How To Get Your Blog Posts Viral Exposure on Twitter and Facebook
As important as Location, Location, Location is to Real Estate, so is the importance of Exposure, Exposure, Exposure to Bloggers. Some Bloggers offer their subscribers, readers, and visitors the ability to "share" their content with others via Twitter or Facebook. ActiveRain has the ReBlog Option, just like Wordpress and Blogger are doing now, but that only works for other AR members. Here's a way to help get your "Voice Heard" and your "Posts Seen" on two of the other Largest Social Networks in the World, and here's how others can help you do it.
"Tweets" and "ReTweets" are quite popular as is "Sharing on FaceBook." I've just discovered a way that you can now do both. I think you're going to like this. It's simple. Just create and add a "Tweet" button, or a custom "Share" graphic, then create a link to it just like you would any other photo or image. You can even use text with a hyper-link. Here's the secret: you just need to replace the "BOLD" URL below with your page that you want shared. You will need to keep the underlined portion of the code below for each button to work.
Tweet Code: http://twitter.com/home?status=http://PlaceYourPageURLHere
For A ReTweet Code: http://twitter.com/home?status=RT%20http://PutYourPageURLHere
Share on FaceBook Code:http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://AddYourPageURLHere
Now some of you may be thinking, why not just use the "Sharethis" or "AddThis" widget? Well you still can, and they do have more options, but the millions of Social Networking consumers out there are probably more use to seeing the Tweet, ReTweet, and Share on FaceBook buttons. Familairity may play more of a role here than we think. Not to mention, using this method is quick, easy, and only "one click" away from accomplishing the readers goal. To Share!
So starting right now, you can begin letting the 100 million members that logon to Facebook each day, and the 14,590,000 Twitter accounts (guesstimation) share your great content with others on Facebook and Twitter. Word of Caution: This will not work for "Members Only" and "Associates Only" posts on AR. It will work on any "Public" Blog, Post, or Website.
Taking the idea one step further. If you have an AR Outside Blog, make sure that the Link you provide to your "Tweet" and "Share on FaceBook" buttons go to the post on your AR Outside Blog and not to your Internal AR Blog. This will help increase exposure and traffic to your Outside Blogs. All your "outbound" links should always go to your Outside Blog posts. Getting SEO and traffic to your Blogs is a great thing, but letting others share, and making it easy for them may be just as powerful.
Now let's talk about the 35 million members on LinkedIn?!? :-O
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Wow more that we need to do...you're making me tired!
Nice job putting this together Brad. I am sure there will be many taking advantage of these options.
Brad..I think I understand..either that or my virus is raising my temperture ..and my headaches.. :0)
HELPFULHANNAH
Just another thought...you are probably going to get asked how to create the graphics for the buttons:)
These buttons go to my Outside Blog. Feel free to test them out! :-))
It sounds a little complicated, but I'll reread it when it's not a Saturday morning...
Brad - Thanks for the instructions on how to accomplish more exposure for our outside blog especially.
This is a very good idea. Thank you and I'm hitting the reblog button!
Heather - you don't need to do it...unless you want more exposure. :-)
Hannah - for that you don't need a button to share, you need Tylenol! lol~
Bill - I'll save that for another post later! haha~ mycoolbutton.com? :-O
Thank you for this excellent advice -- always appreciate your posts, and always learn so much. Am bookmarking this to get back to, later today.
Exposure..(brrr) it's all about more exposure. Thanks Brad...can you play Freebird again? Nice band photos!
Brad - Good post... I'll be back.... Need a little more time to digest this one...
I agree with Andrew, Nice shots from the show... Looks like a lot of fun was had..... 'FREEBIRD"
ROCK ON DUDE! ;-0
Brad - man, you keep us hopping with all the info on what we can do with our blogs to gain exposure, and more. It's hard to keep up but it seems like a pretty simple thing to do.
Jeff
Brad - you've opened up a whole new thought pattern for us. Thanks! Let's see what we can do with it!
Ok, it sounds simple enough. Now just provide us the time to implement it all!
Brad - Thanks for taking the time to post this. It's been on my "to do" list for awhile now. :)
Brad I am a little bit of a dingaling in the twitter and retweet arena. Can you (pretty please) write a post in great depth about the value of a retweet and how to post the retweet button for that particular post ?!?!?
Brad I am a little bit of a dingaling in the twitter and retweet arena. Can you (pretty please) write a post in great depth about the value of a retweet and how to post the retweet button for that particular post ?!?!?
Renee - although there are some great detailed posts out there already, you know I'd be happy to do that for you. :-)
A ReTweet is just like a ReBlog in the sense that everyone has different followers and subscribers to their Blogs and twitter accounts. When someone retweets a post or twitter tweet, it expands and exposes your content to others SOI's. The retweet button in this post should work, the only difference from a regular shared tweet is that it adds the "RT" before the tweet.
Brad, we are a little slow figuring these things out. Take the link for Facebook, what are we adding to the link... the URL for the blog and if so do we paste into the status bar on our own homepage.
Al and Peggy - no problem. The link you add is to your post or article that you want to share, and have others share. The first part of the link tells it to post on their Facebook wall, the second part of the link (you add) is to the post you want shared with folks on Facebook.
Here's a detailed Example:
This first part tells it to post on your facebook wall: http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=
This second part is the URL for the post (I'm using this post as the example)
http://activerain.com/blogsview/1300145/how-to-get-your-blog-posts-viral-exposure-on-twitter-and-facebook
Now Put the two together, and you now have a "Share On Facebook" link.
http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://activerain.com/blogsview/1300145/how-to-get-your-blog-posts-viral-exposure-on-twitter-and-facebook
This process has your Blog post go to that readers or visitors Facebook wall and posts it to share with others. Go ahead and try the sample Facebook Link above and you'll see how it ends up on your Facebook wall. (hover your mouse over it, I left you a little message)
Hope that helps explain it better for you.
Awesome post Brad. Thank you for writing this!
Brad --- I think I understand -- what if we already have our posts going directly to Twitter and Facebook? Maybe I'm missing something.
Mama Liz
Brad- That is so cool. On my todo list. I just got 2 comments today on this reblog asking why in the world would I reblog. I wanted lots more exposure for the original post and some for me as well. Can you write a post on why reblog? Or have you already?
My brain hurts. So, my questions is, Brad, we have to great this button every time we create a post we want to share? Where do we store the code to remember it?
As usual, thanks for all your help.
Hi Brad -- Exposure is a good thing and you nailed it with this one, I'm bookmarking this one to I can check it out. I only recently (as in yesterday) just started sending my ar posts to t and f.
Oh man, you always come up with the coolest stuff! As little as I post I need to get as much exposure as possible! Thanks!
Jane - great question. Once you add it to one of your posts, you'll have it forever! Then just copy and paste it into your next post, and change the URL to show the current post. Your brain should feel better now no? :-))
Oh...by the way, this is not a blog hijack but a client just sent me this interesting shreding video that I thought you might enjoy! Have a great weekend!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPs2_VzHjqQ
Brad,
I just posted a comment to the effect that I was looking for someone to post a blog about "Twitter 101"
This is it, And from a very, very reliable source.
So, thanks!
Brian
Wow I actually came back to read!! Good stuff - I'm going to try this now ...
Thanks for the Re-Tweet and post on FaceBook info. I didn't know this was an option. I will be implementing this with future posts.
WooHoo. I'm loving this one! Awesome! YAY! Ok, can you tell I'm excited about this one. I have been secretly (LOL) hoping one of these days we could do this! Yippee! ~Rita
Hello Brad, thanks for sharing the procedure to do this. I tested on this particular blog, and noted that for Twitter the AR URL is quite long and chews up a lot of the available characters available yet, when finished Twitter converts the long URL to an abbreviated one. Any tricks to get us a "shorter" URL for Twitter? Thanks! John
Good stuff, Brad, as usual. Thanks for putting it all there so we don't have to figure it out. Great potential with this!
Brad, You've always got something good for us. I will have re-read and give this a try.
Muchas Gracias, Brad. I am going in.....
I went in and added the html under html and all I got was html. I think I am missing the part about adding the buttons? You are, after all dealing with the mentally challenged.
Brad, terrific! This was actually one of the next things on my list of things to do for my blog.
I tried doing the logo and adding that link to a post I did last week and nothing happened. I don't know what I'm missing.
Hi Brad...You explain things so well yet I'm still left trying to figure out if I can manage this. I'm struggling to keep up or more honestly, to catch up.
Kate
same here Jane
Great ideas here Brad. I will bookmark this and come back to it when I am writing another blog.
Hi Brad ~ So I retweeted this....Actually it was the reblog of this. But anyway, you get my point. My guess is it will be retweeted a lot of times by us "testers." (Before I use anything I like to figure out exactly how it works).
The FB link wanted to post to my profile, which I didn't want as this kind of stuff in business and belongs on my fan page. (Obviously what you're suggesting is for public posts anyway, so that's irrelevant).
Pretty cool. Just wish there were more hours in the day to implement all this cool stuff I'm learning on AR!
Denise
Does anyone notice that having your posts appear on facebook helps? I get activity from AR but I have not noticed any from facebook. Is there a way to track whether or not people are clicking through from facebook?
Brad,
I finally got it! I shouldn't have been trying during the Alabama game. Works great. Thanks!
Brad, this is great stuff my friend. While we all have our subscribers here, the opportunity to spread our written word across the Facebook and Twitter platform to a whole other group of readers is amazing!
I've bookmarked this blog and will add it to my "list of plenty"!
Great opportunity to get more exposure for posts - especially since it is against Facebook's TOS for agents to promote their business on their profile page.
Tina in Virginia
Alex - twitter automatically shortens the URL. If you want the shorter URL to link to your "Tweet This" button, then just tweet in once, go copy the "tinyurl" and use that for your link to the button. Another option is http://bit.ly/ this site will shorten the url for you without sending a tweet. Easy fix. Great question for those who want to do that, thanks. :-)
Jane & Daniel - it's not HTML and it doesn't go on the HTML tab. It's just an image on your post with a link to it. The link get's put into the box when you create the link to the image. The box looks like this:
You get to this option by clicking on your button (or any image in a post) then click on the icon in your toolbar that looks like a little chain. It will open the box you see above, and that's where you add the URL so your button will link to the right place when a visitor clicks on it.
Click the non-broken chain below to create links, click the broken chain to undo them.
Denise - this is not a post I would imagine people adding to their FB profile. (yes, maybe the testers will) However, if you were to create some great hyper-local content, maybe about a business, a restaurant, local schools, a community event etc, you might be surprised how many consumers in the community would tweet that, or put it on their FB page.
New Years Celebration is coming up and that would be a great example of Local Content posted that could get tweeted and facebooked by hundreds of folks in your areas. The Blog post content is of course the key to getting "anyone" to tweet or share on Facebook.
Videos, pictures etc. are all huge items that get shared on twitter and Facebook on a regular daily basis. No one else is doing this with their AR posts right now, but I bet that's all about to change once they see or hear about this. Humbly speaking, this is CRAZY COOL stuff and should definitely be considered and added to your "going viral" marketing and social networking business plan. :-)
Brad - You have shared yet another great tool. I've wondered about this (as I do many things). I'll certainly be adding these codes. Thanks!
Brad, this is another great tip to keep your Rain buddies on the cutting edge! Thanks so much!
Oops. I know links. Where am we getting the image without the links to Facebook and Twitter? That is the conundrum.
Great. Do you NEVER tire of coming up with MORE ways for me to spend another couple of minutes building a post? If I didn't know better, I'd think we were married... I know better... but my wife has ways of adding work to my list, too.
Very cool Brad, thanks for the tip. Of course I just figured out how to add the "share this" button on my Blog. :) It's a good thing I like to learn new things. I love all of your suggestions!
-M
Brad- Thanks for the specifics on using the sharing this tweet right in the body of a post. I like that. I use the shareaholic button in the top of my firefox browser ( an add on) that will tweet any page I go to in one click and also facebook it for me along with of course hundreds of other places but I use Facebook and Twitter a lot. I also retweet other tweets a lot to help pay it forward in twitterville.
I had a post I wrote about why loan modifications and short sales get turned down, it was reblogged over 47 times here on AR and AR outside blogs- but it was also picked up by dozens more non AR people from Facebook and Twitter and it really went wild. It was retweeted a lot of times, can not even count, and then I got emails for permission to post on blogs and forums. It had over 3800 views just on our AR blog. I think it was my most successful NON AR related ( tutorial type) post I have ever written. It is really cool to see how viral it can get.
Hmm. OK. I think I get it. Not bad... Seems like a great way to get that "exposure, exposure, exposure"! Thanks!
Hey..Look out Twitter and Faced Book Fans you're about to get Slammed in the Rain :O))
Thanks Brad !
Brad,
I want to do it, really I do, but I'm pretty sure, although I've bookmarked this post, it isn't going to happen. I have AT LEAST 50 of your posts bookmarked to do later and later never comes!
Nice tip! :)
Brad - Does ActiveRain have any plans on adding code like this (such as the Tweetmeme plugin for Wordpress) in the future (or preferably near future? This would be a great boon to ActiveRain's status I think. Although I know how to set up the code, doing it manually for every single post can be very tedious.
Would also love to see Zemanta become usable for ActiveRain. Although there is a workaround that you can use, it is a bit unwieldy for most. Having the Zemanta plugin as a feature of ActiveRain would greatly increase the linkage all around - something we all can use more of.
That's my two cents.
Great tips. Thank you
Thanks Brad -- I love how simple you made it -- Works perfect!!
Jason
I love your advice and your ideas. Each time I try something you suggest I tend to get some kind of positive feed back. Thanks and keep up the good work
Brad this is awesome. Much more useful than the way I was doing it. I'll be implementing this on my next blog post.
I put these links into my wordpress.com blog. It's just a link - no graphics. Am I missing something? Don't you need HTML code to make the buttons appear? Thanks for sharing these ideas.
I like this and bookmarked this.
Brad - great information....just trying to digest it all.
As always thank you for all the helpeful information.
Hi Brad,
I tried it on a test blog at http://activerain.com/blogsview/1302254/tweet-and-share.
The tweet works fine, but the facebook sharing puts it into my facebook account with the title, "Blog post access denied..."
What have I done wrong?
Brad - once again you have shared a great way for us all to get more exposure AND have it in simple to understand directions! thanks - you da man!
Brad - once again you have shared a great way for us all to get more exposure AND have it in simple to understand directions! thanks - you da man!
Damon - sorry I missed your question. You can track clicks using http://bit.ly for twitter tweets. They will also create a short URL for you.
Okay, I think I get it! It seems so simple, I was trying to make it harder than it is.......mainly just trying to understand the outcome.
Katerina - I saw that post, gotta love the "viral" fuel that one got eh? Hopefully this will help the same thing happen to more of your posts and for others too. Once folks start sharing on FB and twitter, there's no telling how far and how much exposure a great post can and will get.
Lisa - love the new photo~ :-)
Matt - your 2 cents is worth a million!! I haven't seen either of those on the whiteboard, but then I don't get to see the whiteboard too often. LOL~ I'll make sure I pass along your idea, I feel the same, that's why I created this work around until we can add something like that. I use Zemanta myself on a couple other Blog sites and totally love it. Maybe we can create our own similar type of Blogging Assistant.
Donna - you have to add an image first, then put the link to the image. You can use text if you like too.
Bob - I'll head over to your Blog post and see why it's not working for you, then come back here and report.....
Bob - You only had 8 words in your post which didn't meet the 50 word minimun for a qualified post, that's why the link was denied. I added some quotes and text with an image to it, then successfully posted it to my FaceBook wall. I did have to change the denied text before posting it, hopefully when the network realizes that it's a qualified post, that message will not show up.
Try adding it to an existing post that you have up (something Hyper-Local) and you'll see that it works great.
BTW - You can delete all that stuff I added to your test post, I had to do it just to make sure that was the issue. :-)
Brad thanks again IT was on my hit list for this week on how to obtain those links NOW you saved me time, have a wonderful week
This is pretty overwhelming. I have trouble finding the time to read Active Rain everyday, let alone make all the improvements I can. I have bookmarked this.
Brad, I tried it on another post, and it worked great. Thank you for the help!
Another reason why I should move to AR subsciption. Thanks
WOW WOW WOW. This was so good. I'm implementing it immediately and I'm going to start to put this on all of my future blog posts. It has even inspired me to write a blog post. I have several in mind, writing is the hard part though. This is awesome.
Brad, Thanks for sharing this tool I just shared your blog on facebook to test it and of course it worked. I did a few blogs 2 months ago and have yet to get going on my serious blogging stage. I tried on Friday to do a blog on the new HVCC bill that went through committe and could not add a link to the page and called Steve at Active Rain, but we never hooked up. So maybe on Monday. But, I would have loved to have gotten out in time last week!
Thanks Brad! You're always giving us amazing amazing information! Thank you so much! ~Nyssa
Brad, not only have I bookmarked this, I actually think I understand what to do. (Warning: be prepared for follow up questions later). Now, if the Steelers, will just finish this game and beat the Vikings, I'll give the Sharing buttons a try.
Thanks Brad, it worked. I was scambling around to find the icons. Pretty amazing stuff, Thanks.
Very cool - bookmarked for Monday stuff :)
You really are going to have to bring a class here to the East... reading this stuff, is still so confusing :)
I agree with Konnie, I will have to revisit here again.
Still confusing...
Thanks for the tip. I'm not sure I totally understand how to do it but I've bookmarked the page so I can play with it when my brain is fresh.
Brad, thanks a lot. Tried one and it worked. BUT how would we get it to our FAN Page rather than our regular Facebook page.imbu
Al and Peggy - the idea here is so that others can add your posts to their Facebook page or wall. It you're wanting to have your posts show up on your Facebook fan page, that is an entirely different process. I know there is a post showing how to do that, let me see if I can go find it and get you a link. Be back as soon as I locate it. Thanks. :-)
Al and Peggy - I couldn't find a post about it so I went to the AR Fan page I setup on FB. You have to setup your Fan page to pull your posts over as "notes". FB will display your Blog posts on your fan page as notes. Here's a link to the AR FB page of notes:
http://www.facebook.com/ActiverainCorp?v=app_2347471856
The setup for this of course has to be done on your FB fan page. Just use the edit link and add your AR Blog there. Hope that helps. :-)
Excellnt info as always, and i LOVE the new pic.
How do we get the button pictures? I tried to right clickand save and that didn't work. And this isn't done in HTML?
Hi Amy - glad you like the new picture, took awhile to get up the nerve to post that one. LOL~ The wifey makes it great, just wish folks would stop saying how cute my "daughter" is. hehe~
I got these buttons from twitter and facebook blogs that had them for using on their sites. You can create your own or right click and use these, whatever you like.
I was able to right click on them and save them, maybe if I put them here for you, you'll be able to save them too:
If not, shoot me an email and I'll send them to you as attachments. You can also create some really cool custom buttons at mycoolbutton.com, if that's an option you're interested in. :-)
Wow Brad this is a great feature. Thanks for sharing!
I haven't tested this one out yet, but FaceBook also offers a share and counter widget that you can also use. This one IS HTML, the code to use it is below:
<a name="fb_share" type="box_count" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php">Share</a><script src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share" type="text/javascript"></script>
Active Rain has been very good to me. I guess it's time to branch out with Twitter. Thanks for the tips.
Excellent post (as usual), Brad! I'm bookmarking this. :)
Leilani
Brad - You just keep rolling out all this great info I can't keep up. Do you ever sleep? :) Another one to bookmark to my list of fav's.
I'll echo Donna above - so much knowledge shared, so little time!
Brad- thanks so much- I found this due to the scavenger hunt, and it is now a bookmark for me!
This sounds like it'll hit more people than the H1N1 virus! Thanks for the tip!
This looks like a great way to get our posts out and help them go viral.
As always - A super informative post! Thanks for always coming up with such great ideas.
I really need to find some more time somewhere to get this done. This is too important to pass up - and yes - I'm reading it again. :) ~Rita
Thanks Brad! This is somehting that I need to spend more time focusing on and getting serious about.
Brad,
Thanks for this post. I used it in the scavenger hunt today!
;)=
If you want to check it out follow this link: http://activerain.com/blogsview/1306285/new-contest-rainy-day-scavenger-hunt-susan-brown-your-texas-connection-keller-williams-realty
Rita - this really is too important and very powerful if you apply it to your Blog on AR, especially your Hyper-Local posts. :-)
Gina- you are a smart one to take this very serious, not sure that alot of folks realize the power in applying this concept.
ok...so I think I'm still confused :-( ... where do we put these links? on our email?
Hi Shirley - these buttons and links are to be used in each of your Blog posts (if you choose) so that others who read your articles (Blog Posts) can sgare them with their SOI - sphere of influences on both Twitter and Facebook. Most of the things shared on FaceBook and Twitter are things people find interesting and of value. This is how you would help generate traffic and exposure to your AR Blog content on the other Social Networks.
Example: I read your post on AR and I want to share it with my 2500 followers on Twitter and my 1700 friends on FaceBook. I just click the button on your post and viola!! Now those who like what I sharednon those sites can do the same thing with their sphere and so on and so on. The objective here is to try and get others sharing your great AR content with their friends and sphere of influence. It's called the "Viral" effect. Hope that helps and makes more cents... I mean sense. :-)
Thanks for the info. I tried it and actually got it to work.
Brad, thanks for the info. I had no idea of the tweet this or retweet it feed. I'm going to bookmark this and come back it later. So much to learn in such little time!
Brad,
I'm not sure that I know exactly how to do this. i will try to give you a call sometime tomorrow so you ca talk me through it.
Also, I had a featured post once but the star doesn't show up under my name when I comment on someone's blog.
I also think I remember another blog that you posted about a link or widget that you can use to send blogs to other sites. Do you remember that blog?
Hi Sybil - Call me, you know my number... I'll get your star fixed in the meantime. :-)
interesting. i never thought of this. do you track how many people 'share' your blogs. it's a good concept. i guess this is a way for other FB folks to have your blog on their Wall without it coming from you. I'm always concerned about putting too much biz stuff there. i want to keep it a good mix.
Hey Brad, I had a feature post, too, but no star. Can you fix me? hahahaha
Bev and Bob - you could track it on twitter by using a tiny URL and one of the twitter tools available, not sure how you'd track how many times it got shared on FB walls, but the fact that it's getting shared couldn't be too bad for your blogging efforts. Now I gotta run and fix your featured star badge, should start showing up shortly. :-)))
Thanks Brad. As usual, you are always one step ahead of everyone in the blogosphere. I will give it a try.
Well, I must be doing something wrong. I tried using the http://twitter.com/home?status= and adding my AR homepage url and it just showed up as html writing and not the button as shown on your blog. Any advice?
Hi Don - you want to add your Blog post URL, not your AR homepage. Make sure you are adding this entire URL as a link to the image and not in the post or page itself. You have to click on the image first, then click on the Chain (linking tool) in your toolbar, then place both pieces of the URL in the image link box. It should work fine if you do it like this. :-)
Hi Brad, I've tried to add Facebook and Twitter, but I don't think I did it right, can you look at one of blogs and see? Thanks, I'm not very computer savvy, so adding anything is a minor miracle.
Hey Everyone - I have had to disable the comments on this post due to the incredible responses received. To continue reading other comments and adding additional comments, ideas, and thoughts, please click below to be redirected to the "Comment Extension" for this post.
Thank you. ActiveBrad :-)
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