These buttons go to my Outside Blog. Feel free to test them out!  :-))

Heather - you don't need to do it...unless you want more exposure.  :-)

Hannah - for that you don't need a button to share, you need Tylenol!  lol~

Bill - I'll save that for another post later!  haha~  mycoolbutton.com?  :-O

Renee - although there are some great detailed posts out there already, you know I'd be happy to do that for you. :-)

A ReTweet is just like a ReBlog in the sense that everyone has different followers and subscribers to their Blogs and twitter accounts.  When someone retweets a post or twitter tweet, it expands and exposes your content to others SOI's. The retweet button in this post should work, the only difference from a regular shared tweet is that it adds the "RT" before the tweet. 

Al and Peggy - no problem. The link you add is to your post or article that you want to share, and have others share.  The first part of the link tells it to post on their Facebook wall, the second part of the link (you add) is to the post you want shared with folks on Facebook.

Here's a detailed Example:

This first part tells it to post on your facebook wall: http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=

This second part is the URL for the post (I'm using this post as the example)

http://activerain.com/blogsview/1300145/how-to-get-your-blog-posts-viral-exposure-on-twitter-and-facebook

Now Put the two together, and you now have a "Share On Facebook" link.

http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://activerain.com/blogsview/1300145/how-to-get-your-blog-posts-viral-exposure-on-twitter-and-facebook

This process has your Blog post go to that readers or visitors Facebook wall and posts it to share with others. Go ahead and try the sample Facebook Link above and you'll see how it ends up on your Facebook wall.  (hover your mouse over it, I left you a little message)

Hope that helps explain it better for you.

Jane - great question. Once you add it to one of your posts, you'll have it forever!  Then just copy and paste it into your next post, and change the URL to show the current post.  Your brain should feel better now no?  :-))

Alex - twitter automatically shortens the URL. If you want the shorter URL to link to your "Tweet This" button, then just tweet in once, go copy the "tinyurl" and use that for your link to the button.  Another option is http://bit.ly/ this site will shorten the url for you without sending a tweet.  Easy fix.  Great question for those who want to do that, thanks. :-)

Jane & Daniel - it's not HTML and it doesn't go on the HTML tab. It's just an image on your post with a link to it. The link get's put into the box when you create the link to the image. The box looks like this:

You get to this option by clicking on your button (or any image in a post) then click on the icon in your toolbar that looks like a little chain. It will open the box you see above, and that's where you add the URL so your button will link to the right place when a visitor clicks on it.

Click the non-broken chain below to create links, click the broken chain to undo them.

Denise - this is not a post I would imagine people adding to their FB profile. (yes, maybe the testers will)  However, if you were to create some great hyper-local content, maybe about a business, a restaurant, local schools, a community event etc, you might be surprised how many consumers in the community would tweet that, or put it on their FB page. 

New Years Celebration is coming up and that would be a great example of Local Content posted that could get tweeted and facebooked by hundreds of folks in your areas.  The Blog post content is of course the key to getting "anyone" to tweet or share on Facebook. 

Videos, pictures etc. are all huge items that get shared on twitter and Facebook on a regular daily basis.  No one else is doing this with their AR posts right now, but I bet that's all about to change once they see or hear about this. Humbly speaking, this is CRAZY COOL stuff and should definitely be considered and added to your "going viral" marketing and social networking business plan.  :-)

Damon - sorry I missed your question. You can track clicks using http://bit.ly for twitter tweets.  They will also create a short URL for you.

Katerina - I saw that post, gotta love the "viral" fuel that one got eh? Hopefully this will help the same thing happen to more of your posts and for others too. Once folks start sharing on FB and twitter, there's no telling how far and how much exposure a great post can and will get.

Lisa - love the new photo~  :-)

Matt - your 2 cents is worth a million!!  I haven't seen either of those on the whiteboard, but then I don't get to see the whiteboard too often. LOL~  I'll make sure I pass along your idea, I feel the same, that's why I created this work around until we can add something like that.  I use Zemanta myself on a couple other Blog sites and totally love it.  Maybe we can create our own similar type of Blogging Assistant.

Donna - you have to add an image first, then put the link to the image. You can use text if you like too.

Bob - I'll head over to your Blog post and see why it's not working for you, then come back here and report.....

Bob - You only had 8 words in your post which didn't meet the 50 word minimun for a qualified post, that's why the link was denied. I added some quotes and text with an image to it, then successfully posted it to my FaceBook wall.  I did have to change the denied text before posting it, hopefully when the network realizes that it's a qualified post, that message will not show up.

Try adding it to an existing post that you have up (something Hyper-Local) and you'll see that it works great.

BTW - You can delete all that stuff I added to your test post, I had to do it just to make sure that was the issue. :-)

Al and Peggy - the idea here is so that others can add your posts to their Facebook page or wall. It you're wanting to have your posts show up on your Facebook fan page, that is an entirely different process.  I know there is a post showing how to do that, let me see if I can go find it and get you a link. Be back as soon as I locate it.  Thanks. :-)

Al and Peggy - I couldn't find a post about it so I went to the AR Fan page I setup on FB. You have to setup your Fan page to pull your posts over as "notes". FB will display your Blog posts on your fan page as notes. Here's a link to the AR FB page of notes:
http://www.facebook.com/ActiverainCorp?v=app_2347471856

The setup for this of course has to be done on your FB fan page. Just use the edit link and add your AR Blog there. Hope that helps. :-)

Hi Amy - glad you like the new picture, took awhile to get up the nerve to post that one.  LOL~  The wifey makes it great, just wish folks would stop saying how cute my "daughter" is. hehe~ 

I got these buttons from twitter and facebook blogs that had them for using on their sites.  You can create your own or right click and use these, whatever you like.

I was able to right click on them and save them, maybe if I put them here for you, you'll be able to save them too:

If not, shoot me an email and I'll send them to you as attachments.  You can also create some really cool custom buttons at mycoolbutton.com, if that's an option you're interested in.  :-)

I haven't tested this one out yet, but FaceBook also offers a share and counter widget that you can also use.  This one IS HTML, the code to use it is below:

<a name="fb_share" type="box_count" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php">Share</a><script src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share" type="text/javascript"></script>

Rita - this really is too important and very powerful if you apply it to your Blog on AR, especially your Hyper-Local posts. :-)

Gina- you are a smart one to take this very serious, not sure that alot of folks realize the power in applying this concept.

Hi Shirley - these buttons and links are to be used in each of your Blog posts (if you choose) so that others who read your articles (Blog Posts) can sgare them with their SOI - sphere of influences on both Twitter and Facebook.  Most of the things shared on FaceBook and Twitter are things people find interesting and of value.  This is how you would help generate traffic and exposure to your AR Blog content on the other Social Networks.

Example:  I read your post on AR and I want to share it with my 2500 followers on Twitter and my 1700 friends on FaceBook. I just click the button on your post and viola!!  Now those who like what I sharednon those sites can do the same thing with their sphere and so on and so on.  The objective here is to try and get others sharing your great AR content with their friends and sphere of influence. It's called the "Viral" effect.  Hope that helps and makes more cents... I mean sense.  :-)

Hi Sybil - Call me, you know my number...  I'll get your star fixed in the meantime.  :-)

Bev and Bob - you could track it on twitter by using a tiny URL and one of the twitter tools available, not sure how you'd track how many times it got shared on FB walls, but the fact that it's getting shared couldn't be too bad for your blogging efforts.  Now I gotta run and fix your featured star badge, should start showing up shortly.  :-)))

Hi Don - you want to add your Blog post URL, not your AR homepage.  Make sure you are adding this entire URL as a link to the image and not in the post or page itself.  You have to click on the image first, then click on the Chain (linking tool) in your toolbar, then place both pieces of the URL in the image link box. It should work fine if you do it like this. :-)