Blog vs Facebook: how can I move the conversation? (10 posts)

  • I’m part of the team that run a company blog in Italy. We opened the blog in 2006, when nobody was around in our field, and we managed to create good content that made many people join the conversation. Today we write a lot more, we try to cover more topics, we make interviews, we post videos and infographics, and even if there many more competitors, we still have great stats. Many visits, new people signing up for our newsletter every day, good time spent on the blog and a decent bounce rate.But… we hardly see big conversations coming out! sometimes not even one comment.

    I run also our Facebook page and I’ve noticed that it’s easier to have a good conversation there even talking about the same topics and posting the same blog posts.

    Do you think there’s a chance to shift the conversation again on the blog? What can I do to make people participate again?

  • Post the first few paragraphs — about 150 words — of the blog post on to your Facebook page. Invite people to read the rest of the post on the blog itself, and to leave comments.

  • I agree with @erikdeckers. It might help to post just a small portion (1st paragraph or just a question on the topic) and also an interesting picture. You fans can then click on a link to your blog post and be sure to ask them to leave comments and feedback on your blog. 

  • @erikdeckers and @spotyaloans  You both have very good advice and this is exactly what Mike Stelzner talked about in his blog training! :)

  • Perhaps your blog has done such a good job at creating authority that commenters feel they have nothing to add. 

    Play Devil’s Advocate in a post or two to test the waters.

  • Hi everybody, thank you for the good advices, I’ll definitely try them out as soon as possible! I’ve forgotten that often it is better to ask explicitly for comments on Facebook or Twitter.

    @judithgotwald It would be great don’t you think so :-) ? But what do you mean when you say “play devil’s advocate”? Could you make an example for me?

  • If you have developed a good audience then try to guide them to your blog. The other option is to maybe recognize, for the time being, your clients are, for the most part, active on FB. So if you clients are there and active, why not keep them active and ask them to join in on the fun on your blog.

    It is the “if you can’t beat them, join them”, Keep them active and engaged on your business FB page and use the blog as highlighting the interaction.

    Maybe have a blog post highlighting the best FB post on your page. This way you can  get traffic in each direction.
    ~Laura

  • @margherita-nieri

    By devil’s advocate I mean posting something provocative — not necessarily what you feel but a legitimate view that shows a side to an issue that is being avoided or overlooked. Taking an unpopular view for the sake of discussion.

    For example, I once served on a committee where one fellow always spoke and voted against popular motions that were destined to breeze through without challenge. One day i asked him why — sometimes the issue was not that important and everyone was in agreement. He said, “No decision should be unanimous. It shows people aren’t thinking.”

    Years late I married the guy, so he couldn’t have been all that ornery!

    It’s kind of Socratic — throwing roadblock questions into the mix to further the discussion and help people sort things out.

  • On the subject of blog vs Facebook. In the past few weeks I’ve encountered several college-aged students who have shut down their FB sites. Some found it frivolous. One gal became alarmed when she noticed a guy who had just walked passed her in a library, who must have spotted her name on a notebook, checking out her FB page. Blogs, they said, were more appealing. Don’t know what it means, but found it interesting.

  • @judithgotwald Thanks, I’ll definitely try to do it, even if I”ve already expressed my voice in a quite different way for many topics, but probably it is the only way to create a discussion. Anyway I understand what you said about Facebook and blogs. They are two different tools, they should be used in diferent ways, but apparently their hedges are blurring…


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