Blog posts to G+ and FB?

[BabyBeauBelle]

Hi, I was wondering if we should be taking our blog posts and also putting them on social sites as well such as G+ and FB? If so, does content need to change to avoid a duplicate issue and if so is there a "rule" of sorts in terms of how much to change the content up?

I was just wondering since we are already taking the time to put together these "stories" on our blog if our other channels would benefit as well?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi  Ethan,

No, you will receive no penalty forgetting your posts and pages onto Social Network sites. All you are doing is providing a link, not the actual content itself.

Get your content seeded to as many SM sites as you can.

Andy

[BabyBeauBelle]

Thanks Andy, so basically we can just copy and paste onto FB and G+?

And to clarify - the content is not what Google is seeing, but the link(s)? In which case the anchor text and corresponding link is the most important then?

[Oli-Sherry]

My advice would be to absolutely post your blogs on your social media profiles. Unless your website contains content that will develop subscribers all on its own, that is one of the main benefits of maintaining a blog.

You don't need to worry about duplicate content either, because you should not be posting the entire blog on each social media profile. Instead, think of them as a backlink to your blog page, with the intention of 'selling the story' to your social media subscribers, in order to encourage them to click on the link and read the blog.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Just the URL, not the entire content, yes. In Facebook for example, give a short description and then paste the URL in there

[BabyBeauBelle]

OK, well let me ask this then, it seems you both are saying to provide a snippet of the blog post with a link going back to the blog post itself, but would it be better to have a shortened version of the blog post with a couple of links going back to our products rather then a link back to the blog itself?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Not if you are trying to promote the blog post, which is what is sounds like you are trying to do. Remember, you don't want to be taking content and duplicating it anywhere.

Literally, just copy the URL, add a short but unique snippet to the post, and then paste the URL in and hit submit.

Andy

[Oli-Sherry]

I agree with Andy. The reason is because a content strategy is trying to engage and interest people. Being spammed about a businesses products over and over is not interesting

Write a little snippet about the article, followed by the URL. Something to entice the reader to click through and read the rest!

Remember the immediate goal isn't necessarily to sell something, but to develop a relationship and brand awareness with consumers.

[BabyBeauBelle]

Got it, thanks guys!

[Oli-Sherry]

Also, to expand your strategy a little, research the idea of the rule of thirds in social media.

This article explains it nicely.

Good luck!

Oli

[Dubs]

I would send links from your social media accounts to your blog.  There is no need to post the entire article on your Facebook.  A quick teaser description followed by the link to your blog is all you need!

[WesleySmits]

Especially on Google+ you often see that people write a short enticing description which encourages people to read the post in the description. This is something you could do. A summary of the story however makes people not want to read the full story since they already read all the information in the summary.