from Apple included a new Voice Memos application. The Voice Memos application allows you to record sound, save it, and email it.

Of course, the first question I asked was, “How can I get it into my Twitter feed?”

Here’s how:

1) Set up a free account with Posterous.com. Posterous allows you to post text, video, big pictures, or audio from remote sources such as your phone.

2) Configure your social networking feeds on Posterous. If you only want to send your voice memo updates to Twitter then you only have to set up the Twitter account. Make a note of your posting email address.

3) Record your Voice Memo using your iPhone.

4) After you’ve saved the Voice Memo, open the memo item and click on the Share button and select “Email Voice Memo.”

5) Enter your Posterous posting email. If you configured several social networks, you can just use the “post” email and it will post to all at the same time. I only set up Twitter for now so I will only post to the “twitter” version of the Posterous email.

This is the tweet that was generated when I posted late last night:

Testing iPhone Voic[e] Memo to Twitter via Posterous http://post.ly/sZA

The second time you need to post a Voice Memo from your iPhone, you only need to follow Steps 3-5, and can easily do so while on the go!