Category Archives: Howto

How to add Facebook’s Fan Box to your website or blog

August 21, 2009 / posted by Nathan T. Wright

Below is a quick video tutorial on how to add a Facebook Fan Box to your website or blog. If you’re interested in what this all means and why it’s important, I wrote about the advantages of the Fan Box back on July 17 over at IowaBiz.com.

If you’ve added the Fan Box (or any Facebook Connect features) to your organization’s site, leave us a comment below and let us know how it’s working out for you.

Make yourself more findable with a Google profile

April 24, 2009 / posted by Nathan T. Wright

This week Google announced that they will start including Google profiles alongside search results, meaning that if you set up a Google profile, it can potentially show up in a search for your own name. Sure, there are already organic ways to get yourself indexed in Google’s search, such as blogging and active participation in social networks, but this is the first time the search giant has ever let users manually “inject” something that can be visible right away.

In this week’s Area 52 video, I explain how to set up a Google profile, and how this benefits the search engine long-term. For more information on this change, check out John Battelle’s post on Searchblog.

Here’s a link to my Google profile, in case you want to check one out.

Explaining the upcoming changes to Facebook Pages

March 10, 2009 / posted by Nathan T. Wright

Last week Facebook announced significant UI changes to it’s Facebook Pages product (also known as enhanced public profiles). Basically, Pages will now resemble and function like the individual profiles we’re all used to. Hillary created a video recapping some of the differences to watch for — especially helpful if you’re a business or public figure using Facebook Pages to connect with your audience.

For full details on the scope of changes, here’s a link to Facebook’s official PDF guide.

Library 2.0: Extending reach through blogging and Twitter

February 16, 2009 / posted by Nathan T. Wright

This morning we accepted the unique challenge of presenting to a room full of librarians at Drake University’s Cowles Library. (They referred to themselves as a “gaggle” of librarians). The audience was already well-versed on the inherent value of social media, but wanted a deeper understanding of how to get more engagement going on their blog. They were also very curious about Twitter — in fact, almost 30% of them already had accounts!

Embedded below is a copy of our presentation, which we think is applicable to any organization with a blog seeking more engagement. As always, you can’t just click a button to get more comments — it’s earned over time through active participation in other online communities besides your own.

One of the audience members referred to the “social mission” baked into the five laws of library science (put forth by Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan) and how this applies to the new tech they adopt. This afternoon I went back to the office and Googled the five laws. Number five certainly stuck out to me: The library is a growing organism.

While doing research for this presentation, Hillary discovered a ton of fantastic resources for libraries seeking to bridge the social technology gap. If you’re interested, go ahead and browse The Shifted Librarian, LibraryCrunch and The Ubiquitous Librarian — blogs that touch on the adaptation of new mediums within libraries.

Library 2.0 is a niche social network for librarians who want to connect, share knowledge and form a virtual brain trust. ASU’s Library Channel is an excellent example of an institution that has integrated social media into their web presence. Last but not least, you might want to check out the OCLC’s 2007 report: Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World.

Special thanks to Scott Phillips for inviting us to present to his co-workers, and for being a champion of social media at Cowles Library. If any librarians happen to stumble across this post, we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Managing your Twitter stream

January 23, 2009 / posted by Nathan T. Wright

If you follow lots of people on Twitter, you’re likely to miss out on valuable content and insight from specific individuals. One option is to swing the Unfollow Hammer mercilessly, or set rigid standards before following people back. Admittedly, I’ve done a poor job at doing this and have performed Twitter “spring cleaning” only once or twice.

Two viable solutions for filtering your Twitter chaos are Tweetdeck and Friendfeed, which we explore in this week’s Area 52 episode:

Please chime in below and let us know which tools or methods you use to manage your Twitter stream.