Social blogging: does it all boil down to duplicate content?

Yesterday I read a Search Engine Journal article devoted to the issue of duplicate content on  Medium and LinkedIn Pulse. Those are two platforms that allow you to combine social and blogging: they are born in already formed communities, they offer CMS,

But, above all, they allow you to create content to be disseminated through the typical channels of blogging: social networks and search engines. Articles can be shared on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus. In the same way, they are identified by Google and come out in SERP

Of course, you can’t do a great job of SEO optimization: they are standard services, they have a very specific purpose, you cannot use Medium and Pulse to do SEO But you can position your professionalism by writing and publishing texts capable of bringing out your skills. Many professionals do this, I guess it works.

The Topic Of This Post

• 1 Duplicate content: is it possible?
• 2 The content at the center
• 3 Just copy and paste?
• 4 How to take advantage of social blogging

Duplicate content: is it possible?

Suddenly comes the question dreaded by all bloggers and SEOs: “Can I repost blog articles on Pulse?”. Search Engine Journal answers this question: there should be no problems. Why would Google consider work featured on Pulse and Medium as duplicate content? A recommendation is a must:

My point of view? Duplicating content can be useful to capture the attention of those who read the article on the platform, but it cannibalizes the work done on the official blog. Take away visits to the starting point of the content. I think this is a mistake for anyone who has set goals and invested in a good blogging strategy.

A blog is a tool that allows you to intercept the needs of the public. An audience that, in the case of a professional blog, corresponds to potential customers. From an inbound marketing perspective the blog has this function, and along with a good job of SMM stands for Social Media Marketing. Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites, such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, …/ SEO brings people to landing pages. That is to say, the tools to achieve concrete objectives.

What is the hallmark of a proprietary blog? The customization. With a CMS you can work in all directions: you can insert God’s banner. The announcement consists of an image (.jpg, .png, .gif) or an object …, you can optimize the internal paths, you can define the contents so that they are attentive to the needs of search engines. And of the readers.

Can you do all of this with Medium, Facebook Note, or LinkedIn Pulse? No. However, these tools have an advantage: they are born and developed within active communities, they can achieve different objectives and targets. But that’s the point, what content to publish on these platforms?

Just copy and paste?

My point of view is simple: copying and pasting your content from the blog is useless. An immense stretch, even if in the end you put the link to the original post. Could it be useful to create an abstract with a link to the article? It would be a better solution, it would force the reader to reach the source (your blog).

In reality, it is the lesser evil: from my point of view, these tools should be used to create new content. To give readers something more, not just copies. Do you want to put content at the center of your strategy? Perfect, I agree. You have to do this everywhere, not just on your main blog.

Social platforms are not simple amplifiers of your blogging activity: they are communication nodes that must relaunch what you do on the blog, but also capture attention with independent content. They should have their activity on the editorial calendar and offer new stimuli to the reader.

Why remove a reader from a blog that has a specific role in your strategy? That reader could become a customer. LinkedIn Pulse may also have links to a landing page. I prefer to take advantage of this channel to post alternative content.

How to take advantage of social blogging

Event summaries, week highlights, extra content, or with a different perspective than the one used on the blog. Maybe a personal approach to the subject, or independent reflections. There are a thousand ways to take advantage of social blogging without creating duplicate content. I list three:

• Create a column – Undemanding content, but which allows you to approach your professional world from a different point of view. Do you sometimes seem to litter your blog with irrelevant content? Facebook Note, Medium, and LinkedIn Pulse could help you out.
• Summarize what you read – Do you want to take stock of the situation? Do you want to create a useful reading list for your followers? Remember the value of content curation: listing is useless. You have to choose, define, enrich, eliminate the noise and bring out all that is needed by the person who is reading at that moment.
• Create summaries – It can be an alternative solution to simply copy and paste the article. Take 5 posts linked by a single topic and create a summary capable of intercepting every insight. With a relative link to the source. In this way you have created useful, transversal content, referring to the article of your blog.

Do you want to use social blogging to list posts or to publish abstracts of your insurance articles? You can collect a few visits but it will not change the fate of your strategy. The quality of content is given (also, not only) by the effort necessary to create it. I cannot expect great results with a simple copy and paste of the content: I take readers away from the starting post and I am bored who expects to find something different.

Instead, I can get the reader’s attention on the main blog, but also illuminate the social blogging activity: it all depends on the content that I will be able to pack. And therefore from the resources that I can put in place. Do you agree? How do you use LinkedIn Pulse and Medium? I await your point of view in the comments.