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Monday, March 25, 2013

Three little words making me ranty.

I know there are much bigger things to be worried about in the world. Awful is flourishing. But I still have a list of things that I don't like right now and the most pathetic thing on that list are these three little words:

LINK IN COMMENTS

I know why you do it.

I know it is to try and increase readership to blogs, to get around the silly people at facebook that play with who sees what and when. I understand.

I even did it myself once to see if it made a difference. I am not convinced it does, but there is no real proof.

End of the day - it's just annoying.

It is even more annoying if you have your facebook linked to twitter and I see a tweet that says "Link in comments". Thanks for nothing. Clearly I can not click on that now, can I?

Because I am small minded at times I just don't click on these posts at all. 

I am really sorry, I know there are so many people that do this,  highly likely that I am a grumpy old man in thirty something nana clothing, but I just don't like it.

29 comments:

  1. I wondered why people had started doing that - I thought it was to prevent spammers or something. All about traffic hey.

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  2. You read my mind! At first I was confused by it, now I get frustrated and refuse to do it myself OR click on the link (unless desperate to read on). I appreciate some people prefer to use it as they want to ensure they reach their entire audience and it is each to their own of course!

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  3. Like you, I'm not convinced that it works. I just pay the $7 to promote the post and claim it on my BAS/ tax as an expense. I know that it works and I have a lot of 'likers' because of it.

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  4. THANK YOU! This is about the dumbest thing I've seen on social media. I think I'd rather see an image preview of website link rather then give people an extra step to click onto!

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  5. It irritates me too. I tend to post my links with photos as they seem to get more 'likes' and therefore a further reach. The thing that really annoys me is when it's linked to twitter so if I want to read the post I have to go looking for it.

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  6. Claire, I'm still in the dark why people do this even after reading your Post. How does it increase readership? Do you mean that it makes people "friend" or "like" your page because they would be able to see the link in the status if they were not yet a 'friend' or "liker'? I've got so much to learn.........It is annoying. It sounds no different to people having links in their posts which you click on only to be directed to book depository or a clothing store etc. i used to always wonder why they didn't just mention the darn book or item in their post but now realise it's all to do with kickbacks. And now I'm serious about this $7 Kellie above is talking about. Again, so much to learn..........Mel x

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    Replies
    1. Mel, it is simply because facebook decides who sees what posts and when and to do this they use scores of some kind. If you do a post on fb and it contains an external link then fb shares it with fewer people.

      To get around this people add the link in the comments.

      Other people, like Kellie, hit the promote post button and pay a fee to ensure their posts are seen (by their own likers). This is different from sponsored posts.

      Others now believe thta fb has a new search thingy and if you write Link in Comments in the post that it marks against you in the algorithm too.

      There are reasons for the madness, valid reasons, I just don't click with this one!

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  7. Do you know what I find more annoying than those three little words? When I see them on twitter (I know you've mentioned that). People, don't link your twitter and Facebook, it rarely works. You have 2 different audiences on 2 different platforms.

    I too tested the 'link in comments' and found it made no difference. I had to try it though 'cause all the cool kids were doing it ;)

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    Replies
    1. Exactly, you need to test these things out but if you were a business and your clients kept saying "We don't like how you make us walk in the back door" you would let them come in the front door.

      I am not against a fb/twitter link totally, I can see sometimes it works, but NOT if you are writing link in comments.

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  8. I do it and I hate doing it, but it does make a difference to who sees the post.

    If I post a status with a blog link, I might get 70-90 views on that day. If I post it in the first comment I get 450-500 views.

    For a small time blogger that makes a very big difference to me. I can't afford to pay $7 to promote daily posts.

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    Replies
    1. I am also not paying anything to facebook, I know it's a business and they own it and they have the right to make as much money as they want, but I expect facebook is writing its own death by doing this. Younger people are already walking away from fb, G+ is fantastic and once everyone migrates fb will be floating with MySpace.

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    2. I'd love to do more with google+ but nobody is there yet.

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  9. I am guilty of this and found it made a huge difference to the number of people that see the post - but I forgot about the Twitter side of things eek. I'l have to rethink that one! x

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  10. I really don't know if it can be that helpful to people - I know half the time I skip it simply because I don't have the time or patience to wait for all the comments to load and then search for the link.

    For me it's 4 words that rile me .... "just share the link". I get fed up with scams being sent around facebook and feel really sad watching so many friends falling for them. What's the scam thing like on google+ anyone?

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    Replies
    1. Google is clean and lovely and there is no game planning and advertising and junk. I love it.

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    2. Oooh, i think i have a lot in common with Coal Vally View in terms of all this stuff. I thank you for the link up to Google + and if I could ever figure out how to join, I might like it! Ha ha. Does G+ have anything to do with my existing Google account that I use for my blogspot blog & comments on other people's blogs? I is so so confused-ed ;-)

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    3. Yes! It's all in the one account, when you log into your email look in the top left, for me it says +Claire , this is my G+ account. Click, go play!

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  11. I've never done it before and have just tried it to see how it works! Intriguing ...

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  12. Hahahah - you crack me up :) I do it too. Sorry if it annoys you but it really does make a huge difference to the number of people who see your updates. :)

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    Replies
    1. Now that fb has changed again I don't think it really does. All my posts get the same views, but then you have views and clicks to the post which is the most important...do views always equal clicks?

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  13. I hear you! Annoys me so much in Twitter. My readership is so low at the moment I don't think anything would make a difference.

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  14. Even worse is when it says "link in comments" and the link isn't there, and then there are 10 comments saying "I can't see the link!" and then finally the link is there.
    Thanks for explaining how it works, I didn't know that either.
    I bet they (FB) change their algorithms on a daily basis to keep everyone on their toes.

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  15. The funny thing is that more people might SEE your post because there's no link, but you can bet they're a lot more annoyed than those who would see it WITH the link! I agree with you 100%.

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    1. P.S. I tried it a few times and found that more people SAW it, but fewer clicked through. Definitely worth looking at your stats at the blog end to make sure people actually are clicking through from facebook. Then people might stop linking in the comments!

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  16. and I would add to that all blog posts that feature clothes etc as 'c/o', cafe visits that just happen to be so over-the-top that you know that all the food was free-for-a-mention on the blog - just get real, if you are getting paid to write about someone's product then state it, don't act as if somehow you just magically got all these things for free and decided to write a post about it.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Anon, I agree, nothing worse than feeling 'tricked' into reading advertising. It's an oft discussed topic for bloggers these days. I really just try and be honest with what I am writing about, I hope you have never had this feeling on my blog. I too am learning stuff as I go.

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  17. no - not yours, just others out there like Che and Fidel and Beatle Shack to name a few...Nothing wrong with bloggers making money, people like Baby Mac write great sponsored posts - they are honest and what you see is what you get.

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