We’ve all encountered that Publicize thing on our WP account. “What’s that about?” you ask. Well, let me tell you in quick, simple terms.
It rebroadcasts each WP post you send to the world to some of your favourite social media accounts right after you press PUBLISH on your post. Connect your social media accounts in WP, and publicize will do all the rest.
Neat eh?
Publicize is found on the settings tab. Look for Sharing. That’s it. Now, let’s discuss what it does and when it does it.
Publicize sends a snapshot of your latest WP post (and its link) to each social account you nominate. It saves you from having to re-post your links (and posts) on your social accounts. Each gets a copy of it soon after you press “Publish” on a WordPress posting. Each social account reposts it within seconds!
The PRO? It saves time.
The CONs:
- Sometimes, you DON’T want a post reposted to every/any social account.
- It’s an excerpt, not the whole post.
- Not all social media is covered.
Don’t fret too much about the first CON because it’s flexible. You can switch off any account on any/every post. There’s a prompt in WP that appears just before you press publish. So, too, is the opportunity to alter the post’s excerpt. What it doesn’t do is give you a way to write three different excerpts for three different social accounts. Now, you may ask, “Why would I want to do that anyway?”
Twitter (Now X) is a different animal to LinkedIn. Think of X as a bucking bull. You have eight seconds, and then it throws you off. It’s a noisy and dirty place. On the other hand, LinkedIn is cleaner and quieter. It’s professional and more like a tortoise than a bull. You don’t ride this creature. You walk beside it and take your time. Civility reigns. Excerpts sent via Publicize to this platform might not work for X (and vice versa).
In this case, it’s better to customize Tweets (X’s) and not use publicize (or use it for every platform offered). It depends on the type of content you make and like to share.
Time to spread some joy?
-Michael Forman (Author of Dark Fiction – See Below)
Discover more from Michael Forman – Author of Dark Fiction & Drama
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