Facebook Links? Ugh! Ever wonder why your favorite pages don’t just post the information you want instead of creating a link? Here’s why they don’t.. and why you should avoid pages that do!
Pages that post entire articles, complete recipes from sites are usually illegally copying and pasting information from other sites, violating federal copyright laws. Sometimes people mistakenly think that it’s perfectly legal because it’s on the web, it’s not.
Legally, the sites whose content has been lifted has the right to seek monetary damages for the theft. But, that’s not why I’m asking people not to do it…
It’s not just the legality of it all that is the issue, it’s the amount of money, time and effort that took in creating that particular project for you to enjoy.
Here’s how we create our DIY Projects, Recipes, Tips-n-Tricks, etc
1. We purchase the materials/ingredients needed for the project/recipe/tip
2. We put the project/recipe together.
3. As we’re putting it together, we take photographs, step by step. Sometimes this requires the assistance of several people- (as was the case in our string/fire/bottle craft– I mean, have you ever tried to set something on fire and take pictures while you’re holding a camera and a flaming object? Yeah, me neither).
4. If the project/recipe comes out, we write an in-depth step by step article explaining how we made it, so that you can make it to. One the rare occasion that they come out right the first time, We spend an average of 4 hours per article/recipe putting it together, writing it, editing it, adding watermarks to our photographs, etc.
5. If it didn’t come out the way we envisioned that it would, we start all over again. Which means we spend more time, more money on the ingredients/materials and more time perfecting it. Sometimes we do this as many as 30 times- as we did with our Super Laundry Sauce recipe that we perfected before we shared it with you. We try with alternative ingredients to see if they will work.
6. After all of that, we’re not done yet. People come on, they ask questions that we didn’t anticipate, so sometimes, in order to answer their questions, we have to go buy more ingredients/materials & recreate the problems they encountered so we can help troubleshoot the issues. That’s more time & money.
Why do we do it over and over again?
We perfect each of our recipes, tips-n-tricks, articles, etc BEFORE we share them because what’s the point of sharing a “Money Saving Tip” if it doesn’t save you money?
Why We Link to the Article/Recipe Directly
We link directly to the articles, recipe, crafts, and projects directly for several reasons:
1. The people who created the content may have advertisements on their site. This is how they partially fund the projects they create. While the ads don’t completely cover the expenses, it sure helps to keep them going so they can continue to create new content for those that visit the site.
2. It’s respectful. It shows that you appreciate the information that has been shared.
3. It’s the ethical (and LEGAL) way to share content that you find interesting or informative.
4. You benefit from the additional information – such as all the questions and informative comments that are left by those who commented on the original article. Maybe you had a question or wanted to use a substitution and someone else on the page already tried it & offered their input.
“It’s too much effort to click a link”
When you respond to a Facebook (Pinterest, etc) Post or Share saying that it’s too much effort to click a link to view the content they took the time to create for you to enjoy, you’re basically telling them that you don’t care how much time, money and effort went into the project or recipe.
You’re essentially telling them that you value your own time but you couldn’t care less about theirs. You’re telling them that They are wasting their time/money/effort and they should Close their site; Even if that’s not what you meant at all.
By the way, did you know that sites receive NO Benefit from hosting their facebook fan page?
It’s how we site owners provide homage to our fans. In fact, Facebook often CHARGES site owners to display the content to you for you to see! They throttle our posts to our fans. In order to ensure that just 20% of our 1,029,000+ Fans see a post, it would cost an average of $1,500 per Day, Per POST.
Crazy huh? Especially for a family blog like ours with a grocery budget of only $50 a week. Even if we could afford to Pay for facebook posts, we absolutely wouldn’t, read why here.
Why Sites Come & Go So Quickly
Have you ever noticed that websites come and go rather quickly? Quality sites are not inexpensive/cheap to run. Quite the opposite, as you can see it takes a lot of time and money in hosting fees, materials/ingredients, etc.
If you enjoy a site and the content they offer, take the time to visit them, visit their sponsors and help support them so they can stick around. After all, is it really THAT difficult to click on a link to read an article?
