Crossposting has sometimes been dubbed as duplicate content, however, if that was so, then even social bookmarking would probably be put in the same boat sometimes. To get a better understanding, I have included a definition of crossposting:

As defined by Wikipedia:

Crossposting is the act of posting the same message to multiple forums, mailing lists, or newsgroups. This is distinct from multiposting, which involves posting multiple identical messages, each to a single forum, newsgroup, or topic area.

Crossposting is an older technique to drive traffic to an article by posting in several places online. However, some have viewed it as spam, even more so now that you can crosspost your social network streams like Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal and Friendfeed onto each other. There are many more social networks that allow this too. This is great as it can drive traffic, however if some of your social network circles have similar people, they may not be so keen on the repeat content. Sometimes this can be seen as duplicate content, but if you view, the following video, Google touches on the myth of penalizing duplicate content and their article Demystifying the “duplicate content penalty”.

In fact, Robert Scoble put on his friendfeed stream:
“I’ve started hating cross posting. I’m now reading Twitter, friendfeed, Facebook and keep seeing the same content in all three….”

I noticed when I allowed LoudTwitter to publish my Twitter stream to my LiveJournal account. Within days I had personal emails from long-time followers who either removed themselves from my too active livejournal posts, or messaged me to ask me to stop. The reason why was it was pushing all of their other friend’s fresh journal entries and not allowing them to keep up. I had to completely remove the feature even after choosing to have a post to include all my my tweets for the day. It kind of ranked there with the feeling of the site Tweeting Too Hard.

Crossposting can be done in a way that is not annoying and spammish. How? Well, post only in places that your article is relevant whether it be social networks, forums, or any other communities. Just do not leave it up there without explaining why it is relevant. Try not to put the whole article, or if you do, remember to put a link back to the original source that you posted it- even if it was a guest post at another blog that you did. Be prepared to accept feedback as well as join in the conversation. Remember where you posted your article because it is important to be able to stay in touch with those who respond to your writing. They may not follow you at first, but with time and consistently providing return feedback, you could earn yourself some meaningful connections amongst your readers.

Do you crosspost? What do you think of crossposting?

Related posts:

1. Facebook bought Friendfeed: So What? What Now?
2. Twitter Comments In Facebook Stream?
3. Your Blog, Your Readers, And Email Etiquette