With more than 120 million people actively using Facebook, a thought struck: surely there are ways drive traffic to my blogs! Last Friday I began an experiment finding ways to find ways to Integrate my posts from both blogs (I also blog at Do It Myself Blog) into my Facebook page to increase traffic to the blogs. Here is where I began:
1. Notes
Using the Notes application is the easiest place to start, once I found my Notes box. (I haven't used Facebook too much lately as I am preferring Twitter at the moment.)
When I did find it, clicking on the See All in the upper right corner took me to a page with an Edit import settings option. Here I entered my blog's feed URL. For Disaboom blogs, the feed takes the form of:
http://www.disaboom.com/Blogs/left_thumb_blogger/rss.aspx
For your Disaboom feed URL, replace left_thumb_blogger with your username. Click to confirm import and my blog posts will appear on my Facebook page shortly after publishing them.
Advantage: Relatively straightforward and simple to do.
Disadvantages: Posts from only one blog can be imported to the Notes. For the moment, I chose to import posts from Do It Myself Blog. Only my friends can see my notes, limiting my potential increase in traffic.
2. Simplaris Blogcast
Upon recommendations from Twitter buddies, I then checked out the Simplaris Blogcast application. "Simplaris Blogcast lets you quickly and easily integrate your existing blog into your Facebook profile. Get more exposure for your blog and share your content with friends." With 48,733 monthly active users, I figured it sounded promising and proceeded with the install.
The dialog box asks for the blog feed URL and how I want to keep Simplaris Blogcast up-to-date. I chose to let the application handle that for me; it will update daily.
Advantage: If you are familiar with installing Facebook applications, this is still fairly simple to implement. From my initial understanding about the application, posts fed through Blogcast can be seen by anyone using the application, ie 48,733 people. Hence, my potential reach is far greater.
Disadvantages: Again, only one blog feed can be used; too bad if you write for multiple blogs. This time I used my Disaboom feed.
3. Blog Networks
Following another recommendation, my next stop was the Blog Networks application (soon to be renamed NetworkedBlogs). This application has 265,209 monthly active users. Yes! According to the application page, "The best way to promote your blog on Facebook and to discover new blogs. Blog Networks is a community of bloggers and blog lovers."
Adding a blog to Blog Networks requires more information than the previous two applications, including:
- Blog name
- URL
- Three topics or tags
- Blog language
- Description
However, once your blog is added, you need to verify that you are, indeed, the author. This can be done in one of two ways:
- add a chunk of HTML code to your blog, which, with Disaboom blogs, isn't possible (that I know of at the moment); or,
- in typical Facebook style, invite ten friends to confirm your authorship.
Then, once you have confirmed you are your blog's author, the blog needs 15 fans for its feed - for new post titles - to appear in the general listing.
Advantages: Multiple blogs can be added. I have added Do It Myself Blog and Left Thumb Blogger - each blog has its own Facebook page with details, fans, etc. With 265,209 active users, potential reach dramatically increases.
Disadvantages: Requiring author confirmation and 15 fans could take some work before seeing any benefit to joining the network. If you do join the network, leave your blog's Facebook page URL in a comment below so that Disaboomers can become fans.
I am sure there are even more Facebook applications that I could be using to promote my blogs, but I'll leave it at these three for now and see what happens. No doubt, a combination of applications will yield the best result and, as always, creating quality blog content with enticing headlines will remain essential.
Have you tried promoting your blog on Facebook? What have you found that works? What doesn't?
Blog on!
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