Category: Marketing and Publicity

Categories
Facebook Tab manager Marketing and Publicity Web Development WordPress

How to Pull Blog Content Into a Facebook Page Tab

This is a usage example for the Facebook Tab Manager for WordPress plugin, which lets you create and edit content to be displayed on Facebook from within the WordPress editor.

This is the clippings page tab for my work as a tech journalist:

Facebook screenshot - Facebook Tab Manager
Clippings Page Tab

and here is how it was composed in WordPress

Editor screenshot - Facebook Tab Manager
Page Tab Content in the WordPress Editor

This example uses the fbtab shortcode, which allows me to pull in a category from my blog. I could also just pull in the latest posts, or a single post I wanted to feature.

I set the links to open in a new window, because the full posts won’t display properly within the narrow IFrame of my page tab. I have my template set to execute all the normal wp_head actions, one of which is a Twentyten theme action to set the page background image. I then add a little bit of CSS to provide a different background for my #content div and styling for the links (based on the color of Jupiter’s ruddy clouds).

For a finishing touch, I found a free clip art image of a pair of scissors and changed the icon to be displayed next to my tab using the Facebook Developer utility on facebook.com.

After you download the Facebook Tab Manager for WordPress plugin, there’s more documentation on how to register your content on the plugin homepage and this category of my blog. I’ve also tried to make the UI as self-explanatory as I know how.

Categories
Marketing and Publicity Web Development

Announcing a Free Tool: Create a Lead Capture Form That Connects Facebook to Your Website

Update: Facebook’s move to enable page tabs based on HTML iframes rather than FBML makes the specific techniques discussed below obsolete. Today I recommend instead using my Facebook Tab Manager for WordPress if your site is on WordPress. If you are not on WordPress, you should find that the task of integrating custom content including contact forms is now easier, overall.

As a sequel to my post on why Facebook Ads Should Point to a Facebook Page (Not an External Web Page), I cooked up a little homegrown tool that generates the required code. The source code output is derived from the example in George Huger’s Submitting a Contact Form via AJAX From Your Facebook Page. Huger shows how to use JavaScript functions that are approved for use within Facebook to submit a data entry form from within Facebook, have it processed on your web server, and get back an acknowledgement you can display on your Facebook page – without ever making the user leave Facebook and go to your website.

Read more and try it

Categories
Marketing and Publicity

Publicity: Tradepal Makes Buying, Selling, and Bartering Social

Carr Communications is working with Tradepal on publicity for the launch of its service, producing a press release and press kit handouts illustrating the concepts behind the service.

Tradepal Makes Buying, Selling, and Bartering Social
Social Media Marketplace Features Hybrid Cash/Barter Offers, Introduces Giveaway Option
New York, NY (PRWEB) May 25, 2010 — Tradepal will be demonstrating a new approach to person-to-person
web commerce based on buying, selling, and bartering with friends at this week’s TechCrunch Disrupt.
Tradepal introduces a “hybrid” online marketplace where members use money, items, or both, to trade with
friends and friends of friends.
Users list items on Tradepal (www.tradepal.com) that they are willing to sell or trade for. Other members who
see an item they like can either issue a Buy Now order at the Friendly PriceTM (listed price) or make an offer for
whatever they think the item is worth. Offers can be cash, barter, or a combination of the two. Rather than
following the traditional auction model, Tradepal facilitates negotiations between members using an electronic
trading system and a live chat between members.

Tradepal Makes Buying, Selling, and Bartering Social

Social Media Marketplace Features Hybrid Cash/Barter Offers, Introduces Giveaway Option

New York, NY (PRWEB) May 25, 2010 — Tradepal will be demonstrating a new approach to person-to-person web commerce based on buying, selling, and bartering with friends at this week’s TechCrunch Disrupt.

Tradepal introduces a “hybrid” online marketplace where members use money, items, or both, to trade with friends and friends of friends.

Users list items on Tradepal (www.tradepal.com) that they are willing to sell or trade for. Other members who see an item they like can either issue a Buy Now order at the Friendly PriceTM (listed price) or make an offer for whatever they think the item is worth. Offers can be cash, barter, or a combination of the two. Rather than following the traditional auction model, Tradepal facilitates negotiations between members using an electronic trading system and a live chat between members. (read the rest on PRWeb)

Handouts: Listing Items on Tradepal, Buy Now or Make an Offer