facebook meet blog 🙂
Yesterday I set up a facebook page for the blog. It was partly because I wanted to see how it worked, partly so that I could feed the blog through to twitter and not run it through my personal fb (which I keep kind of private, though not very 😉 ) and partly because I just felt like it.
Oh, and we can blame Tim as well. Because he sent me a link to an article about it. So obviously it’s all his fault 😉
Anyways, once I’d found the link to create a page (not particularly obvious tbh, or maybe I was just tired last night!) it was quite a straightforward activity. Linking the blog in via NetworkedBlogs was easy enough as well – I tried RSSGraffiti as recommended in the article but it didn’t do quite what I wanted (entirely possible that I just wasn’t pushing the right buttons, like I said, I was tired). So now, when I post to the blog, it will appear on the facebook page for liveotherwise, and push through to twitter as well, without me doing it all manually as I have been doing. Not that doing it manually was particularly onerous, but hey.
So what benefits does doing all of this offer? To me, not a great deal really. Certainly to begin with I’ll be sharing the post via the page onto my personal profile or the ppl who’ve been reading it via fb won’t see it any more, and lots of them have told me how much they’ve been enjoying it (thank you 🙂 ). But if ppl become fans of the page I’ll be able to stop doing that.
Doing the fan thing also means I have another indication of how many ppl might be reading the blog. One of the metrics that tots100 uses is subscriptions to a feed via google reader – for me that only gives a measure of about half of my feed readers according to feedburner which is what I use to give me stats on my feed use. I’m guessing as fb grows and ppl start using it in this diverse ways things like google reader are going to fall by the wayside, just like sage has, which is what most of my readers were using a couple of years ago. Just goes to show how fast social media is changing the landscape of the web.
Realisitically, this isn’t a thing I *need* to do. But in the long run I’m hoping to launch a couple of other blog based sites that might class as employment, and all these things that I’m learning should come in useful then. If you’re running a business blog it’s certainly something you should think about doing – like it says on SelfMadeMinds
When speaking to people outside of the industry, only a small percentage know what RSS actually is never mind using it, however even my technophobic father has heard of Facebook, so around 9 months ago I started looking at building a list on Facebook.
If you can get 25 fans to your page you can get a vanity url as well, which is probably a good thing. I’m a little way away from that atm, but maybe some time this week?
Next thing I’m thinking of doing is a facebook page for the blogring. I could drag rss feeds from those who are happy with it into the page, meaning the technophobes among us could read, and it would always stay current, unlike the ring itself which I just don’t have the time atm to go round hibernating and unhibernating like I used to. Would appreciate feedback, particularly ppl on the ring letting me know if they are happy for me to feature their blogs in this way. I’ll only do it if ppl say yes, so the page to begin with will probably only feature my blog 🙂
Right, babe wants feeding, so once again, gotta go.
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