Well, crud. Just got an email from WordPress with notification that Facebook has notified them that “starting August 1, 2018, third-party tools can no longer share posts automatically to Facebook Profiles.”
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’ve been working (not always successfully, but it’s been the goal) on reducing how much content I post directly to Facebook’s walled garden. Instead, I’ve been using various services to automatically pipe text and link posts from Twitter and my blog and photo posts from Instagram (which, as it’s owned by Facebook, I’ve been scaling back on) and my blog to Facebook. That way, I own my content, but all of my Facebook contacts can still see it.
With this change, though, it looks like that’s not going to be an option as of Wednesday. My options will likely be:
- Post things to Facebook. Pro: Facebook contacts can see everything. Con: Posts don’t exist outside of Facebook.
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Manually cross-post anything I post outside of Facebook to Facebook, either by copy-and-pasting everything, or manually posting links to the outside source. Pro: Posts exist in both places. Con: Takes longer to post anything, royal pain in the butt.
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Post things to the non-Facebook sources as I have been, and they just don’t show up here. Pro: Easiest and means I have control over my content. Con: Facebook contacts won’t see it unless they actually follow me on Twitter and/or check my blog (either manually or through an RSS reader of some sort) (and unfortunately, for many or most people, learning how to follow people outside of Facebook just isn’t a priority; if it’s not on Facebook in some way, it doesn’t exist).
Right now, I’m thinking there’s a non-zero chance that my Facebook contacts may start seeing less from me on here because of this change. I’m sure I’ll still be reading through, liking, and commenting (for the near future, at least), because the reality is that, for good and for ill, this is where most of my connections to many of my friends near and far exist. Posts from me may be increasingly rare, though.
Some reminder links:
My blog is my primary online home.
The easiest way to follow my blog (and many other blogs and news sources) is through an RSS reader; for ease-of-use and low cost (it’s free to start and offers mobile apps), I recommend Feedly.
I’m on Twitter.
I’m also on micro.blog (a “microblogging” site that conceptually is somewhere between Twitter and traditional blogging, with the focus on short-form posts, but also with the ability to include long-form posts and optionally mirror them to WordPress blogs, which is how I have mine set up).
And with this, I’m once again putting out a call: Do you exist online outside of the Facebook walled garden? Give me your non-Facebook links (blog, Twitter, Tumblr, whatever) so I can keep up with you there!