One thing that bloggers like to do is tell everyone when they have a new post up. There are a few ways to do this. You can run through the streets announcing it, hire a skywriter, put flyers on all the car windows at the mall, or take out an ad in the newspaper. Those might get people’s attention, but it’s probably best to target people who are already online. A lot of bloggers turn to Facebook and/or Twitter.
A few months ago, I found that Feedburner (a Google app that lets people subscribe to your blog) lets you publish new blog post announcements to Twitter. This is great, because all I had to do was turn on that setting and forget about it. But there was a bit of a problem – I get more readers from Facebook than from Twitter, and I wanted to put a notice there as well. Feedburner doesn’t have that option.
Enter Selective Tweets. It’s a Facebook app that lets you publish selected tweets to Facebook by including #fb anywhere in the tweet. A bit of work to remember to do this, but it also lets you choose what goes where and avoid complete duplication between the two social networks. So, I set up my Feedburner thing to include #fb every time a new tweet went out, ensuring that it would also be posted to my Facebook wall.
It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done. While it was better on Twitter, I was limited to how I could phrase my new post because I had to include #fb in it, which I didn’t like the look of. I lived with it until I happened upon a blog article with instructions on setting up Networked Blogs, a Facebook app that helps publicize your blog. Now, I usually stay away from Facebook apps and actually block most of them so they don’t clutter up my feed, but this could be useful. And prettier.
I spent some time the other night setting it up and getting my blog to show up on Facebook properly. Now people can follow my blog with Networked Blogs and they even have the option of liking my blog on Facebook. I still have some work to do on this, mainly figuring out how to put a “Like” button on my blog itself so people can like it from there or the individual posts, but I’m getting there. It’s also a lot prettier:
The top one is what a Facebook post would look like when I did the roundabout route – Feedburner to Twitter to Facebook. Not pretty. The bottom one, however, is from Networked Blogs. So much prettier! It even has an air of professionalism about it!
Now here’s the Twitter version:
In this case, the top one is the Networked Blogs tweet, and the bottom one is the Feedburner one. For tweets, I think I prefer the Feedburner one instead, because with that I have the option of additional text. Instead of just a post title, I can specifically tell everyone that it’s a new blog post, which is what I’d rather do. Either way, I like the option of it happening automatically, because it’s less work that I have to do.
What about you guys – how do you publicize your latest blog posts?
Other Posts Like Me:
- Blogging Mistakes – Posting Too Soon
- How Much Social Media Is Too Much?
- About Pages for Personal Bloggers
- Personal Blogging Crusader
- Blogged Out
For Twitter, I use the WordPress plugin WP to Twitter.
For Facebook, I have a custom RSS feed imported to my notes. Facebook is supposed to check on the feed every few hours and post any new blog entry it finds as one of my notes. Lately, though, it’s hardly been checking the feed at all. In fact, the three posts I’ve written in the past week haven’t shown up yet. I’ll have to look into Networked Blogs or some other Facebook app that will actually get my posts out on time. Thanks for mentioning it!
I like the Feedburner to Twitter option because it’s one less thing that needs maintenance – we all know how WP has constant updates, then there’s the plugin updates. I just set it and forget it – super easy.
For Networked Blogs, it was pretty simple to do and I haven’t had any issues yet with stuff posting on time, but I’ve only published 2 posts since setting it up. I see others in my feed who use it, so I’m guessing it works pretty well.
I saw the Networked Blogs right away when I went on Facebook so I knew there was something goood to read. Your new method works for me! jp
Yay! I’m glad to know it’s getting attention.
I may have to look into Networked Blogs…seems different since the last time I tried using it.
I’m enjoying it. I don’t know what it used to be like, but it looks like an excellent tool for blog promotion.
I didn’t know feedburner had those capabilities. I also use feedburner to manage my RSS Feed. I will have to look into the announcement feature.
I use a combination of 2 features. Twitter Feed [www.twitterfeed.com] is an excellent way to post to Facebook and Twitter automatically. It pulls updates from your RSS feed.
As more of a side note, I also use posterous as a tumblog, similar to your Tumblr page. Posterous [www.posterous.com] has autopost features as well. You can post to twitter,facebook, flickr etc….. ( I actually use posterous to make video blog posts, much easier process than uploading and then embedding, plus saves server space)
Cheers-
Cameron
Hi Cameron, thanks for visiting!
On Feedburner, you can set it up to tweet under the “Publicize” tab. It also allows a custom message either before or after the link.
I had a different app on Facebook that was supposed to pull in all my tweets to FB, but I didn’t like it so much. I have different followings on both with only some crossover, and I don’t always want to tell both groups of people the same thing. Selective Tweets us much better for this.
I did see that Tumblr can tweet new posts. I might do this – I haven’t quite decided yet. Though using it in place of my “On the Internet” series is working pretty well for me!
I really like Networked Blogs. I’ve been using it for a couple of years at least. I use Twitter too but only send out a note about a new post once, when the post goes live. So my notes only show up early in the morning and I don’t know if anyone really sees them.
Hi Laura, thanks for visiting! I’ve been really liking Networked Blogs lately as well; I like the professional look it has. As far as Twitter goes, I’m on the west coast, so early morning for me is mid or late day for most of my readers.