Sharing Blog Posts to Your Social Media for Extra SEO Points
Social sharing is good for your blog in a couple ways. It gives you something new to say on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google Plus, or a new picture to post to Pinterest. It introduces your blog and website to an ever expanding audience. It encourages new visitors to your website and blog, and counts are external (outbound) links from your site to highly authoritative and high volume traffic sites, which is helpful for your website's SEO.
Because social sharing has so many benefits, I recommend making it part of your blogging process. Don't consider any blog post finished until you have shared it with at least one social media feed.
Wix Prompts Sharing When You Publish
Because social sharing is so popular and helpful, Wix now prompts you to do it right at the point when you are publishing a new blog post. You'll see this pop up below that you can use or ignore. It will open share pop ups for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as the most commonly used platforms.
Rumor has it that Google+ may not be operating much longer, and many avid social media managers have already abandoned it. I say it's up to you to decide. If you have been using it and are getting a good following there, by all means continue. To share to Google+, be sure the icon is included in the share buttons at the bottom of your posts, and follow the directions in the next section.
Another Way to Share with More Audiences
This is what the bottom of one of my recent blog posts looks like in the public view. And by public view, I mean what regular people see online (versus what I see from inside the Wix blog editor). Notice the short line of keyword, then the 4 icons below that, called the social share bar. You can using these icons from the public view of your single post page after it has been published to send your blog post snippets into your feeds on those platforms.
How to Use the Social Share Function
Be sure you are in the public view of the post you want to share. Do NOT attempt this from the preview mode of the blog editor -- it won't work. Click on the Facebook icon, for example. A pop up will open (be sure your browser is not blocking pop ups for your website!). Here's a screen shot of what it looks like:
It's pretty familiar to you as a Facebook user, right? Notice that you can put the blog promo on your personal profile /timeline page, or you can share to your business page by using the drop down menu in the upper left corner of the share pop up to select your business page.
Write an irresistible sentence or two that entices readers to click on the post to get to your blog. Then click the Post to Facebook button. Very easy and quick.
Unfortunately, you will have to share with each social media platform individually until Wix revises this process. I'm told that revision is on the way.
Alternatives
Or as an alternative to these individual shares, you might prefer to use a tool like Hootsuite from where you can share to all your social media accounts at once and schedule when those shares are posted.
And you may not want or need to share with every social media platform under the sun. Think about who your best audience is for each post, and be strategic about sharing if you are doing it individually, if you want to cut down on time and effort. For most psychotherapists LinkedIn is best for referral sources and colleagues, and Facebook is best for potential clients. Twitter doesn't work for most counselors, but might work for more coaches and psychics if you have an active presence on that platform with other posts in addition to promoting your blog.
