Social Media Automation
You might not expect it to be difficult to automate posting to social media, but good lord, it is an absolute pain.
I bring this up because Facebook recently changed their policy on sharing from third party tools. I’m not sure on all of the intricate details, but essentially, automatic sharing can only be done to Facebook Pages, and not personal Profiles. I have traditionally used tools to read the RSS feed of Words On Wednesday and share updates to my various social media profiles, so this means that I would no longer have my posts automatically share from my Facebook Profile. Since the vast majority of my traffic comes from Facebook, I would lose a lot of that without sharing my posts.
After learning of this pending change, I began looking into different options. When Words On Wednesday was hosted on WordPress, I could use the baked in social media sharing options offered by WordPress itself. Once I migrated to Blogger, I had to look into alternatives. Blogger supports automatic sharing to Google+ (which oddly enough hasn’t worked for several weeks now), but no other platforms. No matter, there are other utilities available.
For a while, I used OnlyWire to automatically share my posts to other social media profiles. As I discussed just before leaving WordPress, free users of OnlyWire can only share from 4 specific social media platforms, but they were conveniently the only ones that I already use. I stayed with OnlyWire for several months, but there came a time when I had to reauthorize my Facebook credentials frequently, and eventually couldn’t post from OnlyWire at all. As I’ve already mentioned, Facebook drives the lion’s share of my blog traffic. If I couldn’t share posts there, why even bother with Twitter, Google+, or LinkedIn?
I did some research and eventually discovered dlvr.it as an alternative to OnlyWire. I linked each of my accounts and set up dlvr.it to automatically share from my RSS feed. Like OnlyWire, it worked for a while before I began to have some issues. Twitter support seemed flaky, but very few readers actually come from Twitter. Once I heard of Facebook’s plan to disallow sharing from outside sources, I determined that I should evaluate my social media automation needs.
I created a Facebook Page for Words On Wednesday, so that I could have automation tools share to it. My hope was that I could have my personal Profile automatically share new posts to that Page, but I can’t seem to figure out a way to do that. In all likelihood, it probably isn’t possible, since that seems to be what Facebook was trying to combat anyway. Alas, I figure the people who would most likely read my blog anyway will like or subscribe to the Facebook Page and see the posts directly.
In addition to creating a new Facebook Page, I also looked back into the differences between dlvr.it and OnlyWire. Things still seem to be in flux with those utilities, but OnlyWire successfully posted to Twitter, while dlvr.it failed to post to the Facebook Page. OnlyWire didn’t seem to support Facebook Pages a few weeks ago, but now it appears that it does. I’m not entirely sure if that’s a problem with dlvr.it or with Facebook, but I’ll shift to OnlyWire and see if that makes things any better.
Ultimately, I just want to be able to schedule a post on Blogger for 8am on Wednesday, and have that post syndicated out to all my social media profiles. Manually copying links and titles every single week is just way too much work, and I’m bound to forget it more often than I actually remember to do it. Besides, I’m not doing this to profit. I’m doing it because I enjoy writing. Don’t make me do more work than I have to.
We’ll see how things go over the coming weeks. Maybe the pieces will fall into place and I can share to my profiles automatically again. If not, just remember that you can always find the latest post by going directly to Words On Wednesday on Blogger.
I bring this up because Facebook recently changed their policy on sharing from third party tools. I’m not sure on all of the intricate details, but essentially, automatic sharing can only be done to Facebook Pages, and not personal Profiles. I have traditionally used tools to read the RSS feed of Words On Wednesday and share updates to my various social media profiles, so this means that I would no longer have my posts automatically share from my Facebook Profile. Since the vast majority of my traffic comes from Facebook, I would lose a lot of that without sharing my posts.
After learning of this pending change, I began looking into different options. When Words On Wednesday was hosted on WordPress, I could use the baked in social media sharing options offered by WordPress itself. Once I migrated to Blogger, I had to look into alternatives. Blogger supports automatic sharing to Google+ (which oddly enough hasn’t worked for several weeks now), but no other platforms. No matter, there are other utilities available.
For a while, I used OnlyWire to automatically share my posts to other social media profiles. As I discussed just before leaving WordPress, free users of OnlyWire can only share from 4 specific social media platforms, but they were conveniently the only ones that I already use. I stayed with OnlyWire for several months, but there came a time when I had to reauthorize my Facebook credentials frequently, and eventually couldn’t post from OnlyWire at all. As I’ve already mentioned, Facebook drives the lion’s share of my blog traffic. If I couldn’t share posts there, why even bother with Twitter, Google+, or LinkedIn?
I did some research and eventually discovered dlvr.it as an alternative to OnlyWire. I linked each of my accounts and set up dlvr.it to automatically share from my RSS feed. Like OnlyWire, it worked for a while before I began to have some issues. Twitter support seemed flaky, but very few readers actually come from Twitter. Once I heard of Facebook’s plan to disallow sharing from outside sources, I determined that I should evaluate my social media automation needs.
I created a Facebook Page for Words On Wednesday, so that I could have automation tools share to it. My hope was that I could have my personal Profile automatically share new posts to that Page, but I can’t seem to figure out a way to do that. In all likelihood, it probably isn’t possible, since that seems to be what Facebook was trying to combat anyway. Alas, I figure the people who would most likely read my blog anyway will like or subscribe to the Facebook Page and see the posts directly.
In addition to creating a new Facebook Page, I also looked back into the differences between dlvr.it and OnlyWire. Things still seem to be in flux with those utilities, but OnlyWire successfully posted to Twitter, while dlvr.it failed to post to the Facebook Page. OnlyWire didn’t seem to support Facebook Pages a few weeks ago, but now it appears that it does. I’m not entirely sure if that’s a problem with dlvr.it or with Facebook, but I’ll shift to OnlyWire and see if that makes things any better.
Ultimately, I just want to be able to schedule a post on Blogger for 8am on Wednesday, and have that post syndicated out to all my social media profiles. Manually copying links and titles every single week is just way too much work, and I’m bound to forget it more often than I actually remember to do it. Besides, I’m not doing this to profit. I’m doing it because I enjoy writing. Don’t make me do more work than I have to.
We’ll see how things go over the coming weeks. Maybe the pieces will fall into place and I can share to my profiles automatically again. If not, just remember that you can always find the latest post by going directly to Words On Wednesday on Blogger.
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