Google Friend Connect

Hi, I am Chris Lang I will be bringing my knowledge of Google Friend Connect and the Google social network here on Knol for you all to use. For now this is a project of personal growth as I learn how a Knol is created and properly written. We will all be learning together here. Of course your feedback and questions are very welcome.

Getting Started With Google Friend Connect

Getting the two files necessary to get Google Friend Connect up and running on your site or blog (same thing really) is tough for new users since FTP is a lost skill in the days of WYSIWYG site builder software.

This video should help you get past this small FTP hurdle and get you going fast. If you can't get it to work, call your host and ask them if the files appear in the right place and you can also get your FTP username and password if you don't have it. This is usually different than your log in credentials for security sake.



The files you need can be found at the Google Friend Connect site. Just log in with your Google Gmail account.

BLOGGER USERS: If you use Blogger be sure to catch the special instructions for that Blog platform. Also you can just add the Blogger followers gadget, it is GFC. Also don't worry about uploading the files, Blogger is a Google site, they are already there.

That should take care of the problem, next up you need to create a Google profile.

How to create a Google profile

Now it is time to build your Google profile if you do not have one already.

Google's navigation in this area used to be awful, but it has suddenly gotten better as Google is starting to push the profile when you open a Gmail account. That tells me Google is just about done with the first steps here and Google Friend Connect is in full roll out. So here is how to create YOUR Google profile.

You will need to get a Gmail address before you do this. USE Gmail, the social features that we will be talking about here are available to you only if you use Gmail. If you decide to use other logons or email addresses then you LOSE this feature. You LOSE the features of Google sharing in Google Reader and the contact list that will be built by making mutual friends on Gmail. In short the Gmail address associates all the various Google applications.

Also the URL in Google to your profile will be your Gmail handle. Since mine is chrislang my Google URL is http://www.google.com/profiles/chrislang

Also use your real name in the display text and the profile will show up in the first page of Google results for a search of your name. And it shows you avatar, so use a real picture of yourself.

1. Go to Google.com
2. Click the sign-in link on the top right
3. Sign into Gmail
4. Now click "my account"
5. Your profile will appear on the far top left
6. Or the lack of one

If you would like to see what a completed Google profile looks like, here is my Chris Lang Google profile and look for the link "my profile" in the right hand side of the page.

It should be right next to your Gmail address.

Click that link and you should be able to create your own Google profile, add a picture and links to your sites.

WARNING: The Gmail address you are logged in to will be public to all and to all your friends. If you do not want that Gmail address public, set up another account and use another Gmail address.

You Gmail handle should be your name

Think of your Google profile as your business card. It is that highly visible and is displayed on the first page of Google results. Make it professional.



Choose a email handle that is real and descriptive of who you are, like your real name. When you do this as in the video your profile address will be google.com/profiles/yourname. Google is about real people and real relationships. I use my real name and my main Google Gmail address. I want you to know who I am and what I do you can find me by just typing in my name in the google.com/profiles/ URL. Chris Lang is well known in social marketing circles and I want you to know this is me.

Then that account will be linked to your Google Reader, Google Gchat and Google Talk, the Gmail address you log in under and it will all show up on your Google profile.

Do not attempt to build multiple profiles and spam Google, they will ban you for it eventually or at least move your sites you link to way down the listing and any site associated with it. Or so we believe.

You only get one profile so choose and build it wisely. There is no reason to pull social bookmarking BS crap like building multiple profiles to add as many Google Reader bookmarks as possible since that can easily be seen by Google. Remember who we are dealing with here.

Google is by far the search engine king and the MOST powerful corporation on earth. They know your IP address, your MAC address and who you are. You probably have the Google toolbar installed or Google Earth. They are in your machine. Do you really want to mess with that?

Let me know of any other problems you are having. Early adopters of this are going to have huge friends lists and large subscribers lists bookmarking their blog posts. This will crush your competition in Google quickly.

Joining Blogs and Adding Friends in Google Friend Connect

Now you can go to a Friend Connect enabled blog and and click the "join" button on the top of any widget and then confirm that you want to join. If you have problems using GFC on Blogs and you are using Internet Explorer, especially an older version that is not updated it is Microsoft that is at fault.

I suggest Firefox, the latest version is way fast and stable. If you are a IE devotee, try updating to the new IE8, that should solve any problems.

You can try out your new GFC login and join a Google Friend Connect gadget here. This site uses the GFC social bar, and there is a gadget in the side bar as well. If this is your first time joining a GFC gadget then use the gadget on the side bar, it is easier to use.

So now you have joined a Blog using GFC. Next you can add friends by clicking the avatar of other users in the GFC gadget. After clicking the avatar, GFC will offer you a "+ add friend" link, that is how you add new friends and send a friend request. When the GFC member friends you back their Gmail address will be added to your Gmail contacts. Your new friends will be added to Gchat (if you wish) and your new GFC friend will be added to your Google Reader under the "friend shared items" heading and you to theirs.

Google Reader

Now that you have createe your Google profile, lets talk about the next big piece, Google Reader.

If you can't remember the URL for your profile and did not bookmark it then go to Google.com, if you  are logged into Gmail, it will display your Gmail address in the top right of the page. If not log into Google with your Gmail address and yours will be in the right hand navigation as "my account". Just make sure you are logged into the Gmail account that you are using for your public profile gmail address and to join Google Friend Connect widgets.

 We are going to walk thru your Google Reader and why this is THE most important part of Google Friend Connect.  

First log into your Gmail account that you are using for your Google profile. This account will be the account you use as we walk thru the Google Social network so be sure to be logged in at any point we add a new piece

To get to Google Reader go to Google.com, them click the "more" link in the top left hand navigation hyperlinks at the very top of  the page. Or you can just use this link: http://www.google.com/reader/.

Why Google Reader is your number one SEO and blog promotion tool.

The first and most important benefit of adding friends to Google Reader is that Google uses the number of RSS subscribers you have as a positive indicator of your Blog's quality. This came to light in the 2005 Google Reader patent. So another lets say another blog has 2000 subscribers. You both are targeting the keywords "google friend connect" but you have only 500 RSS subscribers. Google measures RSS subscribers like this:

• Google Reader has 40% market share in RSS readers.
• Google counts how many RSS subscribers your blog has.
• Google multiplies this number by 2.5.
• This number is plugged into the Google algo as a indicator of your blog's quality.
• This has been true since 2005 and is part of the Google blog search patent.
  

Hence Google KNOWS how many RSS subscribers you have. They also own FeedBurner and of course Google Analytics so they even have a fair amount of demographic and performance data to further determine the quality of your blog's readership and usability data.

I know, you hate Google Reader, it sucks, you have been using RSS for years and stand alone readers kick it's butt, blah blah blah. I have heard it all and turned the most rabid haters into Google Reader lovers. Why?

Because when your subscribers share your blog post it is added to their Google Reader shared items. It is not just added, the full text is added, the headline is used as a link to your blog post. With your own keywords that you use and before you say it...

It is an A TAG, a hard coded link, that is FULLY FOLLOWED to your blog. Yes, I am serious, Google Reader's shared items are incoming links to your blog. Google Reader shared items from Google profiles are now showing toolbar PR so Google is passing link juice on to your blog from these links. This is Google's version of social bookmarking.

I believe this is one of the best links you can get, but it depends on the Google ranking for the shared items page.

Let's talk a little more about the process that happens when a visitor clicks the Friend Connect join button.


When someone joins your blog thru Friend Connect...

• They click the join button and confirm...
• Your Blog's RSS feed is automatically added to their Google Reader by default. (this is hard to understand and at times it is dependent on Blogger)
  
• Now they can click the "share" button at the bottom of blog article in Reader, adding it to their Google Reader Shared Items.
• They can click the "share with note" and add your blog post to their Google Reader Shared Items with a comment embedded.
• You Google Reader Subscribers can comment on the post in blog style comments now in Reader.
  
• All of your blog posts added by any Google Reader subscriber gets a hard coded link, fully followed by Google bot.
• Any of their friends can read their shared items in their Google Reader.
• That means their friends from Friend Connect can now read your blog post too.
• This is Google Reader Social Bookmarking and a very good viral marketing tool.
  

How important are these links? It depends on how many friends the subscriber has made thru Google Reader and how many read their Google Readers shared items. If a Robert Scoble type who has thousands of Google Reader friends then you hit the jackpot.

However just like social bookmarking and let's say Digg, it also depends on how MANY subscribers share one of your blog posts. Just like social bookmarking sites it is not the bookmark that counts, but who bookmarks it and even more, HOW MANY bookmark it. Obviously the more Friend Connect members you have the more bookmarks (shared items) your will get. Obviously the better the content, the more shares or bookmarks you will get.

So, just like social bookmarking votes, Google can count these links and even though they may be from lite Google Readers users, the more your blog post is shared, the more Google sees your blog post and being valuable.

I think you get the point here so I will move on the where those links that you share end up.
 

Your Google Reader Shared Items

We are going to walk thru your Google Reader shared items and why this is important.

Why Google Reader Shared Items Are an SEO Tool and the perfect Viral Marketing Engine

•     Sharing creates links back to the blog post
•     Your friends sharing your blog posts are links back to the blog post
•     When friends of your friends share your blog posts they are links back to your blog
•     When friend of friends of your friends share your blogs posts they are links back to your blog
•     This is the perfect viral marketing engine!

I know many of you are chomping at the bit to make friends and begin to promote your site thru Google Friend Connect and but let's get all your ducks in a row first.

Go to Google.com, log into Google with the Gmail account that you use for your GFC profile.

Now on your profile click the top left navigation "more", then Reader. Then in Reader, click "your stuff", then "shared items".

In the main pane you will see: "Your shared items are available publicly <strong>at this web page</strong>. Follow that link to get to your Google Reader Shared Items.

Just below that are your friends shared items. Every time you add a friend to Google Friend Connect their Google Reader Shared Items show up there. In their Google Reader that is where they will see yours.

Since your shared items may not be that fleshed out as far as sharing the wealth of items, let's take a look at my Chris Lang's Shared Items so you can see what it will look like in the long term.

If you do not already use Reader then you can go to the "Get started with Google Reader" link on your shared items page.

Let's try sharing some feed items in Google Reader shared items

Now that you are in Google Reader if you weren't before, try adding my Google Friend Connect (link will open in a new tab) feed here. This will open in a new tab so you don't lose your place here. If it does not, (some pop up blockers stop new tabs) right click it and select open in a new tab.

On the resulting screen (in FireFox), select Google from the drop down list, click the Google Reader reference on the right and now the feed is installed in Google Reader. You can also add this to your Google iGoogle start page but for now lets talk Google Reader Shared Items.

You will see that the feed "Google Friend Connect Tactics" is now in "Subscriptions" in the left hand navigation.

Now find a post you like in that feed and scroll down to the end of the post. There you will find "share" and "share with note" links in the Google Reader frame. Click "share" and the post is added to your Google Reader shared items page.

If you click "share with note" you can add a comment to the blog post. If you click the "star" this is the equivalent of Google Reader favorites. Adding a star does NOT however add this item to your shared itmes.

Now find another post you like and click "share with note" and the bottom a blog post in Google Reader. You will see a DHTML overlay appear and from there you can add your own comment of a note to self and others.

Finally you can email a link to a friend. HOWEVER, this is no crappy refer a friend script at work here... THIS IS GMAIL. Where you can access your GMAIL contacts. More on Gmail up next. But are you starting to get the picture here? If not I will hammer it in soon.

Why are Google Reader Shared Items important?

#1 Incoming fully followed links

Look at the code if you can read it, these are fully followed links in HTML that Google spiders can find and follow. Every time a subscriber to your feed adds a shared item to their profile it creates a link back to your site. Not just any link, but a link right on Google servers. RSS feeds are now bookmarkable right from the feed.

No more having to contend with multiple sites like Digg, Mixx and try to manage contacts all over the place. Fighting the Digg Mafia or "OH NO! My profile was deleted because some jealous mother basement living kid accused me of spam because he did not like my post. Bye Bye Digg.

#2 Google now has a ton of data to rank blogs

I see shared items becoming the new Digg, with way more influence on Google as a positive indicator of blog quality. Quality at the post level determined by how many shared it. Quality at the domain level by how many subscribers the blog has and how many actually read it. Remember that this is Google Reader. On Google's servers. This is not Google trying to determine blog quality thru incoming links found through the GoogleBot spider, no lag time between Google updates. I see Google Shared Items links appearing in my back links before any others.

#3. Google Reader is the perfect viral marketing tool

Google has now just circumvented any other online readers and taken the "what is RSS" out of the equation, giving no reason for anyone to even need to know what RSS is.

Sure many RSS early adopters will scream "Google Reader sucks!" at this but in reality that matters little. The truth is that 80% of the Internet does not know or use RSS and now with one click of a familiar looking button they will.

Why will they click the join button? Because you have to join the site before you can use the same friend connect widget to add friends to your Googling Social network.

Want to add friends to build a Google Social Network? Click the join button on any Google Friend Connect enabled blog and look for powerful highly active GFC users. To determine that look at the comments in the blog post and if they use it the comments in the GFC social bar.

Gmail and Google Friend Connect

Yesterday we talked about your Google Shared Items and now it is time to get to the most powerful piece of Google Social Network and Friend Connect.

Yes, belive it or not, Gmail is the most powerful part of Google Social Networking and what I am about to show you is the main reason Facebook Connect cannot possibly ever compete.

One more reason Google social networking kicks Facebook butt

Why? Because when you accept a friend request:

•     Your friends Gmail Addresses are added to your contacts.
•     Your Gmail Address is added to theirs.
•     You now are both in Gmail Gchat (gmail IM).
•     You are both now linked in Gtalk (standalone IM).
•     You have real email addresses, not some Facebook account that can disappear overnight.
  
•     You can back up your Gmail addresses to Outlook or any email client.
•     You can use Gmail to direct traffic to any GFC enabled web page.
  
•     You just blew any Facebook contact away list away.

Before you panic, of course you can turn off Gchat. But think about it. How many big time contacts do you have floating around in your Facebook contact list. Heck, how many times a week do you even read your Facebook messages? I have a big Facebook following and I mostly get nothing but junk group requests.

How many Facebook contacts could be converted to personal contacts with chat or the fact that your friend's inbox actually get's read by them? With Gmail, your friends are constantly using that Gmail address to log into Google. Hence it has a much better chance of being read and so do your emails and attempts to convert your friends to real live personal contacts.

Send a bunch of junk like you get on Facebook to Gmail and you will get the spam button clicked on you, your domains will end up in the spam folder and you entire mailing list sent from your site will be history. Do you see us getting all the BS in Gmail that we get in a Facebook inbox? NO, because Google will not let us destroy their brand.

Yahoo mail is worthless and I won't even waste your time talking about Microsoft email, they are both email delivery nightmares.

Go to Chris Lang's Google profile http://www.google.com/profiles/chrislang and look for the "send a message" link at the top of my profile. Gmail form mail. Also your Gmail address is public. Not just to anyone that comes by your profile but of course to all your social friends. No more waiting for a friend request or the endless email associated with the likes of Facebook. Way less info overload.

Q: BTW: Can I set up my gmail on my Outlook? Thanks, Chris.

A: No you don't want to send the Gmail to Outlook. You want to be able to use the social features of Gmail. You want to be able to use that Gmail contacts list that soon will be filling up with new leads and powerful contacts.

Should you be worried about spam, privacy or other concerns? NO. My business email address has been public for 5 years. I don't get a tons of spam and blah blah blah. I don't embed it as HTML either, but still, forget the privacy BS and get my point here.

I could go on and on here but I think you get the idea of what this is all about now. Real people, real contact information, sharing real stories in Gmail, Gchat and Google Reader, building backlinks to your site, raising your search engine rankings. Viral marketing at it's best. What more could you want?

The question is will they be sharing your stories of your competition?

I know they are sharing mine right now.

What is Google Doing now with Google Friend Connect?

Google Adds Twitter to YouTube and 30 Social Bookmarking Sites

Then Google added Twitter to YouTube and 30 Social bookmarking sites to Google Friend Connect widgets truly making GFC the most powerful social viral marketing tool to come along in a very long time.

Google Friend Connect Now on YouTube

Want to learn more about Google Friend Connect?

If you added the RSS feed to you Google Reader above you will be seeing my blog posts. Also I still do use email delivery to alert my list. You can go to GooglingSocial.com and add your Google Gmail address you use to sign into GFC to the form on the top right and I will alert you once a week when I update my blog with the latest Google Friend Connect additions on Tuesday every week.

Cheers! = Chris Lang