Today, we released BI's social reader. It allows you to share Business Insider articles you read with your Facebook friends -- it's a quick and easy way to let the people you know, know what you're interested in. There's no need to shuttle back and forth between our site and Facebook to post a link: stories can be shared automatically.
To enable the social reader, click the "Login" link in the upper-right corner of the site.
You'll be prompted for your username and password.
If you've already got an account at Business Insider, enter your username and password. (If you've previously connected your BI account to Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, you'll notice those buttons are gray. This means you've already signed in using those services).
If you have a BI account but haven't connected it to Facebook, now's the time to do it! Click "Connect with Facebook" and enter the information requested. Now, you'll be able to automatically share the articles you've read on our site. You'll see this widget as you navigate around businessinsider.com. By default, you won't be sharing articles on Facebook. If you want to share the articles you've read on BI, change the switch marked "Social" from Off to On.
In order to use BI's social reader, you have to have signed in to Facebook (on their website) recently.
Privacy and Settings
There are lots of ways to control what (and if) you share with the social reader. Here are a few:
- After reading an article, you'll see a notification at the bottom of the screen: "This article has been shared on Facebook. Undo?" If you click "Undo", the article will be removed from your Facebook activity stream.
- You can turn off these notifications and still share your activity on Facebook. To turn off notifications, click "Options" your Facebook widget, and set notifications to "Off". Now, after reading a story, you'll won't see the message asking if you want to undo sharing.
- Note that not every article you click on is added to your activity stream. If you click on a story -- and immediately afterwards, click "Back" in your browser -- we assume that's not a story you've actually read and intended to share. You need to spend a few seconds on the article before it show up in your activity stream.
- You can remove any story from your activity stream by clicking "Your Activity" in the Facebook Widget and clicking the "x" next to the story you want removed.
![managing social preferences]()
- Finally, Facebook itself offers lots of nuanced privacy controls. To use them, head to facebook.com, log in, and click the gear icon in the upper-right corner. From that menu, you'll be able to change your account and privacy settings -- what you share, who you share it with, etc.
No matter how you use the social reader, Business Insider will remain free to use. You'll never be required to log in to read stories on our site.
Happy reading.
Questions? Email us at social@businessinsider.com. Your feedback is welcome.
Please follow Business Insider on Twitter and Facebook.