Blogging for Beginners: Blog Promotion Tips

Whether you’ve been blogging for business or pleasure, the odds are pretty good that you want your blog to get noticed. There is, however, a fine line between promoting your blog enthusiastically and being overbearing.

That’s right. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed those people who tweet out a link to their most recent blog posts once an hour without ever bothering to promote anyone else. I’ve even seen them hop in on various Twitter chats just to say, “I can’t make it, but please check out my blog!” — even when their blog is unrelated to the chat theme or topic.

Advice: Don’t do that.

There are some delicate nuances to blog promotion, and while I won’t claim to be an expert, I’m all about sharing what I’ve learned on my own blogging journey. Keep in mind that what works for one person doesn’t always work for another. Sometimes you need to tweak your methods until you get them to a place that works for you and your readers.

5 Ways to Promote Your Blog

#1 – Twitter

Twitter is one of the easiest ways to reach a large network of people. That being said, be aware that Twitter moves at a pretty fast pace (especially for your followers who might be following hundreds or thousands of people). It’s easy for tweets to get “lost” among all the noise. Once it’s out of sight, it’s usually out of mind.

Do:

• Use hashtags that are appropriate to your subject matter (#socialmedia, #facebook, #[EventName], etc.).
• Space out your repeat-tweets throughout the day (varying the text is good, too).
• Make sure to interact with others, tweet about other things, or promote other posts and pages in between. You don’t want to appear to be only hanging around to promote yourself (unless you happen to be some kind of news outlet, in which case… broadcasting is what’s expected of you. My guess is that you probably aren’t, though).
• Add a link to your blog in your Twitter info section.

Respond to people who reply to you or re-tweet your link. Thank them, at the very least. Making connections and building a rapport with others will help build your readership.

Don’t:

• Use “joke” hashtags that no one will be looking for, such as #bloggingmyfaceoff or #iknoweverythingandhavetheblogposttoproveit, or any other such nonsense. Sometimes joke hashtags can be funny, but not when you actually want people to use them to find your blog.
• Post once an hour with text that says “READ MY POST!!!!” and no context for what the post is about.
• Butt in on other people’s conversations or active Twitter chats just to say things like, “Super busy tonight, but wanted to give you guys my latest blog post!” Note: Sometimes you can get away with this if your post is relevant to the chat or its topic, or if it’s outside of chat times. In that case, I would just suggest tweeting the title, link, and the hashtag, and not making it sound like you’re doing them all a favor by giving them your post.

#2 – Facebook

Facebook is also a good way for getting word out about your blog. If, like many people, you use Facebook as a way to keep in touch with friends and family, then it’s generally considered to be acceptable to ask them to pass the link on to anyone they think might be interested.

Consider, also, that Facebook doesn’t move at quite the pace that Twitter does. Therefore, you don’t need to repeat your post several times throughout the day. Personally, my method is to post to Facebook earlier in the day. Then, if the post doesn’t get any kind comments or likes, I delete that post and repost again later in the evening. Some people might disagree with this method. I use Facebook strictly for keeping up with friends and family, and not for business at all, so I feel a bit more sure of my audience. At two promo posts a day (and really only one after the other is deleted), only on post days, and with several hours in between, no one has yelled at me for being spammy yet!

PS – don’t forget to add the link to your blog in your Facebook profile, too.

#3 – Comment on Other Blogs

If done correctly, this allows you to keep yourself up-to-date with some great blogs, meet some great people to interact with, and promote your blog in an unobtrusive way.

Do: 

• Comment with something of value. “Great post!” isn’t necessarily adding value or contributing to the conversation. Plus, if you just hop from blog to blog writing “Great post!” people won’t take you seriously.
• Make sure that your Disqus, Livefyre, and other commenting profiles include a link to your blog. This usually means when a user clicks on your name, they’ll end up at your blog. Promoting without promoting.

Don’t:

• Jump in only to leave a link to your blog. That’s spam to most people.

#4 – Build Relationships With Other Bloggers

Think about this for a second: your friends and family are good candidates to read your blog because they know you. They take an interest in what you do. So when you build relationships with other bloggers, the same general principle applies. You make friends with whom to discuss blogging techniques and anything else. You promote them, and with any luck, they return the favor. Sometimes you can exchange guest posting opportunities that allow you to get your name out to another audience.

#5 – Syndicate Your Blog

There are several sites out there where, depending on the content you cover, you can syndicate (Business 2 Community is an example of this). What this generally means is that you provide them with the feed to your blog, and their site pulls it in when you update. Then they repost it to their site, crediting you and linking back to the original post. You will likely have a bio or user profile where you can add links, too.

Of course, these are just five ways you can promote your blog, online and off.

What’s your favorite way to promote your blog? What else would you add to this list? 

Image Sources:
Maria Reyes McDavis/Flickr, JoshSemans/Flickr, MarcoPako/Flickr, John-Morgan/Flickr, Dull Hunk/Flickr