May 9, 2016 at 10:24 pm

@morgoodie Don’t worry Sherry, you don’t have to do all of this! You can get results from simply sharing your link as is. All the extra steps are pretty overwhelming if you try to learn them all at once. It’s fine to just take it one step at a time, and worry about the rest when you feel you understand it better 🙂

I’ll try to make up a tutorial for how to use the link shortening soon, though, as it is useful when links are really long. It’s also nice to see how many people are clicking on your links!

May 9, 2016 at 10:52 pm

@ruby3881  See this is why you are so awesome. A tutorial would be awesome. I just need to break it down into steps for myself in order to learn this and yes it would be great to see how many clicks you are getting. Thank you for all your help. It really is appreciated and I am trying to put it all to use.

May 10, 2016 at 2:01 am

@grecy095 I just started to shortern my link with Goo.gl, and found out I actually used it to share my Bubblews referral link before. 😀

Yes, I agree with you that it’s good for us to track how many clicks we have got, and also from which countries.

I have read that some sites actually do not accept shortened links, Pinterest is one of them. I tried to share my goo.gl link and I was told it’s an invalid link. So, I think we’d better check out if we can share the shortened links in some sites before we do that.

@ruby3881 Yes, I agree with you, while teaching, we’d learn better and might learn more too, because we might research more before telling others. But, it’s your generosity and selflessness that helps others and yourself too. 🙂

@morgoodie I have been sharing the posts manually when I was in BlogJob too, as the permalink did not work. Once we got used to it, it isn’t too much work to share. Hope you’ll get your post done and published soon.

May 10, 2016 at 4:07 am

I only used StumbleUpon and Pinterest to share post that i found in here.

I usually use my mobile phone when i access this site especially when i’m interacting with others on forum discussion. – its more convinience  for me because i can reply on the discussions  while laying down. 😛

For pinterest i just simply used the sharing button. While for stumbleupon, i just copy the url link and open my stumbleupon apps. then the link that i just copied will appear automatically  on the top and just click it to share it on stumbleupon after adding my ref code.

I just shared one blog post on stumbleupon couple minutes ago and already gained 7 ref visitors 🙂

May 10, 2016 at 4:12 am

@haraka You must have a good number of followers in StumbleUpon. I think it will takes me some time to set up the network in StumbleUpon in order to help me generate some traffics to my shared posts.

I do not know how LiteracyBase looks like when it’s in mobile phone’s screen. If you are able to use mobile phone to interact in the forum discussion, I guess this site really supports mobile friendliness which is good for many mobile phone users.

May 10, 2016 at 4:43 am

@kaka135 Yes, it’s true that Pinterest doesn’t like the short links. They do generally work on both Twitter and Google+, however. And on Facebook they seem pretty reliable – although sometimes the image that gets shared won’t be the one you expected to see!

For Pinterest, if you click the “See it now” button when the pin is first created, you can open it. From there, just click “Edit” to access the URL that is pinned. It’s very simple to add the referral code to the end of the existing link 🙂

May 10, 2016 at 11:23 am

@ruby3881 I think StumbleUpon doesn’t accept shortened link too, though I found that they have their own link shortener. I tried to add page with goo.gl link a few times, it did not give me errors, but the page just didn’t show up, until I added a page with normal link.

Thank you for telling me about editing the link in Pinterest. I have always been editing pins in Pinterest, just to change the pin board or update the description, but I never noticed we can change the URL there. I always just use the very manual way, add new pin from the pinterest site, then manually add the link. It’s so nice to be in the community, so we can always learn from each other.

I have not try out sharing in Facebook yet, I do not have a group of friends who write or make money online on Facebook. Hence I never think of sharing any posts from BlogJob or LiteracyBase  there.

May 10, 2016 at 12:16 pm

@kaka135 Thanks for the heads up about StumbleUpon not accepting the short links! I usually just hit the “Stumble” button without trying to share a shortened link or one that includes my referral code. Because once a page is indexed on StumbleUpon it’s a simple “thumbs up” for each subsequent person who wants to Stumble the page, I tend to leave the most basic form of the URL to improve chances others will Stumble the page.

StumbleUpon has been giving me some good results on some of my pages, but I think it’s mostly as a result of someone influential who added the page on their StumbleUpon. I haven’t tried networking there yet, but I think it will be interesting to see if that increases the benefits.

As for sharing on Facebook, please look for me there and send me a friend request. I can help you find some writers to connect with so that you can share your posts and resources, and gain from other writers’ experience 🙂

You can find my personal page on FB if you search “Kyla Matton Osborne.” Or you can send me a message through my writer page there. Just search for “Ruby3881” on FB. That should immediately bring up my writer page 🙂

May 10, 2016 at 1:18 pm

@ruby3881 I haven’t really understand how StumbleUpon works, as I am still very new there. I just add some posts there, but I don’t have any followers yet, so I am not sure if those posts will get exposed by others. Anyway, I will just try to stumble more and visit others later.

I have seen the Facebook page you mentioned about the writers’ group, but at the moment, I am only using my Facebook account for personal purpose, so I am not joining any other groups besides parenting and homeschooling. I even unfollowed many friends, as I would like to just focus on homeschooling or parenting information there and not spend too much time on Facebook. Sometimes, there are just too many information in Facebook, and I didn’t manage to read the homeschooling information I wanted. That’s why I set the limit for myself there. Anyway, thank you for inviting.
By the way, why do you think of making the group as public later, instead of a closed group?

May 10, 2016 at 1:28 pm

I never use shorten link to share post via sharing site because some of site is kinda sensitive and could impact failed code reading on the site 🙂

@ruby3881

I really get great result from StumbleUpon, Kayla – thanks for introducing me with it 🙂

May 10, 2016 at 2:50 pm

@haraka I think it’s a good idea to learn the best practices for each site as we go along, and to share them with our fellow writers.

There tends to be a certain fear in our community, when it comes to graphics and social media. I get a lot of negative reactions when I talk about things like finding safe images.

People think it’s “bad” to use stock images purely because some writers didn’t know how to identify safe images or how to write a proper image credit. But actually, using a safe stock image on an article is better than recycling the same photo of your toddler in diapers or the same mug shot of you, over and over on everything you publish. Those images are not related to the content of most posts, and by using the same pic over and over the blogger confuses readers into thinking they’ve already read new content.

The same goes with things like link shorteners, custom URLs, or following certain social media practices like adding a long image to posts for Pinterest to pick up. People fear what they don’t know, and they get overwhelmed by all the information coming at them. Instead of being determined to learn things one step at a time, they retreat and often end up adopting a practice that makes their content less valuable to a site.

So my advice is to not generalize. Instead of never using a shortlink on social sites, it’s better to learn where it’s safe to do so and where it’s not appropriate. Twitter was the very reason people started using shortlinks in social media, and many services are quite compatible with Twitter. Facebook and G+ display the shortlinks without any problem that I can see. But as has been pointed out, Pinterest and StumbleUpon don’t like them. Your experience with other sites may show they do or don’t accept shortlinks. We must adapt to the requirements of each site.

May 10, 2016 at 2:54 pm

@kaka135 I don’t think I knew you were a homeschooler. We homeschooled for six years before we moved, and this year we’ve done distance education with our two older girls. I never really used Facebook for homeschooling things. We had web sites and email groups, back when we were homeschooling. The FB things were just beginning to get going when the kids went back to public school. Facebook was much more just a social thing, back then LOL!

The reason for the FB group becoming public once we’re well established is to allow better exposure for shared links, and to give an opportunity for members of the public to find our members’ work. Some may even be able to find work for hire, as has happened in other public writing groups I belong to.

I preferred to set the group up as a closed group at first, though. This gives time for our members to get settled and establish a sense of community, and to set up different aspects of the group like contact lists for social media, and pages to highlight services our members offer to the public or other writers.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by  Kyla Matton Osborne (Ruby3881). Reason: Adding reply to question about public group

May 10, 2016 at 3:09 pm

@ruby3881 Nice point Kayla.

So far i never use shorten link to share the blog from here because i only use Pinterest and StumbleUpon.

But you right, that with Twitter, shorten link is the best options – due to is limited characters 🙂

May 11, 2016 at 2:34 am

I still have not shortened my link when I share, but I have shared my post on FB, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Google+, and Pinterest. I have checked and have gotten 28 visitor referral credit, so I was happy about that. I did a short post so I did not get too much from it, but with the shares maybe I will get more than expected. I need to write a longer one so that I can make even more from it. Now to just come up with a topic. I wish it would show which site the visitors are coming from but I will share it to the same ones anyway.

May 11, 2016 at 2:55 am

@ruby3881 Thank you for explaining that, especially about the proper image credit. I am glad I learned that from you. It’s especially important when I design website for clients, as I would not want to violate any copyrights.

As for shortlink, I have also read that some people might not like to see the referral link, so a short link might be nicer to displayed. Also, for visitors, there is no need to view the long link.

I just started my “official” homeschooling journey, as my son just started his grade 1 this year, though I have never send my children to school, even kindergarten. They have just been playing at home all the time. I have heard that it’s more difficult to get resources for homeschooling in the earlier years, it’s much easier now, as there are many resources online, and also community too. So, even I don’t really have a local homeschooling community, I am blessed to have found several homeschooling groups that I can really depend on. Most of them use Facebook nowadays.

Thank you for explaining about the privacy of your writers’ group. I just think it might be a bit difficult for you to control if there are many spammers in future. Of course, I know you will be able to handle it. 🙂