Twitter With Full URLs

When twittering, or otherwise posting a URL online, putting the http://www prefix on the web address will automatically be recognized as a URL and be made a link by various systems (e.g., Google's spiders, twitter's web interface, tweetie, etc.).

Facebook, for instance, automatically recognizes a full URL and makes it a link almost everywhere, and includes the page description and image in messages and wall posts. You can customize the default image, title and description that Facebook sharing uses too.

Popular Blog Posts Are Made Tues - Fri 10am - 2pm PT

Posting to a blog at different times affects the popularity of the post. Bookmarking that post at different times also impacts its popularity. There may be a "blog-cycle," like a news-cycle, for making blog posts popular.

According to some research, Thursday early afternoon and early evening may be the best times to seed blog posts into social bookmarking and social media sites. Others say that between 1pm and 3pm PST (after lunch) or between 5pm and 7pm PST (after work) are the best times and Thursday is the best day.

Facebook Chat on iPhone

Facebook has released a new version of the Facebook application for the iPhone which is available to be installed tomorrow at the launch of the new iPhone. The application includes chat which means you will be able to chat with all of your Facebook friends while on the go

(from allfacebook).

Broader Social Media, Video and Internet Ideas

I've started a separate blog about Social Media, Video and the Internet on which I'll discuss less specific or tip related things. Dave Tips is about how to, and Guerue is more what can be done and why.

Pretty Facebook Sharing

When someone shares a page on Facebook, the webmaster can specify the title, the description and the default thumbnail image.

The title doesn't have to be the same as the the page's title tag, and is specified with:

<meta name="title" content="different page title"/>

The description is taken from the standard description meta tag:

<meta name="description" content="page description"/>

The thumbnail used for Facebook sharing, and other places too, can be specified with:

<link rel="image_src" href="[your thumbnail's web address]"/>

Place the code in the head section of the web page replacing "[your thumbnail's web address]" with the URL to your thumbnail image, and both the title and description with what you want to have appear when the item is shared on Facebook.

Facebook Status on Twitter

If you have many social networking profiles, you have many different places you can update your status message. Consolidation of status messages let's you put your status where you want to in the way you want to put it there, and then lets others access it how and where they want.

Having your Facebook status automatically update Twitter can mean updating one less site manually, and that means more time for other things. Read how to have your Facebook status automatically update your Twitter status on internetducttape.com. Basically you do this:

• use a Yahoo Pipe to strip off your name
• set up TwitterFeed to put the status into your Twitter status

The only downside I can see is a delay in the update to Twitter.

The consolidation of any number of social networking account statuses should be possible if:

• the primary account you want to update manually has a status feed (likely in RSS)
• you can figure out how to change the contents of the primary feed (e.g., using a site like Yahoo Pipes)
• the statuses you want to update automatically can be modified programatically, either on the site (like Facebook's ability to import a feed's posts as notes), or with a third party site (like TwitterFeed)

Blogger 'Share on Facebook' Code

If you have a blogger blog, and want your visitors to easily share your posts with their facebook friends, you can make blogger automatically place a 'share on facebook' link at the end of each post. Add this code after the body of the post:

for layouts (in the "Edit HTML" pane with the "Expand Widget Templates" check box checked):

<b:if cond='data:post.url'>
<br/>share <a expr:href='data:post.url' title='permanent link'>this</a>: <a expr:href='&quot;http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=&quot; + data:post.url'>facebook</a>
</b:if>

for classic templates:

share <a href="<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>" title="permanent link">this</a>: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>">facebook</a>

and you'll also have a permalink before the 'share on facebook' link. You can make facebook sharing look good: specify the picture, title and description facebook will use; apply the tips on your post pages.

Where to put the code: It depends where you want the share links to appear, probably below the post. Likely after the <$BlogItemBody$> for classic templates and somewhere in the <div id='main-wrapper'> code for layouts. The specifics depend on your template/layout and your preference.

You can also add a link for sharing and saving for other social networking and social bookmarking sites too. If you'd like the code for that, please read the comments.