In recent weeks, I’ve modified the various local websites which we publish to include autofeeds to Twitter and Facebook. Initially, I made this change with some hesitation: Would there be less-than-perfect implications in?”spamming” the brand? After all, not every article posted on our websites is equal, nor do the standard settings on the autopost tools allow for any individualization.
However, the results so far have been quite okay. No miracles — major sales or business opportunities haven’t popped in the in-box. But there have been healthy signs about positive traffic gathering and notably, several of our Tweets have been retweeted — some automatically, but many manually.
(Facebook has throttled views for commercial sites if you don’t elect to boost them with additional payments. I’ve declined to do that — but the listings still remain in the relevant timelines. Quite often, companies and organizations referenced in these listings also post or reference them on their own feeds/lists, enhancing the coverage.)
The best social media results continue to be driven by readers linking or associating our sites through their own social media decisions. In other words, relevant content, delivered in a manner that truly interests readers, will always generate far better results than any autopost tools. Great content still is the most important ingredient. However,?it won’t hurt to spread it with some of the automated tools you can implement without significant expense or effort.
