Do you have a Facebook page / Twitter account for your blog?

[CollectorofCookbooks]

And if so, is it worth it?

I'm looking at going self hosted on my blog, and to differentiate it from 'me' I thought of having a Facebook page and Twitter account just for it.

Have others done this? What are the pros and cons? And any tips on going self-hosted very much welcomed - am on Wordpress.

Many thanks

[Johnatdadbloguk]

Hi there. Having a twitter account is definitely worth it although it can be very time consuming keeping up with tweets! I tried desperately hard not to have a Facebook page but I had to give in and start one. Having done it, i have to say it's worked well for me. I don't have a particularly large Fb following but they are all very supportive of my blog. As for going self hosted, i recently did it myself. It cuts you free of the terms and conditions that companies like WordPress insist upon (IE no advertising). That said, you will have to pay for someone to host your site and migrating away from WordPress is a pain. Good luck! FYI you'll find my Fb page here: www.facebook.com/pages/Dadblogukcom/196653557141290 and I'm on twitter here: @dadbloguk

[zanuda]

FB will give you quite a lot of traffic. TW - I don't see much, but, perhaps, it depends on your contacts and topic (i.e what you'll be writing about). As for having different accounts, in FB definitely yes. It's so easy to manage "page" which is made from your personal account and you won't annoy our friends who is not interested in your topic. Twitter - I don't do it much, but I know people who do just the same - different account for different purpose ( like here: mums-dads.co.uk/expert-advice/power-of-twitter).

[CollectorofCookbooks]

I'd rather keep the blog separate from my normal FB - sounds like that is definitely worth it. Thanks for the links, I'll check those out.

Still pondering the self-hosting - am I better to hold off on the FB until I've taken the plunge and moved over?

[Tee2072]

You can self host on WP, no "moving over" anywhere except to a hosting company. It's actually fairly easy to do.

[CollectorofCookbooks]

Thanks Tee - clearly, I need to look into this more. Is there an easy guide somewhere you know of?

[Tee2072]

You can try WordPress.org, but it can get sort of techy.

You're best bet is to register your domain and hire a host and the hosting company should be able to help you migrate to the new URL fairly easily.

I can't recommend a hosting company, however, because my brother hosts my site, he has a server that's just for our family. Yes. We are geeks. We have a family domain as well.

[zanuda]

Still pondering the self-hosting - am I better to hold off on the FB until I've taken the plunge and moved over?

Doesn't matter. Because you could easily change URL's in plugin and FB and TW accounts.

As for hosting - I've got experience only with hostgator. They have rather good 24h support (phone/chat/tickets). They have preinstalled wordpress, which they upgrade right after Worgpress.org upgrade specifications and they will move your blog from other normal hosting for free when you sign with them (if yo don't see your blog in promised time - don't wait just contact them - happened with my friend, payment department didn't send to techs info that account was paid). As for blogs hosted with services, I don't know - you'll have to ask them. Know, worpress.com allows to transfer your content but it's very technical (read about it on different forum), it's possible to do on your own but a lot of people end up with paid service (or hire somebody). Anyway good hosting still might do it for you for free (or some fee) when you sign and I would stick with them because they'll make sure everything works with new account.

As for pros and cons - not from personal experience - it gives you more freedom in design I don't even mention commercial possibilities.

[curtaincall]

Hi Collector, am interested in this conversation and have posted elsewhere on this, as have been kicked off FB for 30 days (they'll let me back in earlier for good behaviour) . Wasn't at all keen on it in the first place - invasion of privacy etc. Anyway, I set up a FB page under name of my blog and one of the friends I tried to contact then reported me. To be fair they must have thought i was just another company trying to sell something, so don't know how to be anonymous on FB. Any ideas? BTW what does self-hosted mean?

[amummysview]

Hello there I am twitter.com/Amummysview at twitter and www.facebook.com/AMummysViewPage across at Facebook. Curtaincall: Self Hosted is basically paying for someone to host your blog, it generally gives you more scope to do what you want with the layout, design, product reviews, advertising etc than if you are a free blog hosted through wordpress for example. It just costs you to do x

[fcknits]

Yes, I have FB and Twitter accounts for both of my blogs. FB doesn't seem to do much for me but I wanted to separate my blogs from my personal FB profile. Twitter is better... but, tbh, I partly use one of my blog Twitter accounts as a personal account. I figure it gives my blog more personality and I can't be bothered running 3 Twitter profiles. It's much easier to run multiple FB profiles - you just switch between pages - whereas Twitter makes you log in/out of each profile, which is a right PITA!

Both of my blog are WP self-hosted. It's very easy. They, obviously, do require a bit more maintenance than a hosted blog would but it's worth it.

[Zoel91]

I keep my Blog seperate from 'me' as such. Most of my family don't know about my blog so keeps it easy.
My facebook is facebook.com/mymummysworld and twitter is @mymummysworld
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