We all spend so much time during our working day on social networks and we often find features that most people don’t know about. As such, we wanted to create a list here of a few hidden gems that will make your day a little easier. We’ve focused on the big 4: Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.
Youtube Lyrics Plugin
This only works for Google Chrome users but is an incredibly useful tool for anybody who wants to watch the lyrics to their favorite songs as they watch a video on Youtube. Lyrics are one of the most searched for terms on Google so it makes sense to save time and put music videos and lyrics together in one window. Works perfectly from what we can see.
Youtube Disco
There is tons of great free music on Youtube but most people spend their time searching for videos or using play lists. Why not let Youtube do all the hard work for you instead? Head over to Youtube Disco, type in the artist you love and let Youtube do the rest of the work for you a la Pandora. It means you have your own personal DJ and never have to pay for music again. Great for parties.
Youtube Editor
Editing video can be a real pain but and a very time consuming affair but luckily Youtube now lets you take some of the pain out of the process by providing an online editor where you can mash together videos that you have already uploaded, trim videos or even add music from their selection of tracks. Great for making small changes.
Linkedin Recommend Button On Your Website Or Blog
Everybody wants to get recommended on Linkedin as it’s a great way of getting new business. This relatively new feature lets you do that by embedding a small button on your site that will prompt users to do that in a flash. You can read more here about how to add the button to your site.
Linkedin CV Creator
Another recent innovation from Linkedin that allows you to export all your data and previous work history and education in to a nicely formatted CV with one simple click. This means that rather than having to fire up Word and format a document as long as your information is in order on Linkedin you should have you CV ready to go in seconds to find that dream job.
Find Friends By Email On Twitter
This one might seem very obvious as it’s one of the first screens that you are presented with when you sign up to Twitter but most people never go back to it again. Search your email address book on Twitter these days and you’d be surprised who has joined Twitter since you joined and you’ll find lots of your real life friends to follow on Twitter.
Turning Twitter Location On/Off
The ability to add your location on Twitter has been around for some time with many people claiming it could be a huge part of their business model but to date the only people using it have been techie people trying it out and it’s far from hitting the mainstream. It is turned off by default but if you want to add your location on Twitter simply go to settings and tick the box.
Search Way Back On Twitter
Twitter Search is an incredibly powerful tool but one of the major flaws with Twitter has always been the ability to search back over time. There are several options but the one we find the best is Topsy which will give you pretty accurate historical links going back as far as May 2008. You won’t find every single piece of information you are looking for but this is about the best historical minded social search engine.
Location Targeted Facebook Updates
Your Facebook page probably has a decent following from lots of different countries and one message might only appeal to a certain country while offending another. Luckily, Facebook lets you target updates by country or by language. Once you select a country it will also let you target the update by city. Used correctly this is a great tool for local businesses or brands who have a reach around multiple countries.
Embedding Facebook Videos
Most people are very familiar with embedding videos from Youtube and you’ll see them all over the web on 3rd party sites but fewer people embed videos from Facebook. You’ll find an “embed video” button on the video page and it’s a great way of adding high quality video to your site. (If you don’t have embed button read here or install greasemonkey script.) The big added bonus is that the Facebook video includes a like button within the video (if you don’t already like the page) which can help you to increase your likes dramatically if you embed your video on a site or blog with a large amount of traffic. You’ll find the embed link under the videos on Facebook and you’ll be given a piece of code which you can add to your website or blog.
Know of any other cool social media hacks? Share them in the comments!
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