The “What’s What” in Facebook’s Latest Changes

Posted on : 23-09-2011 | By : Amber | In : Blogging and Such

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facebook 450x189 The Whats What in Facebooks Latest Changes

WOW! Facebook really threw us for a loop this time. So many changes all at once have left many of us confused and wondering exactly how it works, and more importantly, where it has left our privacy settings. I’m one of those Facebookers that tries to keep things as private as possible. I realize that my “private” Facebook is still technically a “public” place, but I like to stay on top of security and privacy settings and make use of all the checkboxes and options that Facebook gives us to keep our content close at hand. I’m not saying I’ve got it all figured out, but I’ll share what I’ve learned and try to explain it all so that you can stay on top of these Facebook changes, too.

The News Feed

The short story on the news feed is that Facebook has combined the previous “Top News” and “Recent Posts” on one page. It’s really confusing when you first look at it, but here’s a few tips to help you make sense of it all.

1.) It changes based on how long it has been since you’ve last logged in.

Sometimes you log in and there’s a dozen Top Stories followed by a series of “Recent Posts” followed by “Earlier Posts.” They aren’t in chronological order and it doesn’t make any sense! Next time you login there may be only 1 or 2 Tops Stories, and it may have a link above that says you have a certain number of  Recent Stories that you can click on. Or maybe you go to your news feed and there are no Top Stories at all! What gives??

Here’s the deal. It changes depending on how long it has been since you’ve just logged in. If it’s been a while, it will show some Top Stories and THEN recent posts. The longer it has been since you’ve logged in, the more likely the list of Top Stories will be longer. If you only JUST logged in, left for a minute and came back… the more likely that you won’t see many or any Top Stories. Facebook is trying to be smart and adapt to your usage habits.

Also, you can influence the Top Stories — which is a feature we didn’t have before. You can remove Top Stories by clicking on the blue triangle in the upper lefthand corner of the story. You can mark other items as Top Stories for you by clicking on the upper lefthand corner of those posts. I haven’t tested how well Facebook responds to these Top Story suggestions, time will tell. But at first glance it does seem like a good idea.

2.) There’s a new Ticker in the sidebar. Or maybe in the chat sidebar. It depends.

From what I’m hearing about the new “Ticker,” you either love it or you hate it. Or maybe you don’t have it at all. I’ll get to that in a minute. The gist of the Ticker (a small area at the top of the right sidebar) is that it displays “real time” activity. You’ll be able to see that a friend just commented on your status from a few hours ago, then another friend posted a status update, then another friend commented on a mutual friend’s photo, and so on. The ticker, unlike the new news feed, is a real time, play by play, of what’s going on with all of your friends and between all of your friends. It has a couple of benefits and a couple of drawbacks.

311162 2405529580148 1308411443 32809668 605790688 n The Whats What in Facebooks Latest Changes

First of all, if you haven’t logged in all day and the first thing you see is a dozen Top Stories from various points of the day, the Ticker in the sidebar will be displaying what is absolutely the most recent activity. You have the ability to see top news and current news at the same time. On the other hand, if you’ve only just returned, you’ll probably see the exact same items at the top of your news feed and the top of your Ticker concurrently. Seems a bit redundant, doesn’t it? But if you check Facebook frequently it’s likely to happen.

The coolest thing about the Ticker is that you can hover over an item and display a pop out box that allows you to read the entire status update and comment, like or share without leaving the page. On the other hand, if you’re a little ADD like me, it may seem like a little too much to take in visually at one time. Unfortunately at this time, there’s no way to turn off the Ticker. There is, however, a way to avoid the News Feed and I’ll get to that in a minute.

Also, if you’re one of those people saying, “Where’s MY Ticker, why don’t *I* have a Ticker?”… it’s important to note that the Ticker seems to pop over into the Chat Sidebar (above the list of online friends) whenever you have the Chat Sidebar open. Close it, and the Ticker pops back over to your News Feed. You won’t see the ticker while you’re on your wall (or someone else’s) but you CAN see the Ticker if you have the Chat Sidebar open while on your own or someone else’s wall. If you can’t see the Ticker in either place, it’s possible that perhaps you need to update your Java Script or have it disabled somehow. That’s just my husband’s theory and has been neither confirmed or denied at this point, but it’s likely.

3.) You’re “Seeing” A Lot More Than You Used To — And from non-friends, too!

Whoah, Facebook, TMI!! I admit it, I bought into the “everyone can see your stuff now!!” scare running around Facebook the past two days. When I started seeing things from people that I was not friends with, I got worried. I was seeing quite a bit of “this friend commented on that non friend’s status” that included the whole status, and the ability to see ALL the comments. And it scared me!

312038 2405921029934 1308411443 32810024 1827359563 n The Whats What in Facebooks Latest ChangesIf I could see what my friends were doing on others’ pages, could they see what my friends were doing on MINE?!

No. I don’t think so. My husband and I ran a test and the short story is that after he commented on my status update, his friends that weren’t friends with me couldn’t see that activity either on his wall, in their News Feeds, or in their Ticker. (He didn’t ask them ALL, but several that weren’t also friends with me.) I have my profile set to “Friends Only” and it seems, it really is still “Friends Only.” Our theory is that all the extra stuff we are seeing in our News Feeds is there because THOSE people who our friends have interacted with have shared things with “Friends of Friends” or “Public.” To prove that theory, I’m awaiting a response from a friend of a friend whose status update and entire conversation I was able to see in my News Feed Earlier today. I’ll let you know. (Update: The friend’s friend confirmed her settings were set to “friends of friends.”) It’s also possible that there are some glitches with the new update they just rolled out. But for now, I feel confident telling you that if you have your profile set to “Friends Only,” your content is still only being shared with “Friends Only.” I really don’t think you need to worry about it being shared beyond that. (At least, not at this point.)

In the meantime, what can you do about seeing all this extra stuff that you may or may not care about?? Not much. If your friends’ friends are sharing that info with everyone, then it’s out there to be read. And the new Facebook update lets you see it all, not just that your friend commented on someone’s status but the whole enchilada. There is ONE option, if you want to seriously unclutter your News Feed.. but it’s an all or nothing option. It doesn’t only block out the friends’ friends. What is that you ask? Let me tell you…

Subscribing

What’s all this new Subscribing stuff?? Very, very recently Facebook rolled out a new feature that allowed you to modify what you see from each of your friends, individually. You find this feature by hovering over their name in the news feed or in a comment, etc, or by going to their wall and finding the “Subscribe” button at the top right. You can choose whether you’d like to see everything or only some things. You can see everything BUT games, or comments and likes, or music, etc. With the new update, Facebook has also added a new feature that allows people to subscribe to YOU. Let’s talk about both of these features.

1.) Your choose what you see from your friends.

Everyone has a friend that plays a lot of games. A LOT OF GAMES. Previously you could block the game but every time they started playing a new game, you’d have to block that game. And then the next one. And the next. But now you can modify all of the updates you receive from a person on a case by case basis. Hover over that person’s name, or click on the button on their page, and choose whether you want to see all, most or some of that person’s updates. While you’re there, select whether or not you want to see Games, Comments and Likes, etc, etc. Poof! You’ll now receive all of that person’s activity. Or not. Whatever you want.

BUT WAIT! That whole Facebook craze, “repost this, hover over my name and uncheck ‘Comments and Likes’ so that my activity isn’t broadcasted for all the world to see” — what about that? (Yes, I fell for that, too.) First of all, go read number 3 under the News Feed section again. I really don’t think your activity is being shared more than whatever you already have selected under your privacy settings. Also, lets think about this a minute. If that WERE the case, then ALL of your Friends’ FRIENDS would have to UNcheck that setting for ALL of your friends for that to work. That’s not likely, is it? That led to the testing that proved that my husband’s friends could not see his interactions with my private profile. I think we’re safe there. On the flip side, let’s say that you DID just unfollow your friends’ comments and likes. That means that not only will you now NOT see when they comment on a non-friend’s status, but now you won’t see when they interact with a mutual friend. That’s fine, if you want it that way. You could really slim down your news feed if you unfollow all of your friends’ comments, games, other activity, etc. You’d basically only see all of your friends’ status updates and that would be it. If that’s what you want, then go for it! But if you WANT to see when your brother posts on your mom’s wall, then you need to leave those subscriptions in place.

My advice? I wouldn’t run down the line and check or uncheck all the options for all of your friends. I’d use it on a case by case basis as it was intended. Everyone is automatically set to “Most Updates” with all of the options checked. Those frequent game players? You may want to go edit those. Close family and friends? You may want to go edit them to “All updates.” Or as I said, if you want a really slim news feed, then have at it, start unsubscribing from everything. Use it like it was attended–it only affects what YOU see anyway, and not anyone else. (A note about “Other Activity” on that list of options.. I think that affects things posted by other apps, like Pinterest, Swagbucks, and maybe even Networked Blogs. If you want to see those, I’d leave those alone.)

2.) Non-Friends can subscribe to your public updates.

Say what? It’s simple. People that you are not friends with, acquaintances, old school friends, bosses that you have chosen not to be friends with can “subscribe” to your updates and then they would be able to see any PUBLIC updates you ever made, if any, in their News Feed. Only the public ones. I don’t think they can comment on them, either, I believe they can only see them. You have to allow this feature, though, and you’ll find that in the left sidebar of your personal wall. Click on “Subscriptions.” Turn this feature on if you want to, leave it alone if you don’t. You can still block people if you need to (and they won’t be able to see you or subscribe to you,) or you can add people to a Restricted List and control what they are able to see. I’ll address that next when I address lists.

Lists and Smart Lists.

We’ve always had lists. You may not have used them, but we’ve had them. They have many benefits, and now they have another one. Lists are a good way to turn chat on and off for only certain groups of friends. It’s a good way to post updates only for certain groups. And now it’s a good way to view statuses and other activity for those groups, too.

Smart Lists

Facebook has created what it calls “Smart Lists.” These lists automatically look for shared information such as people you’ve claimed as family, people who went to the same high school or college, people who work at the same employer… and it creates lists for them. This is kind of cool because it does most of the work for you. You can go through and edit the lists by clicking on “LISTS” in your lefthand sidebar on the Home pge, choosing the list to edit, and then adding or removing people from that group. One of the Smart Lists is called “Close Friends” and it was scary how accurate the friend suggestions for that list were. (Update – When you add people to Smart Lists for work, family and school, those friends will receive a notification so bear that in mind. I don’t believe this applies to the Close Friends and Acquaintances Smart Lists.)

Custom Lists

In addition to Smart Lists, you can create your own lists. Another way to add friends to lists is to click on “FRIENDS” in your left wall page sidebar and go down the list of friends one at a time, hovering over the box to the right of their name (the gray box should say “FRIENDS”) and selecting the list you want to add them to. One list you should create if you don’t have it already is “ALL.” With a list that ALL of your friends are on, you can turn chat OFF for ALL friends and turn Chat ON for only one group, such as FAMILY. (UPDATE: I’m not sure this is still a capability we have, I’m looking.) And remember that I mentioned a way to avoid the confusing news feed? If you have a list for ALL friends, you can view the activity of all of your friends, in backward chronological order, without confusing Top Stories or Tickers if you have a group for ALL. Simply click on LISTS in your lefthand sidebar on the News Feed, click on the ALL list (or any other list) and poof– there’s their updates. No clutter. Just information.

Two more things about lists. One – the lists displayed under LISTS in the sidebar of your News Feed rotate. You may see FAMILY and SCHOOL FRIENDS and then next time you see something else. You can click on Lists to see them all and choose the one you’re looking for… OR… you can “pin” a list to your sidebar permanently by adding it to your FAVORITES (the section that displays under your picture and says “Info,” “Photos,” “Notes,” etc.) To do this, click on LISTS, click on the edit pencil next to the list you want, and select “Add to Favorites.” The second thing – I would be careful about creating TOO many lists, or adding people to too many lists at a time. These lists will display in your sidebar with a number of unread updates next to it. When you read the updates on one list (your ALL list) it doesn’t automatically clear the notifications for the other lists. You’ll have to open them each if you want to clear the notification number next to it. You don’t want to create too much work for yourself! Use your lists wisely…

Other Tidbits

It seems that Facebook has FINALLY removed the character limit for status update — and THAT’S one change that really makes me happy!

It also seems that the status blurbs from “This day a year ago” we saw on some pages are now gone. That makes me sad. You can still see the occasional previous update here and there, but that’s not the same.

I don’t like that the Menu bar is static and stays at the top of the page, that you have scroll all the way back up to the top after scrolling very far down your news feed. I don’t think it has always been that way, has it? I’m forgetful, but I’m pretty sure that the Menu bar stayed at the top of the screen even when you scrolled down for easier navigation–didn’t it? (Update: It looks like the Menu Bar is static again! It should stay at the top of the screen no matter how far you scroll down. Yay!)

Facebook is coming out with one more update, called Timeline, and it’s coming soon. Who knows which of these changes will still apply — and how many more they’ll add!!

FEEDBACK

If you read something here that you believe is incorrect.. PLEASE.. tell me. If you find some supporting evidence to add, post that here, too. If I discover any new information that invalidates something I’ve said here, I will come back and update or edit this post as needed.

If you have any other issues that I haven’t addressed, please ask! I can also make and add any screenshots that you find helpful, just ask! And last but not least.. PLEASE.. DO SHARE the good things that you like about the new update. I don’t want to seem like I’m harping on the pitfalls, and every new update is not without it’s good things. Share what you like about the newest version of Facebook!

As always, it’s a good idea to run through your Account and Privacy settings and check for new loops to jump through.  You know, if you care about such things. ; )

 

How to Create a Facebook Page for Your Blog or Site

Posted on : 10-02-2011 | By : Amber | In : Blogging and Such

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facebook How to Create a Facebook Page for Your Blog or SiteA friend asked me, “How do I create a page for my blog?” I really thought I already had a blog post for that but guess what? I don’t! So here it is.

Create a Page for Your Blog or Site in 3 Easy Steps.

Step 1: Go to the “Create a Page” page. Click on the option of your choice.

If you click on ‘Brand or Product’ you can choose the dropdown option ‘Website.’ If are also a writer, speaker or musician and you are making a page for your site or blog you might prefer to choose ‘Artist, Band or Public Figure.’ If you have a blog or site for a local service such as real estate or cake decorating, you might prefer to choose ‘Local Business.’

Step 2: Fill in the information.

Choose the appropriate option out of the dropdown box, that’s easy enough. The box below that is for the name of your page. IMPORTANT: You cannot change this after you have more than 100 followers/fans. It’s important to get this right the first time! ;0) After you ‘check’ the ‘I agree to Facebook Pages Terms’ box you can create your page. (Tip: You might actually want to scan through that instead of just ‘checking’ it and moving on.)

Step 3: Customize your page.

Add your site information, startup date, etc. Add as much or as little information as you want to. Don’t forget to leave a link to your website! Add a profile picture and manage your permissions. Dig through every tab and make sure everything is set to your liking.

And that’s it! Now you have a page. Now you just gotta let people know it’s there. How can you do this?

Get the word out:

  • While looking at your page, in the left sidebar you can find a “share” button to share your page on your Facebook wall.
  • Create a badge for your Facebook page that you can post on your website or blog.
  • Blog about it and let people know that it’s there!

Now go forth and create!

What do YOU want to know?

The Scoop on Facebook Places and Geotagging; How to Play It Safe Online

Posted on : 28-08-2010 | By : Amber | In : Blogging and Such, The Whole Shebang

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facebook The Scoop on Facebook Places and Geotagging; How to Play It Safe OnlineI’m not sure why the Facebook Places warning is circulating around Facebook again, but it is. The warning that’s going around this time is written in a rather panic-inciting tone, but as far as I can tell, Facebook places is the same as it was already. The warning makes it sound almost like just using Facebook is enough to give away your location. You actually have to use Facebook Places for it to show where you are. However, your friends can use Facebook Places and tag you (showing that you’re at X location also.) If you don’t want to use Facebook Places and/or don’t want your friends to be able to check you into a place, there are three privacy settings you need to change.

places2 The Scoop on Facebook Places and Geotagging; How to Play It Safe Online

places The Scoop on Facebook Places and Geotagging; How to Play It Safe OnlineHOWEVER: There’s one more thing that people who are concerned about giving away their locations should know about. And that’s geotagging. Geotagging on smart phones allows people to use apps like Foursquare (and I’m sre that’s what Facebook Places is using.) Geotagging imbeds the actual GPS coordinates of your location to an image taken with your cell phone. Some people use that to upload pics and attach them to a map. However, if you take a picture of something in your home, geotagging is turned on, and you upload that picture to facebook or twitter — that picture includes embedded geotagging, giving away the exact location of your home.

For more information about Geotagging:

That middle news report addressed how you can turn geotagging off, but if you do, your smart phone won’t be able to access maps to help you find the nearest gas station or driving directions. You might choose to only turn the geotagging on when you need GPS assistance. Or you might leave it on and just use discretion about which places you check into and where you upload pictures taken on your cell phone. Either way, it just takes a little bit of paying attention and then you’re not putting yourself at risk.

3 Reasons Why I Purged Over 100 People From My Facebook Friends

Posted on : 06-05-2010 | By : Amber | In : Blogging and Such, The Whole Shebang

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I enjoy Facebook. I really do. In fact there have probably been too many days where I have spent too much time on that site. (And that’s not necessarily a good thing.)

Facebook helps me:

  • stay current with my mom, who – after living ten minutes away my kids’ whole lives – moved four hours away a few years ago.
  • keep in touch or get in touch with other family members across the country
  • likewise with good friends I don’t see as much as I’d like to in person

On the other hand, Facebook also:

  • helps me find people I’d completely lost contact with, who I think I might like to catch up with, who I never spend any time talking to, sharing pictures with, commenting on statuses with and so on.
  • allows me to add “friends who are passing through” and then wonder if, when and how I should unfriend them after they are gone.
  • sometimes presents the opportunity to add a friend, acquaintance, or friend of a friend who I feel I *should* add out of guilt, peer pressure, not wanting to hurt their feelings or whatever. (Most of the time I don’t give in, I’ve always been very selective about my friends and kept my profile very private.)

Still.

As enjoyable as Facebook can be, something sullies the Facebook sweetness. Three things actually. So here it is.

trash 3 Reasons Why I Purged Over 100 People From My Facebook Friends

3 Reasons Why I Purged Over 100 People From My Facebook Friends

1.) Too much input.

Remember the movie Short Circuit? “Need more input.” Yeah. Not so. In this case it was more like TMI, only not necessarily as gross as when someone in the bathroom stall at Wal-Mart talks about what they are doing. No, I’m just talking about information overload. Every single time I logged into Facebook (or nearly so), I would have over 300 recent items in my news feed. THREE HUNDRED. And I log into Facebook at least twice a day. Seriously. And no, I don’t play a ton of games, I don’t join every group and page that comes through and yes, I do hide other people’s game applications. And still: 300+.

As you can imagine, it would take a lot of time to go back through all those updates every time I logged in. Sometimes I do, and I lose a lot of time to Facebook (which my hubby doesn’t appreciate.) Usually I don’t and then invariably someone I am close to asks: “Hey, did you see the XYZ on my wall?” Most of the time the answer is no. So that whole “keeping me connected to my friends and family?” That’s pretty null and void at that point, isn’t it?

2.) Online Safety

Facebook is the only place that I share my kids’ names and pictures. I do this because 1.) as I mentioned before I selectively add friends there and 2.) I have everything on my personal page locked down tight as a bank vault.

Or do I?

Everytime Facebook adds a new feature, a new setting, it defaults to public. Now wait a minute! How much sense does that make?? Sure, I go in and change it. But the bottom line is that Facebook is making me jump through hoops to keep my page private. And in light of some of their recent changes from the last two updates, it seems like the more friends I have, the higher the odds that one or more of my friends is sharing information with their applications. So it makes sense to me to think “less friends = less friends sharing information with applications.” Right?

You could argue that I could just delete my account. I could. And at some point I may have to. For now, I’m happy to cut out people I’m no longer talking to or close with to keep my Facebook friends “close to home” so to speak. In the meantime, I still get to easily share photos and funny things with my mom, my grandmother, my mother in law, and so on.

Another thing, this article “Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook” really got me thinking. You should read it. (And the links within it.)

3.) Real Life Safety

Some friends of ours recently came home from a shopping trip to find their house and been robbed. We have no reason to think Facebook played any role in this but it got me thinking. REALLY thinking. Let’s play pretend for a moment.

Let’s PRETEND that I add a friend of a friend who I know vaguely, or an ex-coworker or some similar kind of acquaintance. Let’s pretend that John Doe Smith is really not a very trustworthy or upstanding character – but I really don’t know him well enough to know this. Let’s then pretend that over the course of a few months I talk about random things, like my new laptop I got for my birthday, the diamond bracelet I got for my anniversary and then to top it all off, lets say husband got a new 60 inch flat screen for Father’s Day. Then let’s pretend that I put up something totally casual like “Off to the parents for the weekend! Yay!” And this is more than John Doe Smith can take because he’s really quite the unscrupulous character. He happens to know where I live and also happens to be removed enough from our circle so as to probably not ever be suspected. (I mean, what are the odds that the police are going to question all 300 people on my Facebook list?) So he goes for it. And I come home to a vandalized and emptied house. And my kids are terrified for their safety when they go to bed at night.

Okay, so I admit that was a lot of pretending there. And most likely our friends’ experience didn’t have anything to do with Facebook. But it did make me stop and think about what I’m advertising on Facebook and who I am advertising it to. DO I TRUST EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS LIST?

Do you trust yours?

So now my Facebook friends list is over 100 people lighter.

And not only that, but I also unliked many groups and pages that no longer meet or serve any of my purposes. How do you do that?

To unfriend a large group of people at one time, you need to go to your profile, click on ‘Account’ in the upper right corner, click on ‘Edit Friends’, click on ‘All Connections’ in the lefthand sidebar of that page. You’ll see all your groups, pages, friends all at the same time. Then just start clicking X’s and confirming! It’s as easy as cake. Or pie. Whichever you prefer. I like pie.

Go ahead. I dare you. Make your friends list a list of real friends. You’ll feel a hundred people lighter. And you might actually be able to keep up will all your real friends. Imagine that.

And for the record, all of my pretend stealable items were in fact pretend. However, if any companies or manufacturers of big screen tv’s want to give me one to try out for them, I’m available.

Also for the record, those are ranked in order of my concern – with number one being my main reason and so on. Just FYI.

Image Credit: D Sharon Pruitt via Common License

Adding Facebook Buttons to Your Blog (On WordPress)

Posted on : 23-04-2010 | By : Amber | In : Blogging and Such, The Whole Shebang

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So you blog. AND you Facebook. AND you started a page for your blog ON Facebook. Now how do you get all those nifty little buttons on your blog?

Easy. Peasy.

facebook Adding Facebook Buttons to Your Blog (On Wordpress)

Add a Facebook “Share” button to your posts:

To add a “Share” button to your posts (like the one at the bottom of this page), you’re going to need a teensy bit of php know-how, but not TOO much. You need to feel comfortable digging around in your single post .php file. To begin:

  1. Login to your WordPress Admin, go to theme editor, open your single.php file.
  2. If you’re uncertain, copy and paste the contents of the php file into textedit or notepad, so that you can replace it if you need to. Otherwise, skip to step 3.
  3. Login to Facebook and go here: http://www.facebook.com/facebook-widgets/share.php – choose your button style and counter/no counter then copy the code.
  4. In your single.php file, paste the code “inside the loop” – somewhere after “<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>” (put it after this and before the code for the post content if you want it above the post) and before “<?php endwhile; else: ?> (put it before after the code for the post content and before this if you want it at the bottom of the post.” Use the code for post author information and comments information as a guideline.
  5. Save and open a post. Check it out. Like it? If not, try again.

Difficulty Level: This’ll freak you out if you’ve never looked at your code, but you’ll feel more confident if you at least know how to change colors and add small things like signatures.

Option 2: Install this Facebook Share Plugin.

  1. Login to your WordPress Admin, go to Plugins, Add New.
  2. Search: “Facebook Share (New) Button”
  3. See first result, Click “Install.”
  4. Set your options.

Difficulty Level: So easy your 8 year old could do it.

Add a Facebook “Like” button to your blog:

This enables your readers to “recommend” or “share” your blog to their Facebook friends in their news stream. Instead of sharing one blog post, however, your readers are sharing YOUR BLOG. To do this:

To put it in your sidebar:

  1. Login to WordPress Admin, go to Themes, Widgets, Add HTML widget where you want it.
  2. Go to this Facebook page: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like
  3. Enter your information in the box at the bottom – your blog address, choose button style, etc, and click on “Get Code.”
  4. Copy/paste the code into your widget and save. Stand back and admire your shiny new Like Button.

Difficulty Level: Would you like some training wheels with that?

To add it to a page, post area, or anywhere else:

  1. Login to your WordPress Admin, Theme Editor, open the appropriate php file.
  2. For peace of mind, copy the code and paste it into a text file temporarily.
  3. Go to this page on Facebook: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like
  4. Enter your blog info, get code, copy, paste into the php file where you want it.
  5. Check it out, move it if you need to, and so on.

Difficulty Level: Follow the yellow brick road. Do not deviate from the path or the scary flying monkeys will get you. Unless you’re a wizard, in which case, rock on.

Add a Facebook Fan Box to your sidebar:

This couldn’t get any easier. The fan box introduces your readers to your fan page and makes it super easy for them to join your page. It also displays your fan page activity to give an indication of the kind of content they’re going to “put up with” if they add you.

  1. Login to WP Admin, Appearance, Widgets
  2. Add an HTML widget where you want it to display.
  3. Go to this Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/facebook-widgets/fanbox.php
  4. Select your info and copy paste the code into the widget.

Difficulty Level: Like taking candy from a baby. (Not that I would do that – shame on you!)

Now wasn’t that easy? Now go enjoy your new Facebook integrated WordPress blog!