Is Blogging one of those things you’ve been meaning to do but the technology is getting in the way? Are you worried that you won’t be able to keep to a schedule? Someone told you a blog that’s not updated regularly can look really bad?
When LinkedIn rolled out its publishing platform to all users last year it gave business owners their first opportunity to write long form content, aimed at their target market without having the hassle of setting up a blog. Facebook recently updated its notes application giving us one more way to share content. At the moment, it’s just available on profile (friend pages) but I’m sure we’ll see it rolled out to business Pages soon.
Are these new blogging tools a good thing? Or do they spell the end of the blog and publishing content our own sites?
Yesterday I read and listened to this post on Mark Schaefer’s {Grow} blog and that’s what inspired this week’s Vlog.
As a Blogging evangelist, I welcome tools like Facebook notes and LinkedIn publishing. Anything that makes blogging more accessible to time-strapped small business owners seems like a good thing.
The Problem With Facebook Links
There’s a problem with Facebook links. As anyone who uses the Facebook mobile app knows, when you click a link it can take time to open. As someone who enjoys reading content I find this utterly frustrating. I often wonder how many people that click the links that I post on Facebook, actually hang around for the page to load fully.
Facebook is aware of this problem and in response rolled out ‘Instant Articles’. These are mobile articles from large publishers such as Buzzfeed and National Geographic that exist within the architecture of Facebook. Because of this there is virtually no load time, accessing the article is seamless. Could the re-vamped notes application be the small business answer to the problem?
If you watch my video you’ll see I have a bit of a mad conspiracy theory about links.
What Could Happen If Notes Get Rolled Out To Pages?
Remember when Facebook decided it wanted to push its video product? They started giving native video (video uploaded directly to Facebook) incredible reach. This reach was so large that no marketer could ignore it so we all started creating video for Facebook like mad. The result? Brands are now uploading more video directly to Facebook than they do to YouTube.
If Facebook use a similar tactic with notes could they tempt us away from posting content to our own sites? Is extended Facebook reach enough to get us all to abandon our blogs? I know it would be hard to get me to move away from my blog but for new content creators it could be a really good solution and one that would mean they can reach more of their audience immediately.
Would the option of Blogging directly to your Facebook page encourage you to start writing? Or are you like me adamant that your blog will alway be the main place for your articles and posts?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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This sounds really good for a club or association, which may not have a website. The centre of their communications to members and the outside world could be their Facebook page so the ability to blog on it would be a bonus. I welcome it becoming available to pages. Thanks for the heads up!
Thanks Eilish, yes it would be perfect. I always have the fear that Facebook will mistakenly close a page though so always a good idea to keep a copy of any blog posts you put up on Facebook or LinkedIn I think.