Social Media Update

The Blogging Trinity of Social Media 

LinkedIn Pulse - Medium & the return of Facebook Notes 

Whether you're LinkedIn or LinkedOut this holiday season, I'm going to talk to you about a few things I've noticed of late on social media. Facebook notes has turned up again, in a way that many people don't even realize. She's purty! Well kinda. 

Facebook is now searchable, making it a potential content hub. At least for News agencies and talented video curators. And, who knows, bloggers....

To enable notes or (blogging) on Facebook, do the following steps: 

Then you will see an option to download the notes app. 

When using Facebook notes, you will notice it looks suspiciously like Medium blogging. A touch less appealing than LinkedIn Pulse. 

If you produce content, the world is your oyster. If you don't run your own wordpress blog, do not fear. That's anonymous anyways and if you are not doing this like a gig for $, but as a social dialogue and networking tool, then that's fine. Integrating it with your social channel then makes more sense. Keep in mind, it will still be an algorithm that delivers the content to a lucky few. 

Facebook Notes

• The image becomes the banner
• It's intended for long-form posts like you would find on Medium. 
• I'd use it not on my personal page, but on my freelancing page (business page). 
• I'd share my Notes with relevant Facebook Groups (this does not seem to be possible yet!)
• I'd post it on Google plus for bots to crawl. 
• I'd pin the image (link) to the article to Pinterest. 

Twitter is also getting Face Lifts

• I'd share it on Twitter, that has a new way of looking at analytics. 
• It's kinda a superior Twitter experience: 

Viewing the following is suddenly a lot easier?

• Top Tweets
• Top Replies
• Engagement Rate (who cared about stupid "impressions" anyways)
• Conducting polls with more than 2 choices is now possible. 
• Placing videos on Twitter now easier than ever. 

Seeing the AVERAGE per day of the  following is now easy: 

• Link Clicks (CTs)
• Retweets
• Likes
• Replies

So why does it matter?

Why limit yourself to blogging in one place?

Reading articles on Medium by tag is as good or better than searching Linkedin Pulse by topic for articles on your niche field. 

Searching Twitter Lists, or #hashtags for niche articles is easier than ever. 

Having different places to engage and blog is useful: 

1. LinkedIn Pulse (if you get featured worth #ROI)

2. Medium (low engagement, good reading) 

3. Facebook Notes (need to A/B Test) only useful if you have a Personal Brand 

4. Quora blog. If like me you find quality of Quora exceptional, you may want to consider starting to invest some time there. It has a blog, little known fact but true. So you don't just have to share questions and answers (gets tiresome at times). 

FACEBOOK NOTES 

It does / can look like a magazine, see: 

• The trend is towards streamlined views with featured in the background that are transparent/invisible. This is partly due to mobile viewing and multi-device viewing. 
• For help on FB Notes go here. If you are having an issue, ask here. 
• A note's recommended cover photo dimensions are 1200 pixels (width) by 445 pixels (height).
• You can add Links to your text. But I don't believe you can @anyone or add videos. Which is a pity, how nice would an embedded video look! Far from Medium's standards. If I can't embed a soundcloud what's the point, how is that even mobile responsive?
• The photos that are in the notes can be a variety of sizes and you can manually resize photos by dragging the photo edge. But the maximum height of the photo is 720 pixels.
• You can have headings for your text as well as large “quote” areas. (and who does not love quotes!) a-la LinkedIn Influencer says....

• To read a Note, you have to click on an annoying "see more", which is not conducive to customer experience. (another click on mobile). The view might be worth it. 
• Bottom line, it's worth trying. If you ever even use Facebook anymore. 

Intended Uses of Facebook Notes?

One can only speculate as to why the feature exists, why it's so buried and why it's like some lost art that they brought back from the dead? In theory, you can write a note to: 

1. To summarize a blog post

2. To link to an original post to drive traffice to your website

3. To communicate with a current or potential customers

4. To use as an extended bio about yourself or your perosnal brand or business

5. To link to a landing page on your website for a product or service

6. To promote a new product or new feature 

7. To drive traffic to your company blog in creative ways

8. To inform your fans about important news 

9. To update customers or a current istuation or crisis in our business

10. To share additional details about your current Facebook contests or promotions (that are being held on Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.) 

11. To recognize your top Facebook fans or customers or winners of User Generated Content Contests & announce the winners, prizes, etc...

12. To announce leader boards of various kinds of your customers (gamifying their engagement with you). E.g. Loyalty points or app engagement. 

13. Anything else?

#BigIdeas2016 realizes the importance of content, and the continued evolution of content marketing, before machine learning is writing everything online, you might want to make a break for it and discover your own native writing voice, before it's too late. Blogging is for life.