NetworkedBlogs: Syndicate your blog to Facebook

1I tried NetworkedBlogs — one of many auto-posting services that syndicate your blog to Facebook — early on and then, for some reason, stopped. But recently, Ken Mueller wrote about nearly tripling his blog traffic by using, among others, NetworkedBlogs, and that made me decide to try it again.

Since coming back to NetworkedBlogs, I noticed that you can also syndicate to Twitter (though I’m not using that option).

How I’ve been using it: I had set up both my blogs to syndicate to my Facebook Page (that’s where Waxing UnLyrical goes) and my personal profile (that’s where my food blog goes). In addition, Waxing UnLyrical goes through to a secret Facebook group that I’ve set up for all the regular guest bloggers. I’m also testing this for a client blog — syndicating to the Page as well as a supporting Group.

Hiccup: Since I’m also testing Livefyre’s new SocialSync feature, I ran into problems with comments that I got on my Facebook posts not being pulled into the comment stream on Waxing UnLyrical (that’s what SocialSync does, it pulls in comments from Facebook and Twitter). Jenna Langer at Livefyre told me this was because when syndicating via NetworkedBlogs, NetworkedBlogs’ URL masks the actual blog URL and loads the site in an iFrame. (Sorry for that geek interruption.) Because Livefyre can’t see that that’s part of the conversation, those specific comments don’t show up in my Waxing Unlyrical comment stream.

But if you’re not using Livefyre as your comment system, you should be fine, and it’s worth a try because it does make the posts show up nicely in Facebook.

Triberr: Get your Twitter updates shared

2Much has been written about Triberr — whether automated tweets being shared by a “tribe” are a good thing, whether it can be gamed, and so on. When Gini Dietrich invited me into my first tribe, I had absolutely no hesitation in accepting.

I think Triberr is a great way to share posts – and get your posts shared – by a select group of people you trust. While there is a setting in Triberr that allows you to go in and check what’s due to be posted to Twitter via your account, I rarely check it.

Why? Because I’ve seen consistently good content being produced by fellow tribe members, and I trust them. So trust is key.

How I use it: I keep my Triberr settings on “auto” mode. This helps me because I don’t have to worry about going to Tribe members’ blogs (or to my Reader) to find the posts and tweet them out (though I still try to do that so that I can comment as often as possible).

I’m also growing my own tribes very selectively by only inviting people whose content I’m completely comfortable with. And thanks to Triberr, I rarely share my own posts on Twitter, because I know my tribe will do it for me (thank you, tribe!).

Hint: It’s certainly a good feeling to be invited into a tribe, but it will only be useful to you if you publish regularly. So don’t take your Triberr invitation (if you get one) lightly.

HootSuite Publisher: See your scheduled tweets in calendar view

3HootSuite was the first Twitter service to introduce scheduled tweets, and that’s one of the main reasons I switched over from TweetDeck (now I’m so used to it, I can’t switch back). Recently they introduced a “publisher” tab, where you can see all your scheduled tweets in calendar view, and it’s pretty cool.

How I use it: Just as with the Facebook posts, I look for interesting posts and news items, either in my Twitter feed or RSS Reader and then I schedule no more than three a day (I’m much more active on Twitter than Facebook and hope you are, too).

I always try to mention the author or source by their Twitter handle, and include a question or a bit of commentary rather than just the typical “RT.” This way it shows up in their Twitter @ stream, and who doesn’t like knowing someone just shared their post?

Tip: I think it’s perfectly OK to share a post from a while back, or one that’s not hot off the press. So whenever I find something I think will be useful to people, I might schedule it to publish twice over four days, and at different times of the day, for example. That way, it’s likely to be seen by more people over different time zones.

Post Planner: Schedule Facebook updates

4Post Planner is a nifty Facebook app that lets you schedule Facebook updates. I know you can do this through HootSuite, for example, and several other platforms, but the advantage I think Post Planner has over them is:

• You can schedule an update or link to post to your personal profile, any Page you manage, or any Group you’re a part of.
• Just like you do when you’re sharing a blog post (for example) manually, with Post Planner you can customize your update by selecting the image you’d like to appear in the post, make your own comment, etc. (this doesn’t always work from HootSuite, for example).

I’ve been using this for a few weeks now and really like it, and their customer service team is very responsive (whether you ping them on Facebook or Twitter).

However, you can’t tag people the way you’d be able to if you were posting directly to Facebook (they may introduce this feature at some point, which I think would be huge). And if you don’t like 3rd party Facebook apps, then this isn’t for you.

How I use it: I never schedule more than one to two updates per day, and I always try to share other blog posts or news items I think my community would be interested in. I try to vary the kind of updates that precede the actual link by adding a bit of commentary, or maybe asking a question. And I never schedule my own posts through Post Planner.

Hint: If you optimize your blog posts by properly filling out the excerpt, then this will work even better.