Let's start by looking at how to add a Twitter Tweet button:
You just saw how to add a Twitter Tweet button to your page.
The Facebook Like/Recommend and LinkedIn blocks work in much the same way. You simply drag the block onto the page, set the options, and that's all there is to it.
These are great blocks to have in any Mahara installation. They enhance the sharing features that already exist, encouraging feedback and comments on your portfolio beyond that permitted within the walled garden. The question is, when is it a good idea to add these buttons to a page?
When you add these social links to a page, you are basically saying to the world, "Go ahead and let other people know about the content I have created".
Self-promotion isn't a bad thing! Maybe you have an interesting idea or take on an idea that you think is worth the world knowing about. If the content is good enough, people will naturally let others know about it. In fact, there's no reason why you can't use a Mahara page with the specific purpose of selling a product or to show off your work. This would be useful for, say, photographers, artists, authors, or freelancers in general.
As with setting up your page share settings, you should think carefully about whether the content in your page should be available to be shared with the outside world via social sharing buttons. Here are some situations when it's probably not very clever to allow social sharing:
If you decide to add a share button to your Mahara page, it's probably a good idea to make sure that your page itself is public or at least has a wide audience in the Mahara site, so that enough people would actually be able to look at it. You're likely to get more shares that way.
Ok, so you've decided that you would like to share your page with the world. The question now is, which social networking site(s) to choose? Let's look at each of them a bit closer.
Twitter is a micro-blogging site and lets you share mini text updates with a limited character count. When viewers of your page share it on Twitter, it is their followers who will be notified as well as those who subsequently find the tweet through search engines and retweets.
Facebook is used for individuals to share content with their friends, although it is gaining more traction with professionals and universities too. Facebook shares are in the forms of "Likes", so by clicking the button, the sharer is saying they like your content.
This is a professional profile and networking site. When users share content here, it is usually in a strictly professional context. Add the LinkedIn button, if you would like to promote your content with other professional working groups.
Christophe from Silverworks University thinks: | |
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I'm putting together a Mahara collection that promotes our degree show. It includes lots of images of student work as well as details about the event. I'm going to link to this from our social networking pages. These buttons will be really useful — I'm going to add them to the collection home page, so that students can reshare the collection with their friends and followers. |