How to Use Jetpack Publicize

Before starting this tutorial, you need to install and activate the free Jetpack plugin. Read this post for instructions on how to install Jetpack.

Promoting your blog and new posts as you publish them is an important part of the battle when it comes to building a successful website. To help streamline the process, Jetpack includes an extremely useful feature called ‘Publicize’ which will automatically share new posts on specified social networks, for example like Facebook and Twitter, whenever they are published. In this chapter, we’ll look at how to set up this invaluable feature to help spread the word of your new content.

Jetpack supports the following social networks for automatic posting: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon. You can also define your own additional custom services if you want to promote your posts on unsupported social networks.

Enable Ads

If Public is disabled, you will need to enable it before you can link your social profiles for Jetpack to post and promote blog posts on your behalf.

1. In your admin dashboard, click “Jetpack” in the top left corner, scroll down the page and click “View all Jetpack features”.
2. Scroll down the list of features until you find “Publicize”. Click the link and click “Activate” on the window that appears.
3. In the same way, also enable the “Share” feature, as this will allow you to automatically add social sharing buttons to your posts.

Connect with your social networks

In order for Jetpack to publish posts on your social profiles on your behalf, you need to give the plugin permission to access them:

1. Navigate to Settings > Sharing in your admin console to connect the social media accounts you use with Jetpack.
2. Click “Connect” next to the name of the social network you want to add and enter your username and password.
3. Once your connections to the services you want to use have been approved, a list of those services will appear in the “Publish” box whenever you write a new post.

Whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically be shared on your connected social media accounts, including an image such as the featured image, the image attached to the post or any other images Jetpack can find in your post (in this order of preference). Note that only posts will be public; Static pages, draft posts and duplicate posts will not be made public.

Add share button

In the Share page in your admin dashboard, you can also automatically add share buttons to every post you publish, allowing readers to quickly share your posts. and easily on their own social media profiles.

1. Drag the buttons you want to add to your post from the “Available Services” section to the “Enabled Services” section below.
2. Modify any additional options such as “Share Label” and “Button Style” as required. Any changes will be displayed in the “Live Preview” window above.
3. Click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page and share buttons will appear on every post on your blog.

With sharing and publishing set up, lots of your social media ads will be taken care of and Jetpack and your readers will be able to start spreading the word about your hard work!