Facebook, twitter, MySpace Ad Distribution

[guillopuig]

Is there a add on or tweak that would send a status update to these services every time someone publishes an ad?

[ddummitt]

RSS is built in though not actually supported. Importing an rss to facebook is a piece of cake. I don't know about twitter and myspace.

with the rss you can filter the feed based upon the user or any other criteria which can be used on different facebook pages and I suppose different twitter and myspace pages.

[guillopuig]

ddummit. thanks for following up.

Can you please expand a little more on how to get this working with facebook?

Once i learn how to implement it in facebook, I'll have a better idea on how to get it going in the other social media sites.

I'll work on those later and share my findings.

Thanks!

[ddummitt]

For those not familiar with Facebook. Facebook has profiles, pages and groups. Profiles are PEOPLE. If you search facebook for my name you will find my personal "profile". Pages are for businesses, celebrities, bands, etc. Groups are for people that share a common interest. There are some gray areas where groups and pages can overlap. Anyone can setup a group. Per facebook terms a page can only be setup by an authorized representative of the business, club, band etc and a profile can only be setup by the actual individual (John Doe can only setup a profile for himself John Doe).

I recommend using a PAGE for your feed. If you search facebook for Macon Ads or MaconAds you will find the two pages I have setup for my classified feeds. If you search for Macon 4 Rent, you will find a page I have setup for my rental business and a feed of listings posted by macon4rent on my classifieds site will appear on that page.

Now to actually setting it up:
Setup an RSS feed from your Geo install that you want to appear in Facebook. There are several threads on the process here in the forums. If I figured it out almost anyone can.

Register for a facebook account which creates a personal PROFILE. On your facebook home page there should be a link for "pages and ads" on the left side or from any PAGE there is a link on the left side to create your own PAGE for your business.
Create your PAGE by selecting the category and Name of your page.
Click "Edit Page" underneath the big question mark on the left where your page photo will go later.
Click "Edit" underneath "Notes".
On the right side Click on "Import a Blog"
Enter the URL of your RSS feed, check the box that you are authorized to allow the content to be used and submit
Confirm that the feed is correct on the next page.
Go back to the page and edit the info, picture, etc.

I hope this helps. I don't know if twitter and/or myspace will import rss directly but I'm confident there is a way to do it. google rss to twitter or similar.

[guillopuig]

Thanks!!! I will work on setting up the RSS in my geo page first.

There should definitely be a way to add this to twitter. I believe geomodules.com has a add on for this.

Thanks again!

[guillopuig]

sorry ddummit.

been looking around the forum for how to create the rss feed but the threads that ive found seem quite complicated.

do you recall the specific thread that assisted you in creating your feed?

I wouldnt want to mess anything up in our website.

thanks!

btw, we do have a Business Page in Facebook.

[jonyo]

The feed is already set up for you, just go to "rss_listings.php" on your site. You can see the one for the demo at http://geodesicsolutions.com/demo/rss_listings.php

If you want to change what is displayed by the feed, edit the rss_listings.php file in a text editor and it has instructions in the file itself (in PHP comments) as to how to change things up.

[guillopuig]

Sweet! i had read hints that this was around... i just didn't know where to find it!

thanks... its time to play now!

[guillopuig]

Jonyo,

I was able to find the rss feed file, edit it and placed it on Facebook but i am running into a issue.

When i try to import the feed, Facebook says that there is no data in it.

Can you please help me diagnose this.

Thanks!

[jonyo]

Jonyo,

I was able to find the rss feed file, edit it and placed it on Facebook but i am running into a issue.

When i try to import the feed, Facebook says that there is no data in it.

Can you please help me diagnose this.

Thanks!

Just to check, do you have listings on your site that are currently "live"? In your browser, go to the rss_listings.php file on your site, does it show listings like it does for the demo at http://geodesicsolutions.com/demo/rss_listings.php ?

Also how do you import the feed, do you "point" them to the URL, or is it a file upload and you are attempting to actually upload the rss_listings.php PHP file? (I ask because the latter won't work.. The script has to be run on the site, you can't just upload the PHP file directly)