Shout Outs and Sharing
I’ve been thinking about the share buttons on our blogs. When I first started blogging I wasn’t aware of the importance of these buttons—other than the fact that most of us have them at the bottom of our posts, I felt like they are there merely for someone to click if they wanted to ‘like’ what they had read.
In my earlier blogging days, if I enjoyed a post I always felt that I was letting the writer know so by hitting ‘like’. I didn’t realize the importance of the other ‘share’ buttons until I became a published author. Now, I’m not saying we have to be published authors in order to have our writing appreciated and shared, but this was when I learned to understand the concept of social sharing and the importance of using these buttons.
When writers spend the time writing articles and posting helpful information that can benefit others, isn’t that worth sharing? It’s especially nice for the newcomers to blogging who are always eager to learn new things about their trade. On the same token, those buttons are very precious to help promote the writer’s website. After all, if we didn’t share things, many writers miss out on the chance of having their writing exposed to more readers and followers, not to mention, potential sales for their books.
These buttons offer a chance for someone else to discover the writer’s page, and by sharing on all the various sites, it creates a chain reaction of other readers to enjoy the posts and continue to have these posts ‘shared’ again from the new pages and blogs the original shares are posted in. It’s essentially cyber advertising, FREE advertising.
When I realized how important all the sharing was, I made it a part of my blogging to hit ‘like’ if I enjoyed a post and click share on all the other social media buttons that I have accounts with if I felt a post was newsworthy and especially if I read about a promotion a fellow author was offering at the time to help spread the word for them. It doesn’t cost me anything to do those things and gives my followers who read my tweets, google page, linkedin or facebook, a chance to read something they may not have discovered or a book they may be interested in.
I think there may be a lot of bloggers who may be prolific writers but not so well-versed in the techniques of social media; I know I sure was at the beginning of my writing journey. I didn’t realize that when we click on share with twitter etc., that the post I had just read gets posted to my own accounts for others to view, enjoy and pass along. And so I wanted to share what I have learned along this path and perhaps make others aware of the importance of using the social share buttons at the end of our posts.
Now, don’t forget to share! 🙂
DGKayewriter.com 
You are a generous soul! Thanks for the enlightenment.
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Thanks Marian. I had just been thinking about this for awhile because I notice that there are way more likes than shares and I wasn’t sure if everyone understood the way it works. This goes for all social sites, not just blogs. 🙂
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Great post – I’d like to share this on my blog but can’t find a way to re-blog??
Perhaps I’ll just have to put a link.
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Thanks Deb. I’ve had other people ask why they can’t reblog off my pages. I was told that when you own your own domain, there is no ‘reblog’ button for us. I had a ‘repost’ button but it no longer works. You can use ‘press this’ tool in your dashboard to copy and save a link to your drafts, that’s what I use when I reblog other’s posts.
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Thanks – couldn’t get that way to work, so I just copied and pasted and added the link to your blog so it looks more like a traditional re-blog.
Cheers!
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Well that’s strange. I’m going to have to find another means as it seems you aren’t the only one having trouble reposting my blogs 😦 Thanks so much for taking the trouble. 🙂
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Hi Debby,
I finally got a chance to check out the links you sent me. This was first. In response to your post: I agree with Marian Beaman. You are so thoughtful to do that for people. I am one of the people that have benefited by you tweeting my links. I really appreciate it, and I’m sure others do too.
Like Deborah Jay, I also don’t see a reblog or repost button. Are you happy you self-hosted? What are the advantages for you? I am considering it, but my readership grows when I am reblogged, so not being able to reblog my writing would be a deterrent for me.
Thanks for sharing this article with me. I’m looking forward to reading the other two.
Janice
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Hi Janice. Thanks for the compliments, and for coming over to read my older post.
I believe I also wrote a post on the inability of being able to reblog with self hosting. I’ll dig that one up for you later.
I began on wordpress.com and moved it to my own domain at wordpress.org. I used to have a reblog button at .com and then I added a plugin on this site which was called repost. Last year the owner of the plugin ditched it and it no longer functions so I took of the button off. I also surfed around for an alternative and couldn’t find one, except ‘Press This’. That is a tool available in tools in our dashboards that we can download to our browser bars. It is like a marklet (as it is called) which I click on when I’m on a page I want to copy to my drafts in my dashboard. It marks the link and title of the page I want to reblog. From there I just open it in drafts and add whatever it is I want to add and save or post. Perhaps you can look into it and make a post about it yourself, as it seems to me there are many website out there where people who aren’t tech-savvy aren’t getting their posts shared because many aren’t aware of ‘press this’.
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Sounds complicated. I’m not too tech savvy. Is it complicated?
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Hi Janice, I am by far no techie, but had to learn the important things to keep the blog moving. I’m including the link here to my post on the tool. At the bottom of the post is the link to ‘press this’ it explains it better than I can and it’s right in your dashboard~ Let me know what you think, and maybe you can do a post about it since people read your blog specifically for this kind of information. 🙂 https://dgkayewriter.wpcomstaging.com/post-reblogging/
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I have my own domain but still run through WordPress (regular WP, not org), so I still have a reblog button. It’s odd the org domains wouldn’t have one.
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Yes, even odder that some techy can’t develop a new repost button.
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