QR Codes for Social Networking

Bar codes and social networking go hand in hand with the increasing use of mobile technology across the globe. With smartphones and mobile technology, being away from a computer no longer means losing touch with those who are part of your everyday life. Generating a QR code is an easy way to share direct access to your social profiles, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, with everyone you know.  Friends, family, and co-workers can simply scan the QR code from your phone, a computer screen or business card, and then be able to see your latest posts and photos on Facebook and more.

Making a bar code for a social networking profile is easy. A website such as Kaywa or The Barcode News will generate a QR code for free. These generators allow one to insert a URL as the basic information to create the code, but a phone number, SMS, an email address, or physical address can be inserted too. Having a QR code for social networking sites is handy and encourages traffic to profile pages. A QR code can be placed on a website or blog in a prominent place where visitors will notice it. Blog software like Wordpress has a text module where a QR code can be placed above the fold. Anyone who scans the QR Code with a smart phone will have access to the social networking profiles, posts, photos, and much more. Besides LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, profile URLs to other social networking sites such as Digg, Reddit, Delicious, and Stumbleupon can also be used to create a series of QR codes. Having more than one QR code as such is convenient for businesses that have pages with these sites to keep their followers up to date with the latest news and trends.

There is a QR code generator for Twitter profiles that enable the user to also embed their profile image into the bar code. The URL field contains the web address of the individual's Twitter profile, and a text field is included to contain the name of the individual's profile right beneath the QR Code. The Twitter QR Code can then be generated into the five basic graphic formats: GIF, PNG, JPEG, TIF, and BMP.

For those who want to place the QR Code onto their website (social networks have icons that can be placed on websites to encourage traffic), a piece of code is provided which can then be placed directly into an HTML document, or a content management system, such as a Joomla module. To create an even fancier Twitter QR Code, one can also have an avatar embedded into the QR Code so that it shows up in the center of the code. Facebook has an app that allows anyone who uses the site to create a QR code, add in the individual's name (or business or place if it is a fan page), and generate the QR code which is automatically posted to one's wall. Regardless of what your favorite social network is, having a bar code to identify with your profile is unique and will encourage those you know to get one for their social networking profiles, too.

http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

http://blog.qr4.nl/twitter-qr-code.aspx

http://2d-code.co.uk/twitter-avatar-qr-code/

http://apps.facebook.com/qrcodecs/

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QR Code Resources

Online Bar Code Generators: Find Out How to Make 'Em and Use 'Em

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