I must thank Heather for bringing up this brilliant question. To me, Twitter Favorites is another hidden gem for content discovery. Apart from discovering smart tips, Twitter Favorites works as a bookmarking tool to collect testimonials, acknowledgments about others and our work. Either way, it deserves more attention from us rather than rusting itself away on the sidebar.

Retrieve the location and RSS Feed for Twitter Favorites

Twitter Favorites is public viewable for all user accounts. Consider Favorites as a ‘resourceful link’ for your Twitter, to retrieve its RSS Feed simply go to the link indicated below then look for RSS feed of user’s favorites below the ‘Following’ chart:

Tools to Import RSS Feed to Facebook Page

Now that you got the feed, here comes the best part: importing the feed to your Facebook Page. Tons of ways to achieve that and if you are already familiar with how Facebook applications can enhance your Facebook Page by adding it to your page, it should be easy for you to carry out either one of the following methods:

Facebook Applications: RSS Graffiti and Social RSS

Most of the applications are now supporting multiple feeds importing, therefore you don’t have to worry about messing up the existing blog post updating to your wall posts. RSS Graffiti and Social RSS both fit well for the job, but the former has a slight advantage over its Twitter posting options:

• ability to personalize favorite tweets as status updates
• eliminating unwanted twitter username right at the beginning (the example stripped my username to make the message more straight forward)

Twitter Web Client: Hootsuite

This is another favorite method of mine – using the almighty Hootsuite you can enjoy the efficiency of RSS Feed updating easily from its web page.

1. After logged on to Hootsuite, look for Launch at the bottom left corner of your dashboard.

2. In launch> Settings > RSS Atom to add a new feed

3. While making your way through the configuration, make sure your facebook page selection is active/ticked:

Web Application: TwitterFeed

So you’re not used to Facebook applications or Hootsuite, how about Twitterfeed that provides the same functionality to update your Facebook Page with favorited tweets easily based on configured settings. Post prefix or suffix, even apply keyword filter to further select your tweets based on Facebook Page audiences.

Social Networking & Microblogging Service: Ping.fm

Ping.fm makes sharing all the more easier! Iit covers a wide range of social media sites other than Facebook Pages and updates them in one-go! It’s comparable with FriendFeed and the process is relatively easy as well ever since Ping.fm included Feeds and Google Reader as one of their services. Just logged on to Ping.fm and go to Superfeedr to customize your feed:

Or, if you prefer to do selective tweets for Ping.fm:


1. First, Log on to your Google Reader and add the Twitter Favorites RSS Feed to your subscription.

2. Back to Ping.fm, go to this link and input your Google Reader username and Add Feed.

3. Once you have hit ‘Share’ over at your Google Reader, Ping.fm will update your Facebook Page and other social media sites immediately as how you’ve configured them.

Points to Ponder:

To identify your purpose and the type of messages you are bound to showcase at Facebook Page members is vital. Mari Smith has shared a few good ideas to use Twitter Favorites even outside Facebook. In addition to that, Favorited tweets are good choices for selective tweets (as you can apply in Ping.fm and twitterfeed earlier) instead of importing the entire twitter stream which can be a turn off if you’re super-twitter-social at times. Try using prefix to create non-intrusive updates, sharing what matters and truly important to your audiences.

What about tweets from Protected Twitter accounts, you say? When you mark ‘favorite’ for a tweet shared by your friend who has a protected Twitter account, although you can view it in your Favorites but it won’t be visible to your followers publicly, only those who are sharing the same connections you have with that protected account. It’s good to see that Twitter is still protecting user’s privacy up till now.

Now Is Your Turn…

Do you have any questions about Facebook? Or any social media issues you’re interested in finding out? I would love to have a Q&A session like this as a blog post as it helps us all to discover new approaches that might be a big step in our respective networking goals. Like Heather, you’re definitely gaining a spotlight and link love for your kind participation here in Social @ Blogging Tracker, I’ll say it’s a mutual benefit for all of us, don’t you think so? Email me and let’s make this happen.

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It has been 5 days since Stumbleupon had a makeover, or, plan to.

Stumbleupon has long been my favorite social bookmarking site & blog traffic source. Ever since the emerge of Su.pr & firefox plugin, I hardly log in to its main site except to check on messages and friends’ submissions occasionally.

Enough said. You must be wondering what’s new?

The 3S – Simpler, Searchable & Sociable!

Simpler

New skyblue-ish interface is now towards simplicity. Upon logged in, you’ll notice main options ‘Discover, Favorites, Stumblers’ are arranged systematically on top. No more distracting tags splattering over the page (listed in dropdown menu of ‘Topic’). When selected, sub-tabs of each main option will display horizontally as shown. Neat and easy to navigate. The grid & list options stay.

Page submission and tagging much easier done through SU toolbar plugin. Take notice, as the current Stumbler URL is listed as www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/username instead of username.stumbleupon.com. Maybe the SU team will auto-update it for us in November. Will look into this.

Searchable

It is said that new Stumbleupon is much search-friendly now. You can have the keywords search not just within your own favorites, but friends’ or everyone’s as well. Amount of page views shown for each stumbled page; suggested search terms will be given if no match was found. With Best Match & Recently Rated options, you can have all the scoops related to your niche in no time.

I’ve tested but found out present interface has more accurate search results comparing to new. Perhaps may upgrade after the full implementation? We’ll see.

Socialble

Apart from email import, new Stumbleupon is facilitated with Search for stumbler option. Friend request is no longer available. Site-sharing will base on Accept shares to my toolbar setup or mutual subscribers. So be your friend’s SU subscribers if you plan to receive their recommended sites.

Similarity meter is gone for good, replaced by We both like.

It’s Up To You Now…

Go ahead and taste the switch. You can switch old interface back anytime before November. Dislike it? Feedback to SU team to have them review the changes.

If you like this post, kindly share it with your friends:

How would you like your blog posts to go viral?

Ask any blogger, he/she will tell you: Submit your posts to social bookmarking sites; promote them on social networks.  Sure, but have we optimized our blogs for that challenge yet? Do your readers ever bother to use those lovely social bookmarking plugins beneath your post?

Educate Readers To Utilize Social Bookmarking Plugins.. HOW?

Since self-submissions are prohibited, it lies in the hands of our readers. They may like your post so much but no idea how to share it. What you can do is :

1. Increase visibility of your social bookmarking plugins. Make a post to showcase the tool if you have to.

2. Announce your newly adapted plugin or a social network you just joined; encourage readers to try/join as well.

3. Make a summon at the end of each post to whether ’stumble/tweet’ the post if they like it. Needless to sound pitiful or demanding, just a friendly reminder that makes them realize  ‘Ohhh.. I can do that! ‘

4. Create a poll. Ask your readers what are their likes/dislikes in post-sharing.

I enjoyed Darren’s latest post about The Myth of ‘Great Content’ Marketing Itself. Post-promoting is a part of content-seeding. If you don’t care about that little post-sharing plugin, your readers won’t either. Remember,

“A Quality Content is Nothing Without Audiences!”

16 Social Bookmarking Plugins To Promote Your Posts

Before that, let me share with you a plugin-check I had on blogs I subscribed (nearly 60% of them are the frequent visitors of my blog). Although the figures do not represent the majority but at least they show the behavior of those who I am networking with for the time being.

Good to know that most of them are using social bookmarking tools, but how about 25% who aren’t? Do they aware of the plugins or simply not planning to include one? Thanks to Christie and the discussion we had in one of her posts’ comment, I decided to test the Wordpress plugins myself. Instead of going into lengthy reviews, I decided to share them visually instead — the images can speak well for themselves.

Expandable Plugins vs. Displayed Social Bookmarking Icons

Expandable plugins required mouse-over or a mouse-click to expand the bookmarking list, usually supporting up to 50 to 100+ bookmarking sites; while displayed social bookmarking icons are more focus and visible, but limited choices. If you’re a visual type of visitor like I am, probably you are more into the latter. There’s no exact right or wrong pick, simply self-preferences. If you don’t own any just yet, now it’s a good time to grab one!

Expandable Plugins — A Click/Hover to Expand

1. Share This

2. AddThis

3. Socialmarker

4. Sexy Expand Bookmarking

5. Add To Any

6. ibegin share

7. Social Bookmarks

- The setting is ‘hide’ in default, meaning you need to click to expand the social bookmarking icons. You can preset the preferred icons to be shown:

Or you can have the icons displayed without hiding (arranging from 1 to 5 lines) :

Displayed Social Bookmarking Icons — One Clear View

8. Tweet This

- Plenty of social bookmarking sites to choose from, come in various styles, colors and sizes. Settings available to tweet your latest post.

9. AddToThis

- Simple is better. 5 nice-looking icons as shown below:

10. Bookmarkify

- Can reposition the plugin on top or bottom of the post. The ability to display all the icons chosen (multiple sites to choose from):

Or prevent them from crowding the area by adding a ‘More’ option for expansion.

11. diggZ-Et

- The familiar, good-old Digg button on top of your post.

12. Social Bookmarking RELOADED

- Exactly how they will show up underneath your post:

13. Social Dropdow

- Preset your favored social bookmarking/media sites and have them appear in each post. Adjust the drop down width according to your likings. Do aware while activating this plugin, you may need to embed a code as instructed in ‘other information’ to have them displayed properly:

Too many of them? Configure it for 1-click expansion instead, or ‘more’:

14. SocioFluid

- Absolutely one of my favorites for fun visual effects. Not only it has plenty of social bookmarking options, but including the flexibility to resize the icons (16, 24, 32, 48) and adjust placements (top/bottom). Below are the examples of 16px and 48px respectively:

Or better! Have it configured as when hovering you get to see the fluid-movements from small to enlarged. Pretty neat huh?

15. Top Social Bookmarking Buttons

- Yes, only 7 sites provided. If that’s all you need, why not?

16. Tweetmeme

- Not only it comes with analytics, but visible and easy tweeting with just one click. If you’re a Twitter fanatic, you’ll agree this is a must-have.

Now Is Your Turn

What is/are the criteria(s) affecting your choice in social bookmarking plugin? Kindly share your experience or likes/dislikes while sharing posts.

One more thing…

If you like this post (or this blog), can I ask you a tiny favor to vote for me on Famous Bloggers Club contest? No pressure though, it’s all Free Will. ^^ I advanced my thanks to your support.