I’ve noticed whilst helping out in the forums, that there is sometimes a bit of confusion with ‘publicize’ namely; how it publicizes what it ‘uses’ and so on. I thought I’d share a few ideas that I use and have come across to help establish ‘presence’ across these platforms.. I’ll also add more information to my ‘WordPress Tips’ page.
- Always edit what it will post in ‘publicize’, adding hashtags.
- Hashtags are not only imperative but crucial with twitter and facebook. I notice so many people when publicizing their wordpress posts they don’t even use them..?!?! Honestly, with the even ‘few’ shares I get with my wordpress posts via twitter; they always come from the hashtags and not my followers.
- ‘WordPress’ with the hashtag, even within #wordpress, you can set it up to directly link to the said hashtag within Facebook.
- For example, just remind yourself that you wouldn’t dream of making a post without including tags and categories.. Well hashtags are the same for Facebook and Twitter! 🙂
Tumblr
I don’t really spend a lot of time with tumblr, but I’m relieved that it now uses the tags that have been used in the post, as it never used to. Having said that, I still tend to add more tags for tumblr by going through to the post at tumblr and editing the post, as with my tumblr it has a sort of ‘unique’ theme that usually requires a ‘touch up’ when one of my WordPress Posts are ‘publicized’. At other times I don’t use publicize at all, and share the post ‘via’ after being published, thereby you have more control in the ‘look and feel’ of what you share to Tumblr, ie: also ‘creating’ a post via Tumblr is another way to do this once again, you have more control on what is posted to Tumblr as you still have all the relevant links to your blog, with the added advantage of creating more like with any images you use.
Mentioned earlier is the all-important hashtag. The amount of people trying to promote their blog via twitter and not using any hashtags is quite ‘beyond’ me. With the use of hashtags you will quantify your ‘reach’ at twitter immeasurably. I usually add 2 to 5 relevant tags, including WordPress, Quotes, Astrology, Poetry etc.. whatever is relevant to the individual post. For example try researching a few of your most popular tags / categories you like to use (I’d skip ‘blog’ and ‘journal’ or the more vague terms) and view them at twitter.. follow this link and see the popularity of Astronomy (hashtag) at Twitter or perhaps WordPress . You’ll find ‘wordpressers’ like to check out other ‘wordpressers’ 🙂 So I often use that hashtag.
Well placed pins are another way of expanding your reach on the internet.. I was quite surprised recently, when it became my biggest ‘referrer’ having outdone even ‘google search’. This seems to be ongoing for over a month now, since Google always seemed to do ok, it was still a welcomed event.
Soon, I’ll also post some portfolios on WordPress Tips, that can be researched alphabetically. Let me know if you’re finding facebook sharing etc a pain.
Publicizing Issues on Facebook:
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I would think the only way of rectifying the situation of Facebook not sharing an image with a post would be to have an image in your chosen article of a ‘wordpress.com’ suggested size etc. << At the link you’ll find more information on how wordpress.com ‘selects’ the picture…
Excerpt:
“A wrong image is used, what do I do?Even though we make a best effort to tell Facebook what images are associated with a post, their systems also analyze the page/post and choose what they think is the best representation. By following the guidelines about image size and aspect ratio outlined in this document, chances are better that the image that you would like to be associated with your blog post’s share is the one that Facebook selects”.
Hope this helps, there is more info at the link above.
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600 x 315 pixels to 1200 x 630 pixels
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