How to Use Social Media to Increase Your Blog Traffic; notes from #blogchat

Feb. 17 Blogging, Events 11 comments

This post is a summary of a blog chat that I participated in on Twitter this evening. The chat’s hashtag is #blogchat and the organizer’s name is Mack Collier — a sponsor of BlogH.O.T. (H.O.T. stands for Hands-On Training) a live, annual event for corporate and business bloggers to gain intensive training from the leading blogging experts. #blogchat itself is a mind-numbing experience as it’s an hour of 100′s of tweets about a topic.

This weeks topic was How to Use Social Media to Drive Traffic to Your Blog. Here are some key tweets that may be of value to you, from some of the fantastic bloggers that participated in the chat:

* “Make friendships not followers” is a mantra used by Srinivas Rao, a smart social media guy who runs the personal development blog http://theskooloflife.com.

Friendships, for anyone that participates in the BC discussions (blogcatalog not necessarily blogchat) are an obvious result of being part of a smaller social network. Larger networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn often feel like lonely “echo-chambers” where one can start to think that you’re the only live person there.

* Become part of a tribe was another common tweet made during #blogchat. Some bloggers use Triberr to do this. Mack stated something to the effect of Tribber being a contrived form of connection. It’s a place where you form alliances to comment and click on posts. It’s almost like social media “plastic surgery.” It’s just not real thing and while you may see short term benefits you’re likely to end up in a “bad spot”.

* If you are starting out, “test the waters” by using different social networks and see which one’s you get the most resonance on. Once you see where you feel right and receive the most benefit “go deep.” Do not spread yourself too thin. Without real relationships these networks will take up a huge amount of your time and you will receive very little benefit.

* Make sure to promote all your posts on the social networks that you belong to. Your ultimate goal should be to get others on those social networks to be doing more promoting for you. That’s a primary reason why it’s critical to go deep and establish real relationships on whatever social networks you use.

* In your tweets and Facebook posts don’t necessarily use your blog title. Instead use a “teaser” to get people to click through to your blog posts.

* An interesting idea is to “pre-announce” a post and then also promote it after it is written.

* Promote archived posts when you haven’t recently written new posts.

* A number of participants recommended that you promote your most current post 3 to 5 times per a day on twitter, Facebook and whatever other networks you belong to.

* Each time you promote a post change the subject or hashtag. Measure the tweet or fb post that receives the most click throughs and use that one again.

* Make certain you are reaching people that are interested or who you know will be interested in what you are writing about. It’s not necessarily bloggers in the same topic area.

* If you are a business blogger your blog should be thought of as your “central hub.” Share your posts on these other social networks with the outcome being to bring people and content back to your blog.

* If you want to use twitter and don’t have time use bufferapp to schedule your posts. BufferApp will automatically send out your Tweets at pre-determined times.

* Also you have to comment on other people’s blogs & be part of the conversation.

* The beauty of Facebook & Google+ is followers can engage with each other when you ask questions. It’s possible on Twitter with #’s but harder.

* There wasn’t agreement on a social collaboration site that works best. My suggestion is don’t eliminate any. Try them all. See which one’s you enjoy. And then establish relationships there.

* Pinterest was hardly mentioned though from using Pinterest myself, the amount of traffic received compared to how much work I do is far higher than any other social network. Set up boards that match what you write about and promote your posts and bloggers in your niche’s posts on those boards. You’ll be surprised at the daily traffic that you receive, once the boards are set up.

* Niche social networks such BC were barely discussed. It’s clear that niche social networks are often both more enjoyable than larger networks and do a much more effective job at creating an environment conducive to “real” friendships. When this happens it then becomes much easier to then enter into communities such as Twitter and Facebook because most of the bloggers in these niche sites have accounts on larger social networks.

For more information on the talk visit Twitter and do a search on the hashtag #blogchat. It’s always interesting and extremely valuable to hear what other bloggers are doing to promote their blogs and what works for them.