Introducing the Facebook Friend Finder and Facebook Fan Comment Syncing

Social media sites like Facebook can be successful tools for distributing content to new audiences and building additional traffic for your blog. In fact, we've seen a favorable increase to incoming traffic for TypePad bloggers who've added the Facebook Like button to their blogs and post footers. With today's release, we have two more Facebook features that will help enhance these traffic tools.

Facebook Friend Finder

The Facebook Friend Finder locates and suggests people on TypePad to follow who are also in your Facebook network, making it even easier to find interesting TypePad blogs to follow. To try it out, go to your dashboard and click on the link "Find people to follow" at the top of your Recent Activity feed. You'll need to connect to Facebook if you haven't already to see which Facebook friends are also on TypePad.

Facebook Fan Comment Syncing

TypePad bloggers can boost comment counts and bridge the conversation that's happening between Facebook and TypePad. All it takes is one Facebook Like button. By adding the Facebook Like button to your blog's sidebar, you'll enable Facebook readers to "become a fan" of your blog. These Facebook fans will receive your blog updates directly in their news streams and after you enable Facebook Fan Comment Syncing, any comments left by them will be sync'ed between Facebook and your TypePad blog. This means the conversation remains with your content wherever it's happening!

To try this feature you must first have the Facebook Like button set up on your blog's sidebar. Once you have that up and running, follow these steps:

1. Go to Blog > Settings > Sharing. Under the first section, ensure that you have "Connected Facebook Like to Your Blog".
2. Then go to Blog > Settings > Comments and turn on the "Facebook Comment Syncing" setting.
3. Select "Save Changes" at the bottom of the page.

Note, Facebook Fan Comment Syncing will only sync comments left by Facebook readers who have "liked" your blog and will not sync comments to post you've shared to your Facebook profile via compose. Learn more.

Have fun testing out these new features and let us know what you think!

Comments

[Werner Patels]

It tried the synched Facebook comments; they don't work. I tried opening the feature that allows commenters to repost their comments to Twitter, Facebook, etc., and that feature doesn't work either.

More recently, it has been impossible to connect a new blog to Facebook, and one of my existing blogs actually had the existing connection severed, and now I cannot reestablish it.

The only thing that works is the Facebook Like button in the post footer; the rest is dysfunctional.

What is more, I have had to disable the Facebook connection on my other blogs, because while it was on, and the Facebook Like feature showed in the sidebar, the up6.typepad.com server (apparently, the server handling that feature) would constantly slow down the loading of my blogs or even freeze up entirely. I need my sites to load as quickly as possible; I simply can't afford to have a slowdown or freeze because of up6.

[Tiff (TypePad Team)]

Hi Werner, I'm sorry to hear that you've been having difficulties using the new Facebook Features. Unfortunately sometimes the connected session with Facebook expires, thereby disconnecting any blogs you've had Facebook Like for the blog set up on. If you'd like to try it out again, I suggest disconnecting your blog from facebook then going to your other accounts and removing your facebook account. Once everything is disconnected, connect your facebook account and then connect your blog once again.

Regarding Facebook comments, I just tested the feature out myself and it worked for me. At this point the only comments we can sync to and from Facebook are comments left by Facebook users who have 'liked' your blog, so any other user (non-facebook fan) who comments on TypePad will not have their comment synced. Furthermore, currently it takes around 15 minutes to sync any comments left on Facebook to TypePad, so it may just take a little while before comments actually appear.

I hope that clarifies things and helps you. I'll also take a look into the slowdown and freezing you were experiencing and let you know if we have a resolution for that.

[The Typepad Team]

Sorry to hear you're having problems with the Facebook like feature. It's important to remember that TypePad is only establishing a conection with Facebook. Sometimes the connected session with Facebook expires on their side, in which case you'll need to reconnect the blogs. As for page load time, the Like button is served up by Facebook, we only provide the iframe for supporting this on blog pages.

Can you let us know what's not working with Facebook Syncing? Are the comments from your fans not syncing over to TypePad? The feature is only for the fans of your blog and not for any Facebook user commenting on your shared posts from TypePad.

It's quite complex but this is the only comment syncing that Facebook is supporting at this time. Hope that helps!

[Pete Black]

I don't seem to have the option to turn on "Facebook Comment Syncing" under Blog > Settings.

[Tiff (TypePad Team)]

The "Facebook Comment Syncing" setting is located under the comments tab. If you are using TypePad Connect Comments however you'll have to switch to TypePad Comments in order to have access to Facebook Comment Syncing. Hope that helps!

[Robin Lee Hatcher]

I have the Facebook "Like" turned on, but on the Comments tab, I don't have an option to turn on Facebook Comment Syncing. Under Moderation, the boxes are checked in front of "Require readers to sign in before commenting" and to "Automatically close comments after 2 months". The boxes in front of the other two options are not checked. Under Formatting, both boxes are checked. I don't see how the other sections could affect this (Display, Email Notification, Accept Comments, Accept Trackbacks). I read your previous replies but I see nothing about TypePad Connect Comments or TypePad Comments so don't know how to switch from one to the other or how to know which I'm using.

Thanks.

[Account Deleted]

When I followed your instructions, creating the sharing connection created a new Facebook page for my blog. But I already have a fully functioning Facebook page for each of my blogs, including like box's created with Facebook's "add a Like Box" html creator and embedded into my sidebars. Is there a way to use the sync comments feature with a pre-existing Facebook page?

[Account Deleted]

I had the same problem as Pete and had to turn off the Typepad Connect to get it to work. Not sure what impact this has and would have made more sense for it to work with Typepad Connect for those of us who switched.

Are there any plans to allow easy functionality with Disqus and Backtype? I've never got either to work on Typepad and would love to do so.

[Account Deleted]

So we need to be in Typepad Comments before we can have that feature turned on? So why bother put on the Typepad Connect Comments feature if we cannot turn on the FB Connect Syncing? Is that the purpose of the Typepad Connect Comments so we can sync commments made in other networks?

So if we disable Typepad Connect Comments, can we go back to this after we turned on the FB Comment syncing?
Why does it always have to be difficult for us for something supposed to be easy and that which makes sense?

[joyfullytiredmom]

I'm with Jaya. I have a fully functioning FB page, which Typepad says it can't find, and wants to create a new one. Why?
I tried logging to FB first. Didn't work. Tried logging to Typ first. Didn't work either.
I gave up after 30 frustrating minutes of messing with it.

[joyfullytiredmom]

yes, why does it have to be so difficult? I gave up after 30 minutes of trying different options. Frustrating!

[joyfullytiredmom]

Yep, just tried it again and here's the error message I got a couple days ago when I tried to add the "like" button.
Today, I'm trying to "find friends to follow" and followed the directions on my dashboard....
http://www.typepad.com/services/connect/xd_receiver#fname=_parent&{%22t%22%3A3%2C%22h%22%3A%22fbClosingDialog%22%2C%22sid%22%3A%220.953%22}{%22token%22%3A%220_0.04751358462881872%22%2C%22result%22%3A%22offline_access%2Cpublish_stream%22}

what does all that mean????? other than the typepad page being froze and no connection to FB...

[joyfullytiredmom]

ok, since Typepad can't even find me on FB, it would make since, it can't find my friends...

Here's the error I get from typepad everytime I follow your directions to add the "like" button

"cannot find your page in Facebook. Try clicking the Like button again?"
and then it proceeds to try and try and try and try and try and try, until I have to force quit the application. Crazy!

[Carey Rowland]

OK thanks. You're doing a great job; keep it up.
...couldn't do it without you.

[Joanne Costello]

No, it's less about Facebook than putting in the buttons so that people can reblog or retweet...Can we start with the retweet?

Could you guide me a bit about what they are saying here?

http://help.tweetmeme.com/2009/09/15/how-to-add-a-tweetmeme-button-to-your-typepad-blog/

Do I go into Design? Then where? I just need more explicit instructions. If I could just get the retweet button for now, I won't bug you for a bit.

Cheers,

J

[Werner Patels @ The Right Comment]

No worries. I can live without it. In fact, my blogs load much faster without that blasted Facebook thing in the sidebar.

Maybe it's hosted by Facebook, but it's your up6 server that crashes or slows down because of it, so I won't be using that anymore.

The Like button in the post footer works like a charm, so that's all I need.

It would be nice, though, if the feature allowing commenters to repost their comments to Twitter, etc. were to finally work after all this time, but my support ticket on that (several months old by now) still shows as "We're working on it".

And, finally, connecting one's blog to Facebook is a crap shoot. Sometimes it works, then it doesn't. Recently, when I tried again (and that was the last time before I decided I'd never install it on my blogs ever again), I got an error message along the lines of "You must recognize Typepad first before you can connect to Facebook" (or something silly like that -- silly, because there is no function in Typepad that would allow me to follow the instructions I saw in that silly error message).

[Werner Patels @ The Right Comment]

Disqus won't work on Typepad, despite their claims. Tried it, didn't work. What is more, sites that run Disqus comments are without comment capabilities for around 90% of the time, because the service is down, and when Disqus is down, it'll slow down or crash any site that has Disqus incorporated. So stay away.

Typepad Connect is nice -- but it doesn't work perfectly either. What puts me off is that whenever I try to comment in a thread, such as this one, I lose my spot in the thread after clicking reply and I have to go scrolling up and down to find the spot again. Then, after logging in to comment, the same thing happens again -- twice, to be exact! First after having logged in and then again after clicking reply.

I found Connect, therefore, to be extremely inconvenient for my readers to use, and so I disabled it and went back to regular Typepad comments. It would be nice to have the reply and edit functions, but I'd rather be without those than forcing my readers to jump up and the screen each time they comment or reply and, perhaps, lose interest altogether.

[Elphas]

Nice sharing and guide on using facebook. I will try them in my blog.

http://www.wealthcreationempowerment.ws

[Account Deleted]

I did not have a problem with the Facebook-like interface. I simply ddid not like the Typepad version any more than I like Facebook itself.

[GN Solids Control]

excellent but i am so sorry to tell you in my country face-book can not open

[Charleymiller2010]

facebook is the fastest way to interface (thats a pun) with other apps. I agree if its dogging down your app then whats one to do ? disable it...

All in all , keep up the great work.

thanks

[Karen Otto]

Why is this comment showing up on MY blog?

[Ashley]

My problem is when I select 'Share this post' on the Edit Post page and I select Facebook and Twitter it only shares the link to Twitter and not Facebook. It used to automatically do both and now I have to actually go into Facebook and post a new update that I have updated the blog rather than it doing it automatically. I have checked all my settings in Typepad and Facebook and it is still not working. Any advice?

[Tiff (TypePad Team)]

Hey Ashley. If sharing to Facebook via the compose page isn't work, I suggest you visit your 'Other Accounts' page (https://www.typepad.com/secure/account/profile/accounts), delete your Facebook account and then add it again. Hope that helps!

[Antonio Alegria]

I do not understand what you are saying about my problems with...Facebook. I DO NOT HAVE, I NEVER HAD, I DO NO WANT TO HAVE, I WILL NOT ACCEPT TO HAVE ANY, ABSOLUTLY NONE, CONNECTION WITH FACEBOOK OR TWITTER OR WHATSOEVER.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
I HOPE SO.
Yours
Antonio Alegria

[joyfullytiredmom]

why have I made 4 posts inquiring about the difficulties of linking to FB and no one from Typepad has responded?

I'm beginning to agree with the poster who stated "is typepad 5 geeks working out of a basement who can't handle responding? or are they cutting edge blogging who just do not get customer service???"

[Tiff (TypePad Team)]

Hi there and sorry for the delay in responding. Unfortunately, half of the connection work for these features is based in Facebook, meaning that at the times when Facebook cannot connect the features are not able to function as well. The best advice I can give is to keep trying on the TypePad end or try using different browsers to set up the connection. Which browser are you currently using?

Regarding your current Facebook Fan page versus the one created by adding Facebook like to your blog, this is the way that Facebook has developed the "like" button functionality. The 'page' that the "like" button would create is essentially invisible, the idea being that facebook readers 'like' your blog, subscribe to your post updates directly in their news streams, and then immediately go to your blog instead of stopping by your facebook page first. You can read more details about how it works on the KB articles (http://help.sixapart.com/tp/us/facebook_like_widget.html)

I'm sorry to hear you're having such connection problems. Please let us know what your browser is as that may help point us in the right direction in finding the source to your problem.

[Tiff (TypePad Team)]

Hi there Jaya. Sorry this may be a bit confusion, but the Facebook "like" button for your blog that we offer via TypePad essentially removes the middleman of the old Facebook Fan Pages by subscribing fans to receive your post updates in their news streams, which directly link back to your blog. The new "page" created by this feature is invisible to everyone else but you, the administrator, so the idea is that your fans will always go to your blog instead of a Facebook page when updated about a new post.

Unfortunately there is no current way to transfer any fans from an old facebook fan page to the new facebook 'like' pages. We're very interested in this feature as well, so we're doing our best to work with Facebook to see if they will implement this in the future. We'll be sure to let you know if and when that feature becomes available.

[Account Deleted]

Thanks for the reply Tiff. I'm actually not confused about the difference between TP's "like" pages and having a regular Facebook fan page (though your comment is good for the newbies.) Since you brought it up, I'm going to add a comment about that difference.

When you rolled out the TP like pages, I tried it with one of my blogs that didn't have a regular fan page yet. The fact that the traffic goes back to my blog sounded good, since I have ads on my blog. However, after having it up for awhile, I realized that it seems VERY confusing to regular Facebook users because it behaves differently than expected. FB users are used to landing on a FB page, and it's a surprise to land back on the blog.

Another thing is that while syncing comments sounds FAB, regular Facebookers are used to reading conversations on pages. So I think bouncing people back to the blog kills the social conversation, compared to regular pages.

Anyway, that's why I dumped my TP-created fan page and built out a regular one instead. But if we could somehow get comment-sync to work with Typepad by somehow entering our Facebook page ID # in there, it would be super terrific!

[Candice]

How I can get this boring shit out of my feeds? Now that I am forced to take the ugly new admin layout I can't figure out how to turn your posts that I don't care about off of my feed.

[Tiff (TypePad Team)]

Hi Candice. It looks like the only person you're following is the TypePad team. If you no longer want any updates from the TypePad team showing up in your dashboard's recent activity stream, simply go to the TypePad team's profile (http://profile.typepad.com/typepad) and hit "Unfollow" beneath the userpic. Unfollowing will make sure you won't receive any new updates, but the old updates will stay in your feed until it's pushed out by your activity. Hope that helps.

[Archivingirl]

you can close this ticket. I am not going to worry about the interface issues. tx.

[Mcdpoker]

no problems over here,

[Account Deleted]

I was thinking the same thing... what's the point of upgrading to Typepad Connect and then having to downgrade to Typepad Comments to get any new functionality to work? Why make things so difficult and cumbersome all the time?

I am seriously considering switching to Posterous for my blog as they make basic things so much easier to do.

[Account Deleted]

Disqus does work with Typepad blogs (see avc.com and gothamgal.com) but the ones I've found had professionals to make the changes in the backend and some of the owners admitted it was very difficult plus the Disqus instructions for Typepad are incomplete. I've never got it to work though. I did get it working easily on my Tumblr and Blogger blogs without any help or fuss, sigh.

Having switched back to Typepad Comments, I now find I have the Facebook Like button working on the blog ok but have lost threaded commenting, arrrrgh! I now can't reply to individual comments, nor can anyone else, so they all appear in the order posted and its hard to have a conversation this way... who's referring to which comment?

Dear Typepad, WHY do you make simple tasks so difficult to execute?

[Steven Armstrong]

Last night one of my Facebook friends who is also a fan commented on one of my posts but I received no communication of that fact, neither through Typepad nor through Facebook. The comment, though it exists and can be plainly seen below the original posting on Typepad, it is not counted among my Typepad comment tally, nor does it appear on Facebook.

[curtbradford]

My typepad blog page has the find me on FB logo followed by this:
Facebook: 1052612495

I really don't want my FB id # posted on my blog.
How do I remove?

[Julia Clark-Johnson]

I need to find some Farmville neighbors asap. Please be my neighbor! My email address is clarkjohnsonjulia@yahoo.com. Thanks!!

[VT]

I'm having the same problem as you are. Vexing.

[Segolene]

The problem I am having is having my blog posts transferred over to Facebook in Note form.
Previously whenever I published a blog post, it would automatically transfer over to Facebook in a maximum of 2 hours but now it takes anything between 1 and 3 days.

I get a lot more comments on Facebook and I can tag people there for a wider reach which I cant do on Typepad.

For a service which I have been dutifully paying for almost 2 years now, this is rather unfair as that was the main selling point for me.

[Kiril Kundurazieff]

Help me out, here, people!

I got tired of waiting for weeks for Typepad to add the FB Like to my sidebar so went to FB to make the widget myself, and add it myself using their code.

since I checked the Comment Share box this means...Signed-in commenters will have the option to share their comments on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

That's nice, but...

Apparently since I did not get the FB Blog Like button thru Typepad...

I am unable to check the FB Comment Syncing Box I am unable to Enable Facebook Comment Syncing for my Facebook Fans.

What gives?

You offer all these nice ways to attract readers, and I can't use them as intended.

The good news is that both the Post Like, and the Blog Like, are working on both the blogs I have them on.

[Account Deleted]

I started a website recently and purchased 10,000 Facebook fans from www.socialkik.com for our Facebook page and the results were amazing! I passed all my competitors when it comes to the number of Facebook fans... some competitors have been in business since 1999, but now we have 20 times more fans than them on Facebook, which made it seem that I've been in business much longer than them !