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Facebook Interface

Forums: Suggestions and Feedback
Created on: 11/09/10 12:16 PM Views: 2594 Replies: 24
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 12:16 PM

I've found that it's helpful to put information in a facebook page for the website. New information that is added to the website is summarized and whenever someone changes their profile I note that as well.

The point is that people tend to be on facebook regularly and check that page more often than going to the class website.

The downside is the manual effort and remembering to do the updates.

Rather than having to do this manually it would be helpful if this were more automated. Perhaps an option for each update function could be automated to put info on facebaook, and anytime someone updates a profile that could be automated too.

Thoughts and suggestions?

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Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 12:53 PM - Response #1

Good idea, Mark.

I'm not sure how the programming could be done on an automatic basis. Especially if you correct a spelling and re-save something or make only a minor addition.

However a work-around may be to start a "What's New" page on which you keep track of the major changes and additions to your site as you make them. You can then post links to that "What's New" page on Facebook.

I'd put the logo link on that page What's New page so when you do post that page link on Facebook, it will pick up that image.

Here's a link to a screen capture of my What's New? page. There is also a link to this page at the top of my CC home page -- but only viewable by registered users.

That link above will replace this window. Use your back button to return to this forum.

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Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 1:58 PM - Response #2

Several Facebook ties are coming in 2011, stay tuned.

Question for you: How specifically do you envision this working? Would updates auto append to your Facebook group, each person's own wall, etc.? We have some idea internally but I'm just wondering, in your ideal world what specifically would happen here?


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Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 3:00 PM - Response #3

Opening a can o'worms here?

Probably need some sort of "Don't share anything about me with anyone on Facebook" box to check for registered users.

But going the 'other way' seems safe. "Show my affiliation with this class website on my Facebook page"

Hmmmm. (Thinking...) Shocked

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Edited 11/09/10 3:01 PM
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 3:51 PM - Response #4

Everything will be optional for both Admins and Classmates. I'm just wondering specifically what people would like to see. It's easy enough to allow inviting of Facebook friends, sharing Profile updates that happen here on Facebook, etc., I'd just like to know what specifically people would like to see. Every time things like this are discussed all kinds of ideas we haven't thought of previously surface.


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Friday, November 12, 2010 at 7:27 PM - Response #5

My orientation is that I want to use Facebook to drive traffic to my CC site, not use my CC site to drive traffic to Facebook.

I setup a group on Facebook for my high school class, then setup an event on Facebook for our 2011 reunion, then put links on both to new CC site.

And I have used Facebook extensively to tell classmates about the new CC site - friend them, post their senior pic on their wall, tag the picture as them, and include a link to CC site in the text accompanying. Now that pic that they like stays in their pictures section permanently - with a link to CC site.

I don't put a lot of content or images on Facebook - just enough to be interesting, then link out to CC. I want classmates to have to come to CC for the good stuff.

Even though I am working on content of general interest to graduates of our high school, my target group is still the 250 classmates. And the CC site can be much more targeted than Facebook for that group.

Our class - 1971 - is not as involved on Facebook as younger groups. Only about 40 of the 250 are on Facebook. So it's a good 'feed' for only a segment of the classmates we need to locate.

The Facebook links to CC help Google search rankings. I like that.

That's more story and I'm sticking to it.

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Friday, November 12, 2010 at 7:29 PM - Response #6

Sounds good. I'm sure after we make the initial ties Admins will have all kinds of additional recommendations.


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Friday, January 14, 2011 at 10:41 PM - Response #7

You might want to use the Facebook API to allow Facebook logins to also log in to the class site. Also I would appreciate a way to automatically refer folks on our class site to our FB page. We have some folks who are "FB phobic" and won't use it - but many others who use FB much more that our class site.

I agree that you need to make "auto" posting to FB of some info as optional.

Also - it is much easier to share photos on FB - so that feature would be great.

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Monday, January 17, 2011 at 1:10 PM - Response #8

Thanks Ted - I'm circulating for future development consideration.


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Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 8:18 AM - Response #9

would love to have the ability to tie into FACEBOOK Schools and Class lists.

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Monday, July 11, 2011 at 2:19 PM - Response #10

Hi all - what is the status of this integration? I would live to get a feed from the the FB group for my reunion and be able to integrate the pictures that my classmates post to that group... I am looking at FB's capabilities, but it would be great to not have (try) to code this myself.

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Monday, July 11, 2011 at 2:51 PM - Response #11

Hang tight, we're actually looking at Facebook integration right now on a different but related system to Class Creator. At the same time we're finishing up our 3.0 updates, which will be launching shortly. After launch we'll be looking at everything we've learned about Facebook connectivity for the similar system we're working on and adding it here as well. I don't have any ETA for this yet, it will still be awhile.


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Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 1:10 PM - Response #12

Brad asked:
Quote:

Question for you: How specifically do you envision this working? Would updates auto append to your Facebook group, each person's own wall, etc.? We have some idea internally but I'm just wondering, in your ideal world what specifically would happen here?

Love the Facebook integration idea, and I believe this will be really popular when it is released.

IMHO, I would recommend that we align with facebook's "standards" where practical... i.e., personal updates should append to the individual's FB wall ("Terry updated her profile details at www.fhhs79.com/username"). Also add the standard FB "Like"/"Recommend/Share" buttons onto each page/article on ClassCreator site pages, so with a mouse-click, our facebook friends may share info from our class site (i.e., "Terry likes..." or "Terry recommends... [insert link]"). These links in FB will help drive traffic back to our class sites.

I also really like John's idea to somehow capture "What's New" summaries and auto-post them on our FB Group Wall. Particularly posts about updates to common/shared pages, i.e., "New reunion information at [link]" or "New Photos added to [album name] at [page link]" and so on. I would prefer them to update dynamically in real-time, but a once-per-week/month summary of all activities might be useful too. However it is accomplished, it should only peak the reader's interest and drive traffic back to the class site for more information.

I imagine these integrations would require option settings for both individual users and also administrative "switches". One thing I highly recommend to CC in the event you create a Facebook app: if possible, PLEASE don't *require* access to individuals' profile details and other *private* data in facebook. This turns off many users and, thus, many will forfeit using the app.

I'm looking forward to seeing what CC designs!

Terry

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Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 10:59 AM - Response #13

Hello All: Like Randy Willis said in his Nov. 2010 post; I would like to use Facebook to drive traffic to our CC site. Whatever we agree on will effectively drive traffic round-trip anyway. However, my emphasis is on getting my class year to be aware of our CC site and to login and share their pictures and videos and life updates on here. When we have reunions, we currently seek each other out on Facebook's personal pages and we create events on there. We just want to be able to do the same thing here. I don't think it will be overkill. Many class of 1976 folks are a bit cautious of Facebook interaction...but may be likely to feel more comfy with communicating on our CC site, since it's content is more closed to the public.

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Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 7:09 PM - Response #14

Brian Wallace wrote:

Hello All: Like Randy Willis said in his Nov. 2010 post; I would like to use Facebook to drive traffic to our CC site. Whatever we agree on will effectively drive traffic round-trip anyway. However, my emphasis is on getting my class year to be aware of our CC site and to login and share their pictures and videos and life updates on here. When we have reunions, we currently seek each other out on Facebook's personal pages and we create events on there. We just want to be able to do the same thing here. I don't think it will be overkill. Many class of 1976 folks are a bit cautious of Facebook interaction...but may be likely to feel more comfy with communicating on our CC site, since it's content is more closed to the public.

I agree with Randy and Brian. Though Facebook is a force that is not going away, I volunteer and do not have the time to post info on Facebook and our CC site. As the CC site is by subscription, I look at it as our home. Right now, I am having to download photos from Facebook to add them to our sites. Consider the time to do this and the fact at least one class has chosen Facebook as their 'web site'. Some will never learn the difference between a site and a page.

I will always welcome all classmates across all years on Facebook and CC, but wish we had a 'special something' to draw them here. I'd like my sites to be better than...

Am I dreaming?

I have a class site: www.mchs1970.com and an alumni site www.mchenryalumni.com.

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Edited 10/25/11 7:10 PM
Monday, March 5, 2012 at 7:42 PM - Response #15

Is the Facebook interface still in your sights? I would love to capture their profile photos on our pages. Or am I just dreaming?

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Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 11:20 AM - Response #16

Apparently, yes, but we don't have a timeline. Hopefully before Facebook is replaced by "The Next Big Thing".


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Saturday, March 10, 2012 at 10:25 PM - Response #17

Eric B Bassey wrote:

Apparently, yes, but we don't have a timeline. Hopefully before Facebook is replaced by "The Next Big Thing".

I hit the invisible AGREE button real quick on your post, Eric!

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Friday, March 23, 2012 at 6:22 AM - Response #18

For what it's worth, I put the Facebook "Like" box widget on my home page to see if I could help send Facebook traffic there. I joined Facebook to see how this all works, so I'm new to the process. My theory is that classmates who haven't signed up will see the "Like" in Facebook, go to our website, then "Like" it some more to spread it that way. If I can find other Facebook code that might be a good fit, I'll see if I can experiment with that, too.

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Friday, March 23, 2012 at 8:15 AM - Response #19

CoolCool James!Cool How did you do that? (Where does one find the "Like" widget?)

Thanks!
Terry

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Friday, March 23, 2012 at 8:49 AM - Response #20

Never mind, I found it! Smile

For other admins looking for this widget, go here:
Facebook "Like" widget link

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Friday, March 23, 2012 at 9:19 PM - Response #21

Terry, after I installed it, I tried to find out the number behind the "and x others like this" counter. It's driven by the number of "like" clicks plus the number of comments about the site on Facebook, so it's not a one-for-one count. The same people who clicked the "like" could be adding more comments and driving up the "and x others like this" counter.

Enjoy!

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Monday, March 26, 2012 at 8:44 AM - Response #22

Thanks for that heads-up James! I'm not sure that I'll make use of those numbers anyway, my aim is mostly to get classmates sharing the link on their facebook profile "wall/timeline" Smile

Cheers!

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Tuesday, May 28, 2013 at 11:05 AM - Response #23

Has there been any integration with FaceBook? I am having one hell of a time trying to get classmates to RSVP for our 25th reunion on our web site rather than on the darn FB page I created. It would be fantastic to see an integration with Class Creator.
Facebook is a wonderful tool for announcing, but not being able to somehow merge the RSVP's with our web site, can be a nightmare Confused

~Raquel

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Tuesday, May 28, 2013 at 6:55 PM - Response #24

Facebook app and integration coming this summer. Stay tuned. It's pre-beta right now and looking very good.


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