Should we all hand copy our questions to Facebook and Twitter?
Asked by
ETpro (
34605
)
November 20th, 2013
If we all did, Google and Bing would index far more of the answers here, and we’d establish a regular flow of new users signing up to keep Fluther alive and active enough to be fun and useful in obtaining answers.
On your Facebook Timeline page (if you click your image or screen name on your Facebook main page, or the Timeline link, that will take you to your timeline) you will see a blank input at center page, just below the banner, with the Status tab generally selected. If you copy and paste your question’s URL into the Status input, Facebook will follow it and bring the Fluther logo in as a picture, and the beginnings of your Question and Details plus a link. Once that’s there, you can either delete the original URL you pasted in, or replace it with some introductory text. Hit the “Post” button when it’s just like you want it.
Twitter is even easier. In the new tweet blank at the upper left of your Twitter main page, you simply paste in your question (without details) followed by a space and the URL to the question. Like the following:
Should we all hand copy our questions to Facebook and Twitter? http://www.fluther.com/166234/should-we-all-hand-copy-our-questions-to-facebook-and-twitter/
When you are happy with it, hit the Tweet button. Twitter auto shortens the URL so unless your question itself is inordinately long, the question and URL will fit in the 140 character limit just fine.
One word of warning. If you want to keep your Fluther personality separate from the ones you use on Facebook and/or Twitter, then don’t post to them. Anyone finding your post there and following the link will find your Fluther user name. Personally, I have no problem with that, and so I do share my questions on both Facebook and Twitter. For Fluther’s sake; lest we become the next Social Q&A site to go the way of Google Answers, AOL’s Propeller, or Amazon’s Askville—all now defunct—won’t those of you who safely can share your Fluther questions on Facebook and Twitter?
Happy tweeting and Facebook posting.
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
14 Answers
That’s a awful lot of work… for what? Just how much of my day do I want to devote to this? Not much.
How many Bollywood questions and, “Does my dream mean he loves me,” can the Jellies handle? ?
I’m confused. Is this SEO tips for fluther? Does Google have access to Facebook and Twitter data? I thought that war was fought years ago, and Google got shut out. Also, Google bots seem to index fluther rather frequently. I’m getting hits on questions that were posted yesterday.
I really don’t want my personal life friends invading my fluther friends. It’s hard enough with politically diverse group of friends I have on Facebook to not get in a fight already regarding politics and religion. Here, it’s all good because, although I love many of you I don’t have to live with you. Facebook has people that I HAVE to interact with so I am not quite as brave, although I DO get myself in plenty of trouble there.
@tom_g It seems Google is OK with general questions but eschews Social ones. Perhaps, as @Tropical_Willie notes, they got tired of ones about Bollywood and Dream Analysis. It will be interesting to see if Google crawls this Meta question on Facebook or Twitter. But even if Google and Bing don’t index them, Facebook and Twitter have large reader bases of their own.
@gailcalled Why do it? To help keep Fluther alive and active enough to be fun. I did it for this question. I’d bet it took me less time than it did for you to write your response. But it’s just a suggestion. I’m not twisting anybody’s arm.
@Judi I’m sure there are a number of us that share that concern. I mentioned that concern in the question details. Being a Web developer, my real world persona is so open on the Web it’s unrealistic to even imagine I can separate one presence from another.
@ETpro – If I search Google for “Can you invent a needed portmanteau?”, your question from General the other day is the first hit.
@tom_g Cool, but that question was posted to General. I really prefer posting most questions to Social, but have been doing otherwise just so Google would pick up on it. I doubt many people search that particular term, though. But every little bit helps.
I did find this indicating that Matt Cuts confirmed Google is able to crawl the public postings on Facebook and some comments.
Oops. I’m an idiot. You already said that General is picked up, but not social. So, I go ahead and give a General example. I’ll go hide under my desk now…
I thought there was already a way to connect your facebook account to Fluther.
I am with Judi in that I don’t want people I know “in real life” to figure out who I am on Fluther. I mention Fluther to very few people. I put a lot of secrets on Fluther (i.e. sexual stuff, opinions about things, work issues, friend issues, etc.) and would not want people to know these things about me.
We purposely don’t have Google scanning our Social page (same for Meta, I believe). We are pretty sure that the Social questions actually had a negative effect (affect? Damn it.) on our rankings, so that’s why we de-indexed it. :)
I question myself on that every time. Thanks!
Answer this question 
Composing members:
0
