No blogger can ignore Facebook and Twitter when promoting his or her blog. Link share holds the key element in this equation. I explained before the viral marketing power of adding a post link to your Facebook profile or fan page for every new post.
This technique is more effective if Facebook displays well the content of your post. Look at the differences between examples 1 , 2 and 3. I took those from links that I posted on my On the Web fan page.
Example 1 shows the post title but it displays keywords instead of the excerpt of the post. I was surprised when I saw that Problogger did worst (example 2). His blog returns the title of the post as the excerpt. Example 3 is how I did it. Both of my blogs return the post title and the post excerpt. Example 3 looks more professional and shows that you care about your readers by saving them time. This is something we test before we launched my blog.
Publishing the excerpt gives you more chances to grab the attention of people who see the link on Facebook. Remember that your links are not just for your friends and your fans. Potentially the friends of your friends may see your links. Seeing the excerpt may convince any of them to visit your blog.
If you are not tech savvy, know that the solution depends on the way your blog theme is programmed. This is not something particular to Wordpress; you can reproduce Example 3 with any blog platform where you control the programming of the blog template.
I wrote this post to alert you to this fact. Test it with your own blog and you will see if changes are necessary.
May 1st, 2009 at 17:26
Hello Kim,
Thank you very much for pointing out this very important matter. Trust that I’ll make sure to have my blog posts published on Facebook as professionally showed in example #3.
Warmly,
Chantal
June 18th, 2009 at 09:52
Hey Kim,
I have a quick question for you. Is there a way to automatically post all new blog posts to Facebook through the Post Link method so that each new post shows up in my Fan Page’s Wall and on Fan’s newsfeeds (in the format of #3 above)? Or do I have to submit each link manually?
Thanks,
Marc
June 18th, 2009 at 14:25
Marc Alter: The manual entry only takes a couple of seconds and it provides the best results with more viral potential. Your best bet is to do it how I suggested it in the post (using Add Link)
Even Networkedblogs do not suggest automatic updates. Here is what they say about Auto Publish as Story (Looks nice but has low distribution):
“Completely Automatic Format #3: However, due to Facebook rules, the posts are only published on your page wall but not to your fans’ home pages.”
August 4th, 2009 at 04:02
Hi Kim,
Do you know how I can add my facebook feed to my website – like they do on the Vanity Fair homepage? (http://www.vanityfair.com)
Thanks