Publicize – Results from my First Test

So, as I mentioned yesterday, I was testing out Publicize on multiple channels. I think the test was pretty successful. The Twitter feed here on the site does not show the post to Twitter, as advertised – which is good, because otherwise you would see the post, with a Tweet next to it telling you the post was there. As I’ve mentioned before, Twitter is less of a reader and more of… something else. One of its better uses being perhaps its ability to feed into other things, like the WordPress sidebar, or Facebook. More on that below.

I ran into one snag: When shared on Tumblr, the blog post then kicked in the automatic share there – effectively, Tumblr’s version of Publicize. This resulted in two Tweets. The one from Tumblr also ended up in the sidebar here on the blog. It looks like my Facebook had been logged out on Tumblr, otherwise I imagine it would have ended up there twice as well. This was easily solved – I have turned off these automatic shares on Tumblr, but am still linked in where I should be able to share when I want to from within Tumblr.

From here, I have some further thoughts on Publicize… check out what I’m thinking, and then maybe let me know your experiences with it! (Also, I have just learned how to embed a tweet: http://en.support.wordpress.com/twitter/twitter-embeds/…)

Publicize Creating Duplication of Advertising?

I think one concern with using all of the available avenues of advertising the blog is that it seems like it would create a duplication of advertising – the same people seeing the same thing all over the place, and getting annoyed at you for doing so. Probably something you want to avoid. Certainly something we wanted to avoid over at Comparative Geeks – where we were originally sharing our blog posts on Twitter only. We found that this was not getting any reads, and we started a Facebook page, which sees a bit more play – although sharing posts with our friends is still one of the best bumps in views. We were seeing the duplication of advertising on Twitter also – the Tweet over to the side about the post, right next to the post.

As time has passed, and our following on Comparative Geeks has grown, and on CompGeeksDavid and CompGeeksHolly, with different people following and interacting on Google+, and on the Facebook… There is almost no duplication. We have our real world friends on Facebook, and some on Google+ who don’t use Facebook… we have related sorts of blogs who have found us on Twitter… other blogs and blog readers who have followed us through WordPress itself… And almost no duplication. Meaning we are actually shortchanging ourselves on readership by not publicizing (pun intended) our posts on every social media channel. We basically only share them right now on Facebook, and some on Google+. Occasionally something on Twitter, more likely a category or tag than a post.

I am actually thinking a Tumblr even might be good… I should be able to create it as a different one off of my same account, and add Holly as a contributor?…

The Followers Numbers

One other side-effect of adding Publicize was one I did not anticipate, though now that I see it, it makes total sense to me. Publicize will add your followers on other Social Media streams to your follower count for the blog.

When looking at the stats, I saw the spot where this would go, saw the Publicize section. But I did not realize that, now, on the website, it will say “Join X followers” and include those numbers… and yet, it is logical. As I just mentioned above, not everyone will follow you in the same manner. Some will follow on WordPress, some will follow by email… and initially, these are all the numbers you see. Once you add Publicize, your followers on other Social Media are included. Which, if you are sharing your blog posts on these channels… those numbers make sense.

It also makes more sense now for some of the numbers we saw doing our research for the Liebster Award – blogs that had a smaller number of WordPress followers (a number we could find on the WordPress Reader), and a large number of overall followers. I imagine this is because of their Social Media presence. So these people may or may not actually be interested in the blog, but hey, they’re getting exposed to it, right?

So DBCII now has over 450 followers! Rejoice!

Upcoming Problems for Comparative Geeks

So we don’t use our Facebook Page for Comparative Geeks to do much more than share our blog posts, though I do share some of the images we’ve built there (like Alignment grids and Memes) and some things we find on Facebook. I have been trying to increase what we do there.

So I added Good Reads, except I think that will only post to my personal page – basically, there is an App button that could be clicked to lead to my Good Reads profile… and I haven’t tested adding Holly to it yet, so I don’t know if that will work. If it does, meh, we can have both there and people can check them out as they like.

But I also added Twitter, and so far, my CompGeeksDavid Twitter is feeding my random thoughts onto our Facebook Page. I figured it would increase the content on the Facebook Page, right? However, will Publicize mean that this will post the blog post advertising twice on Facebook – once as Publicize, and once as a Twitter feed? My guess is yes. If so, I will likely just have to de-link Twitter to Facebook. I guess that will work. However, if I could keep feeding in both Twitters (only mine set up so far, but both should be doable), and then maybe a Tumblr too? Could actually be a lot of content flowing into the Facebook Page. And then, it might be worth advertising it a bit, and growing some readership.

Another problem I see is that sharing on Facebook is already a little hard – the thumbnails are hard to control, as is the who is posting (personal versus page). Will Publicize post as the Page? I hope. Will it let us choose the Thumbnail? I don’t think so. We may end up having to continue doing our Facebook shares manually – or living with whatever Thumbnail it gives of, which we often have done anyway. Google+ also does a Thumbnail, but lets you choose from more images – I wonder how this will work out?

I do wonder if the “Featured Image” function would direct which Thumbnail is selected? However, this image also replaces the header that Holly set up for the page, which alternates randomly between different images. I wonder if we could still harness this for the posts, and deal with the fact that on the post’s page, it replaces the image? Perhaps worth experimenting with!

So I will have more to report back later, as we test out Publicize on Comparative Geeks!