(Don’t see the video? Watch it here)
Facebook is such a popular social network that even for small publishers, spending time doing a little self-promotion there can turn into a productive effort. If you have the know-hows or the dev team, the most efficient tool is the application: It’s the one that brings the most interaction and connectivity potential. Then you have pages and groups, both very poor in terms of virality (except for a few exceptions).
If you already have a blogging strategy outside of Facebook, the other great tool to push your content onto Facebook is NetworkedBlogs (I originally covered NetworkedBlogs when it was formerly called Blog Networks. The video above re-uses the content of the interview, while the screencasts are new).
Developed by Ninua, NetworkedBlogs is the best tool for bloggers to network on Facebook. Before using NetworkedBlogs, I was desperately trying to promote my blog through a Facebook group. The problem with Facebook groups is that they have an undefined purpose, they’re for everything, and so it lacks the basic features to turn your members into spreaders.
NetworkedBlogs is a Facebook application that does just that. Once you register your blog, you edit its details, you invite some of your friends to fill up the place a little, and you check out the crowd of bloggers on the network, you’re ready to go. The two crucial tools you want to set up right away to optimize your blog’s page is: 1. The widget you put up on your blog (go to ‘Promote your blog’) and 2. Turn on the feature that blends your blog’s feed with your personal feed (go to ‘Feed settings’). Next time you publish an article on your blog, all your Facebook friends will see it.
NetworkedBlogs is not the only application that will add your blog’s feed to your Facebook feed, but other options imply re-routing your feed to a service like Friendfeed, and then hook Friendfeed up as an app to your Facebook account (and go in the Facebook settings to allow the app to publish feeds in your personal feed).
NetworkedBlogs gets really interesting with its paying model: For $5 a month, you can send announcements directly to your blog fans. The announcement will land inside your fans’ email inbox in the form of a Facebook notification. In other words, your Facebook promotion effort will be rewarded with the opportunity to start a solid email marketing strategy, backed by a trusted sender, Facebook, and geared towards engaged readers. I think this holds a great potential and I will start to play with it very soon.
Some of you are probably thinking that you can do the same with the members of a group… for free (at least I’m thinking it). Very true, but you cannot post a RSS feed to a group’s page for example 🙁
Finally, at the end of the video, Waleed Abdulla, creator of the app, mentions that the purpose of NetworkedBlogs is to create a community on Facebook and bring it back to the blog itself. Hence the preview of NetworkedBlogs’ next treat: The widget that shows off your blog’s community on your blog.
Pretty sweet! It’s Mybloglog all over again, without the spam and the anarchy. I can’t wait for the public release of this widget!