Facebook Makes It Harder to Post From Google Blogger

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Want to share a post from your blog on Facebook? If it’s a Blogger site, that just got harder.

Facebook just added a Captcha check — a dialog box that asks you to type in hard-to-read text presented as a graphic — for any post shared from Blogger. Captcha tests are designed to filter out spam, since the bots that try to post spam links generally can’t read the words (and sometimes humans have trouble, too).

The change does not appear to affect all Blogger sites. If you try posting from, say, the Official Google Mobile Blog, for example, there is no Captcha. However, if you want to post something from a lesser-known site, like this blog about a cat named Abbie, then there is one. It appears that if your blog is popular enough, the Captcha is lifted.

Of course, this isn’t the first service for which Facebook has used a Captcha to prevent spam, If you try posting from a Tumblr site, chances are you’ll get the same treatment. However, Facebook lets you post from most other major blogging services — LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad and Squarespace — Captcha-free.

Blogger, of course, is owned by Google and uses the blogspot.com domain. Facebook and Google have been fighting something of a digital cold war the last few years — both services making it difficult to share contact lists with the other, to name just one example. The war arguably turned hot last year when Google directly invaded Facebook’s market by launching its own social network, Google+.

More recently, when Google changed its search engine to include social-media links, it gave Google+ preferential treatment over Facebook, even though the latter is much more popular. Engineers from Facebook and other social sites responded with a tool (pointedly named Don’t Be Evil, a Google tagline) that supposedly “corrects” the search results with social links from other services.

Source: Mashable

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Top Facebook Features to Help Marketers on their Online Campaign

As we all know, Facebook is a very powerful tool. In fact, it can prove to be the keystone to your online/interet success. If you have a business, such as a brand selling cosmetics, or merely just a blog, chances are that you are marketing it through social media networks. Facebook is the largest such social network around. and provides a lot of features for marketers. It’s true that a lot of people use social media management systems to manage their profiles / pages. But unless you don’t have a grasp on what features you have at hand, you won’t be very successful.

Here are some features that I have come to know about through reading or exploring available features myself in page settings. And I am surprised that many people don’t know about them. So here goes.


Moderation of Pages


Isn’t it just irritating when people start arguing and using vulgar language in their comments on your wall? You then have to delete the offensive comments individually, which can be time-consuming and irritating.


A better approach would be to use the Moderation Blacklist from settings. It is simple, and effective. All you have to do is, enter a list of bad words you want to ban from your wall. Those words won’t appear again. If you select a Profanity Blacklist, commonly used ‘bad terms’ will be added to the Moderation Blacklist, depending upon the type of Profanity Blacklist you chose.
Targeting a specific demographic of audience


If you have a large business with demographically varied audience, then you must take a look at this. It’s a very powerful feature that allows you to publish content to only a specific type of audience. For example you could send out a targeted message to people who speak a certain language, let say French. Similarly, you can inform only the female audience about a certain beauty product, or you can make available some content to only those above a certain age.


This is a very powerful feature, as it allows you to pin-point your marketing efforts to those who need a certain product of yours the most. It will not display, let’s say, a video that contains violence to audience below your specified age group, such as below 18 etc. You can also send out different content for different countries etc. You can find this option under the Manage tab in Facebook’s Page admin panel.


Sending out latest news and page update


If you go into edit page/marketing, you will find an option to send an update. This feature sends out updates to all those who have liked your page. And it sends them individually, as a private message. This feature is quite under-used,, but be careful not to use it too often. People get irritated when they don’t want to see their inbox being littered up.
Allowing people to tag themselves


Allowing people to tag themselves in your photos is a great promotional trick. Of course you can tag them yourself, but that won’t be desirable for some of them. Leave the option free for anyone who wants to be associated with a great picture about your business. That way, your business will get instant exposure when people from your fans’ friend list check out your photo.
Linking to Twitter


Facebook allows you to link your Facebook page with your Twitter account. This will enable you to publish updates on both platforms automatically. But the post on Twitter will have a link back to your Facebook page, which might not be exactly what you are looking for. Although it still is a very useful feature.


Activity Log


The Activity Log is a record of all interactions your fans have with your page. It also records updates from your end, i.e. comments, questions etc. It works as an archive for all your activity, which can tell you how well you have been following up with your fans, and how good is their feedback.
Changing personal profiles to business pages


Although many businesses have made a business page for their campaigns, there are a few small ones who haven’t. Their owners originally started promoting their business through their personal profiles, back when business pages were not available. Personal pages don’t give a professional impression about your business. Which is why you should use Facebook’s feature to migrate from a personal profile to a business page.

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