WINTER 2014

166 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S

166 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK SCOOPING UP FACEBOOK CONTENT: NEW FEATURE ALLOWS REPOSTING OF FASTENER TESTIMONIALS continued from page 10 Company bloggers will also be able to scoop up any public content the company posts about itself on its Facebook page, including especially riveting text, images or video that a company creates as part of a publicity campaign for a new product or service. In practice, scooping up an embedded post is as easy as clicking on a globe icon at the top right corner of a Facebook post – which indicates the post is public. A line of code appears, which is then be cut-and-pasted to a Web site, blog or similar location. While the technique is familiar to anyone who has designed the most basic of Web sites, newbies can still get in on the act. Essentially, they can copy the code for as many embedded posts as they’d like, then email that code to their Web designer for placement on their Web site, blog or elsewhere. Of course, as soon as you start embedding snippets of Facebook on your Web properties, you’ll have to expect that a good deal of Facebook is going to come with it. Every embedded post you place on your Web site, for example, also offers access to all the other comments, likes and shares associated with that post. (You can access all this information by clicking a ‘See More’ link that’s included in every embedded post you place on your Web site.) So before embedding a friendly testimonial about your fastener company from Facebook, you’ll want to double-check to ensure there are no negative comments about your company associated with the post. Embedding Facebook posts on your Web properties also means you’ll be offering your audience the ability to post Facebook likes and comments from your Web site, and share the content of your embedded post with others on Facebook. Plus, people will be able to ‘Follow’ the person who’s post you embedded on your Web site, and receive new posts from that original creator in their Facebook newstream. One concern: While Facebook embeds are currently ad-free, many worry that Facebook may soon run advertising wherever it’s embedded posts appear. That could include your Web site, blog or anywhere else you Above: Charlie Cheever, co-founder of Quora, a question/answer Web site, also encourages reposting of its content across the Web. Below: Bo Hee Kim is product manager for Storify, an online, universal tool for embedding content scooped up from the Web. embed a Facebook post. “It’s not out of the question to imagine that a video embedded post on your Web page could also show Facebook’s 15-second ads,” says Christopher S. Penn, the Vice-President of Marketing Strategy, Shift Communications (www.shiftcomm.com), a press relations agency. “The 15-second ad format is obviously targeted for running on Instagram properties (Instagram is owned by Facebook), but it could just as easily run on Facebook’s properties as well.” Also, while many posts of Facebook are public – and embeddable – the majority of its posts remain private. Currently, 72% of all Facebook posts are set to private, according to a June 2012 study by Consumer Reports (www.consumerreports.org/cro/ magazine/2012/06/facebook-yourprivacy/index.htm). With the move to offering embedded content, Facebook joins a number of other social networks that also make it very easy to share their content across the Web, including Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Quora. More detail on how to scoop up embedded posts from Facebook and those other social networks is available at the following links: *Embed Facebook content: www.facebook.com/help/ 692720347411816 *Embed Twitter content: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/ embedded-tweets *Embed YouTube content: https://support.google.com/ youtube/answer/171780hl=en *Embed Instagram content: http://blog.instagram.com/post/ 55095847329/introducing-instagram-web-embeds *Embed Quora content: http://www.quora.com/Quora-Embedded-Quotesfeature/How-do-I-embed-Quora-content-onto-my-websiteor-blog *Storify, a universal tool for embedding content found on the Web: https://storify.com *Soundcloud, a universal tool for embedding audio captured on your smartphone on many social networks: https://soundcloud.com

THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK 167 Yardley Products Corp. a manufacturer of threaded metal insert fasteners, recently fulfilled an order of custom inserts to Azimuth Technology, a manufacturer who was contracted to fabricate a small tactical pocket pistol for their client, DoubleTap Defense. Azimuth Technology called on Yardley products seeking an insert capable of securely holding together the two pieces of the pistol’s aluminum handle. When a standard Yardley Products insert did not provide the right fit, the insert manufacturer specially fabricated custom inserts based on the client’s designs. “Our Azimuth Technology engineers and personnel worked closely with Yardley Products to find the right solution to our fastening needs,” said Len Zaiser of Azimuth Technology. “Even though Yardley Products’ standard insert wasn’t a perfect fit for our application, they continued to work alongside us and custom manufacture an insert designed by our own engineers.” The small tactical pocket pistol required 6 threaded metal inserts to securely fasten the right and left handle pieces together. Azimuth Technology contacted Yardley Products looking for a metal fastener with a 440 thread and insert recommendations. To accommodate the request, Yardley Products recommended they test their standard stainless steel Quick- Serts inserts. The Quick-Sert threaded metal fasteners are standard inserts designed for a pressed-in installation, constructed of stainless steel and commonly used where constant usage causes threads in soft materials to break down. Upon testing the standard inserts, Azimuth Technology found Yardley Products’ Quick-Serts to be too large for their product’s blueprint. Working closely with Yardley Products engineers, Azimuth Technology began designing a stainless steel fastener that would match their unique application needs. Once a final threaded insert had been designed, Yardley Products fulfilled the order and custom manufactured the unique inserts in-house. “The inserts manufactured at Yardley Products’ facility are one of the problem free components we use in our assembly,” said Zaiser, “and that’s always a great thing.” For more information about Yardley Products visit them online at www.yardleyproducts.com