This week we added Facebook Connect to our website and quite literally our website is undergoing a transformation from WordPress powered blog to Facebook powered application. While the technical details may not interest you, there are some basics that we need to share with you here now and we’ll do our best to keep you updated on more changes to come.

Become A Fan – Again

Our fan page on facebook has become a great way for us to connect with listeners and for our listeners to connect with others in our community. First, let me share here what you NEED TO KNOW on this topic, then I want to share more insight on things that might be of interest to you as a member and/or fan.

What You Need To Know

We are moving from our current fan page to a new page at Facebook and are asking our friends and fans to “Become A Fan” again if you fanned the old page or if you are new, we hope you will Become A Fan of our new page as well.

We do regret having to trouble current fans to make the switch and want to thank you in advance for migrating to our new page at your earliest convenience. The current or Old Fan Page will be deleted soon and we don’t wish to loose you in the move.

There is a “Become A Fan” button located in the sidebar of our website visible only to those that are not already fans of our new page. You can also just go directly to our New Fan Page on Facebook.

Why The New Fan Page?

We had to add an application (our website) to Facebook in order to add Facebook Connect to FarmTownWeekly.com. Applications on Facebook have what is called a “Profile Page” which is the exact same thing as a “Fan Page” with all the same features. Therefore, our new Application Profile Page replaces our old fan page. To be clear, our website is now a facebook application and our application profile page on facebook is now our new fan page.

It would make no sense to maintain both pages as they have nearly the exact same features in terms of communicating with fans, but the new page does have a couple additional features. For instance, clicking the “Go To Application” button on the new page brings you straight to our website. Using Facebook Connect, you can easily return to your profile on Facebook by clicking your profile pic on our website.

Now mind you, not every feature will work for every user and we are still in the process of converting our website to use the Facebook Connect features that handle member registration and authentication. So far however, it seems to be working well for everyone that has created a Facebook Connect account on FarmTownWeekly.com

Another handy feature is you can add Farm Town Weekly to your bookmarks on Facebook to make it extra convenient to check our website for updates or listen to the latest episode. I keep mine right next to the Farm Town bookmark.

We will cover more about Facebook Connect in future posts and talk about it on the next show but feel free to reply here with any feedback, comments, or questions. One brief note to current registered members, to log into our website using Facebook Connect you no longer enter your username or password on our login form. Just click on the Facebook Connect button and if asked, enter your Facebook login information.

Background Information – May be of Interest

In November we noticed a slight decrease in our website traffic. There could be any number of reasons for the decrease and traffic on any active website will fluctuate from month to month. However, we considered this may be due to our making a fan page available on facebook, giving you the ability to connect with us there more conveniently and without having to leave the facebook environment.

What else we found interesting was that immediately after starting our fan page we seen an increase in the number of live participants at TalkShoe on Monday evenings. If you don’t know, Talkshoe.com is where we record the show during which a chatroom is made available where our neighbors chat with us and each other while listening to the live audio stream. Listeners can also call in and talk with us like traditional talk radio.

The point is that while seeing a slight decrease in website traffic, live participation in the show has increased. In fact, our show has made it on the TalkShoe Top 100 List for Live Participants for the fourth consecutive week. There is no real way for us to know, but it stands to reason that the addition of a fan page is somehow responsible for the decrease in site traffic and increase in live participation. Of course there are multiple other variables, but figuring out a way to make it even more convenient for farmers to connect with our content and share it with others has always been the task at hand and adding a fan page to facebook certainly had some impact.

In review, we believe that adding Facebook Connect to our website and inserting our website into Facebook as an application will have even greater impact. At the end of the day, it is just plain fun for us to be able to use familiar Facebook features on FarmTownWeekly.com