We have received a lot of feedback about our posts about the Facebook Like Button – if you need to acquaint yourself, read why you should make your page more Facebook friendly, and then read how to make a Like button for your page.

Reading is a great way to learn but sometimes watching a video is a better way to fully grasp the information. Below is a video we made that’s all about Facebook Like buttons:

As you can see, it’s not a difficult process and the Like buttons are becoming increasingly prevalent and important to social media optimization.

We’ll keep putting new videos on our YouTube channel, so be sure to check it regularly!

You already know that Facebook Like Buttons are important to increase your Social Media Optimization, and luckily Facebook has made it pretty simple to add the Like button to your website. Facebook is using its Open Graph strategy to theoretically make all websites more Facebook friendly. To achieve this, Facebook has developed a way for you to add a series of Social-Plugins (which are ultimately widgets) to your website to make it more Facebook interactive.

There are two versions of the Like Button that you can add to your website. The first is called the simple i-frame version. The content inside this i-frame allows Facebook to detect whether the person who clicked on the button is logged into Facebook or not; if the person is logged in this i-frame will appear personalized, if they are not logged in they will be prompted to do so.

The simple i-frame code looks like this:

<iframe src=”The Facebook URL You Are Using” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” style=”border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:px”></IFRAME>

If you use Facebook’s Like Button creator on their developers website to tweak the parameters and enter your unique URLs, you will have a functioning Like Button in no time. Enter the information and click the “Get Code” blue button, and once your code is generated just add it to your websites!

There is another type of Like Button and the code is a tiny bit more complicated, but it offers more features. It’s the JavaScript version and to use it you need to incorporate JavaScript SDK and Facebook’s XFBML fb:like tag.

The JavaScript code looks like this:

<fb:like href=”Your URL” layout=”standard” show-faces=”true” width=”450″ action=”like” colorscheme=”light” />

Definitely use Facebook’s Like Button creator on their Developers website to adjust your parameters and add your unique URLS.

In addition to the feature of the simple i-frame version, if you use the JavaScript code to make your Like Button, you can show the profile pictures (show-faces=”true”) of your friends who have clicked the Like Button. In addition, people can add a comment to the link once they clicked on it. This is the more interactive version of the Like Button, but both versions work well so choose whichever one is best for you.

In both versions, it is highly recommended that you add meta data codes to the code Facebook generates for you. These Open Graph meta tags make your link look better.

These meta tags include the title of your page, the name of your website, and the URL of the best image for the page (this would be the picture that appears by your link on Facebook).

The example Facebook gives is such:

<meta property=”og:title” content=”The Rock”/>
<meta property=”og:site_name” content=”IMDb”/>
<meta property=”og:image” content=”http://ia.media-imdb.com/rock.jpg”/>

By looking at these additional meta tags, we can infer that the title of the website is “The Rock”, the website is “IMDb.com”, and that there is an image (probably the movie poster) that accompanies it. Change these settings as necessary so that it reflects your website.

Once you have a code, you will run it through the URL Linter to make sure that you did everything correctly. If everything seems fine add the final code to your website and you will be good to go!

I’m not going to go into specific facts and studies (a quick Google search will tell all you want to know and more), but almost all of you already know that Facebook can be extremely instrumental in engaging with your customers and important for expanding your online business and presence. Regardless as to whether you have a personal facebook page or a fan page (such as ourselves - ‘Like’ us! ) Facebook is about to fully release a new feature that you can use to help optimize your Facebook and online presence.

In your News Feed, you will notice that you can see an assortment of things your friends have “liked” – including updates, wall posts, pages, and such. In the past you could not see comments that your friends have “liked”, but Facebook is now allowing you to see that. In the near future you will see “(your friend) likes (a non-friend)’s comment” in your news feed. Depending on the security settings enacted by your friends, you may or may not be able to click on the link and see the comment in question.

Facebook is rolling out this new feature incrementally, so if you don’t see it yet on your Facebook fret not. It will come to you in good time.

The ability to “like” comments, and to have people “like” your own comments, is reminiscent of twitter’s feature that allows users to retweet tweets. When a person “likes” your comment, it will show up in all of their friends news feed, and people you do not know may (or may not, depending on your privacy settings) be able to see your comment. The target audience of your comment grows exponentially with every person that “likes” it.

The implications of this – assuming you allow the privacy setting for your “liked” comments to be seen – are that every comment you make is chance to present yourself and/or your business in a favorable and personal light to an untold amount of people. If your privacy settings are not set to prevent strangers from seeing comments that people “liked” on your page, your comments could affect their impression of you in a positive or negative manner. This new feature is yet one more avenue to make you and your business known and trusted on the internet.

It’s important to tweet regularly so that your twitterfeed appears dynamic to potential followers and remains engaging to your current followers (speaking of which – follow us! @micronichetool ). However, life can get busy and sometimes it’s really inconvenient (or impossible) to be online at a particular time in order to tweet. For situations such as these (vacations, emergencies, schedule conflicts, etc) having the ability to pre-schedule your tweets can be incredibly advantageous for you and your business.

There are a few services that allow you to pre-schedule your tweets on twitter (some also work for facebook) and they are free, mostly intuitive, and user-friendly. Twitter did indeed just change its terms of service – specifically, twitter now forbids third parties from inserting paid tweets into user’s twitterfeeds – but since you don’t have to pay these websites/apps to insert your tweets they are still functional and safe to use.

One service that works well is called twuffer. It’s a straightforward service and it’s easy to use. To log into twuffer, simply enter your twitter username and password and you will then see a screen that looks similar to this:

twuffer

Type your desired tweet in the top box, arrange your settings as you see fit, set your tweet time and date, and hit the green button that says “set status!”

Twuffer provides tabs that give you dashboard information, a list of your queued tweets, and a list of your successfully sent tweets. The one drawback to twuffer is that once you submit your tweet, you cannot edit it while it’s queued. In order to change a tweet, you have to delete the tweet entirely and start from scratch. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s important to be aware of this tiny shortcoming all the same.

Another pre-scheduling service is called Later Bro, and this is compatible with both twitter and facebook. When you go to Later Bro’s homepage, you are given the choice to login with either your facebook or twitter account; if your twitter and facebook are synched together, it doesn’t matter which one you choose.

Later Bro

Once logged in, choose your correct timezone, type in your status/tweet, and select the time you want your message to be posted.

Later Bro Pre-Schedule

Both of these websites are easy, breezy, and free to use! If you want to schedule posts, these services will certainly help you. There are other services you can use, including: Futuretweets, tweetsqueue, hootsuite, twaitter, etc. If you know of any more websites that pre-schedule tweets and/or status updates, let us know!

Originally a social-networking site that started in a Harvard dorm room, Facebook’s popularity spread throughout universities and colleges throughout North America. Whereas it was originally available only to college students, Facebook became so popular that it eventually allowed non-college students to join. As of writing this blog post, there are approximately 400 million people in the world that have a Facebook account – and the numbers keep growing (225 million of those 400 million are from last year alone). The astounding, nay, meteoric rise of Facebook has interesting implications for internet marketers.

An increasing amount of people now peruse the internet based either on their friend’s recommendations or their friends recent activities, ushering in a new way of social media optimization called “friend-casting”. The principles behind friend-casting are simple and to explain the process I will use a recent and personal example.

I was on facebook perhaps two weeks ago when a friend whom I know and trust recommended checking out a website with the tagline “putting this in the nursery” (she’s having a baby soon). It was a link to a website that sold wall stickers – adorable ones for children, might I add – and since I have a family member who recently announced that she’s pregnant (good thing they don’t live by each other or I’d have to question the drinking water) and I had a flash of inspiration. Voila! I have found the perfect gift for the inevitable baby shower! This website made a sale (I bought ’Woodland Animals’ wall stickers, in case you were wondering) because my friend posted a link on facebook.

Friend + Link + Facebook = Social Media Optimization (via “friend-casting”)

Think of your own facebook experiences. How often have you clicked on links your friends recommended? How many times have you posted a link, photo, or a video and had someone “like” it, let alone comment on it? How frequently have you commented or “liked” something one of your friends posted? This is friend-casting, and it’s powerful. Friend-casting is the e-version equivalent of “word of mouth” advertising! So important is friend-casting on Facebook that it is considered the premier way to achieve great social media optimization.

Consider this: According to web measurement firm Compete Inc., for the first time ever Facebook directs more traffic to major websites (on caliber with yahoo and msn) than Google. More traffic than Google! I’ll let that sink in…and for other types of websites, Facebook is among the top sources for directing traffic, with Google still being in the lead. Google is still king – no question about it – but ignore Facebook at your own peril. In the same vein, Search Engine Optimization is definitely still important, but Social Media Optimization is too effective to disregard.

Furthermore, a large portion of a person’s web session is dedicated to their destination, with only a small amount of time actually dedicated to the search (statistically speaking – which may or may not be true for you). The amount of time people spend on Facebook has grown too, which effectively means more people are spending more time on the internet with Facebook as their destination.

From an internet marketing point of view, the immediate implications for this development is to start advertising on Facebook in order to reach a wider demographic and drive traffic to your business. For smaller-scale enterprises, this could mean simply sharing links in your status updates or posting the occasional note. It can also mean utilizing a mix of features, such as advertising on facebook, starting a group or a fanpage (ahem…have you joined ours yet?), linking your notes to your blog, linking your twitter and facebook accounts, updating your status with information relevant to your business, and the list goes on!

Remember my friend that told me about the wall stickers I mentioned a few paragraphs above? Well, she is woefully ignorant about affiliate marketing – but you’re not! To toe the FTC line you would have to mention you are an affiliate near the link, but you can absolutely tout your affiliate website or product on facebook via status updates, a note, etc. Your friends will see it on their Facebook feed and by the sheer virtue of being friends on facebook your suggestions will resonate with them and be influential, which could translate into increased traffic and sales!

Social Media Optimization, primarily through Facebook, is one of the new internet marketing 2.0 strategies (“interwebz” marketing if you REALLY want to be 2.0 about it). It’s a constantly evolving field, but if recent developments are any indication, Social Media Optimization will be a vital component of internet marketing for a long time to come.

On our Facebook Fan Page, we have added a new feature called “Affiliate Spotlight”. Basically, we are finding and highlighting affiliates of ours that are advertising Micro Niche Finder in innovative and successful ways. We ask them a few questions, get their perspective on internet and affiliate marketing, and sometimes convince them to spill a secret (or two) about their most effective strategies.

We are excited to announce that our inaugural affiliate spotlight is an über-successful marketer hailing from Clarksville, Tennessee named Gary Conn!

You may have already heard about him. He’s kind of a big deal.

To read what he has to say about his experience with internet marketing, affiliate programs, and Micro Niche Finder, go to our Facebook Fan Page, and click on the box that says “Affiliate Spotlight” (it’s on the left hand column, under our ‘fans’ box).

We will be updating our Affiliate Spotlight regularly, so be sure to check it out every now and then. Furthermore, if you feel you deserve to be highlighted on our affiliate spotlight, leave a comment on this blog, send a tweet, leave a comment on our Facebook page, etc. and tell us why we should consider you!