Building Up a Blog with Social Promotion

There are two major components to a good blog. Sure, there are plenty of other components such as design, site speed, consistency, purpose, niche relations… actually, there are so many that I could write a full-length article just listing the different components, let alone going into detail about them. Still, there are two primary components that can overcome poor performance on all of the other areas.

Great content. Great promotion. That’s it. If your content is strong and you’re able to promote your site properly and gain credibility on social media and search, you’re blog will grow and be successful.

The content part is actually easier. If you’re a good writer, strong at making videos, a great photographer, or a combination of all three, you can put together great content. You’ll need passion to do it, perseverance to stick with it, and time to stay consistent, but strong content can keep people coming back to your site.

Early promotion is what gets them there in the first place. Just like a tree falling in an empty forest, a blog with great content that nobody is seeing will not be able to grow simply on the merits of your Pulitzer-quality works. You have to have promotions to make it work.

By “promotions”, I’m not necessarily talking about paid promotions. Those help, particularly on Facebook and other social media sites, but you have to be able to get the right people seeing your content so that it has the opportunity to get noticed, shared, and eventually trusted. There are other ways to promote other than social media, but I’m writing this assuming you have little or no budget, in which case good ol’ free social media is the way to go.

First and foremost, many who read this will say that they are already promoting their blog. They’re sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, and every other social media site and that should be enough, right? If you’re very popular on social media, it might be, but it will probably take more than that. If you’re doing it in an automated way such as having it share directly through a WordPress plugin or RSS service, you’re completely doing it wrong.

Let’s look at how to do it right.

Post By Hand

Stop feeding an automated posting solution. It saves you minutes (maybe even seconds) versus hand-crafting your posts on social media. If you don’t have time to write up an appropriate title and description as well as sharing the right image, you don’t have time for promotion and you probably don’t have time to blog in the first place.

Us the Right Tools

Take advantage of every possible advantage that you can. If you’re going to be posting it to your personal social media profiles, use the right tools. For Facebook, the right tool is Facebook. Don’t post through Hootsuite or any of the common posting tools. Using the Facebook interface is better because it gives you an algorithmic advantage over the API posting services. The same thing holds true for LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Tumblr.

For Twitter and Google+, using a tool like Buffer is fine.

Take Advantage of Platform Strengths

Do each individually and make sure to take advantage of the platform’s individual strengths:

• Facebook: Post the link directly on Facebook.com. Pick out the right thumbnail and make sure it renders properly as a full image rather than a partial image. You may even want to upload a fresh image, particularly if there’s text involved. For maximum quality and space management, use images that are 1200×628 in aspect ratio and at least 600 pixels wide. Fix the title and link description if necessary. Keep the post text short but important. Some say to leave the link itself in the post text but I disagree. It makes it look sloppy.


• Twitter: Whenever possible (which is just about every time) be sure to include an image in your Tweet. The exception is if you have an extremely long title or a ton of hashtags that take up a lot of the necessary character room. Images should be 2×1 ratio and over 500 pixels wide. Use hashtags when appropriate but don’t overdo it. Mention people of note if you believe they will be truly interested, particularly if they’re the subject.


• Google+ and LinkedIn: Pretty much just like Facebook, but craft the text portion to match the network.


• Pinterest: Make sure the image selected is large enough to fill an entire Pin properly. Make the description a full paragraph when necessary and include the right hashtags.


• Tumblr: If you have an interesting image, that is much easier to promote on Tumblr than a link. If you use the Tumblr browser addon, you’ll be able to share as an image from the page directly, select the right one, and hand-craft the description. Doing it this way will make the image clickable to your website. Tags are extremely important on Tumblr. Make sure they’re relevant but don’t be shy with them, either.

Build Branded Pages and Profiles

It can become a chore to build up additional profiles beyond your personal ones, but it’s worth it long-term if you’re committed. Be warned – if you can’t manage them and keep them robust, they’ll become more of a detriment than benefit.

Don’t duplicate your efforts from your personal account. Say things in different ways. Post at different times. Divide and conquer using your two sets.

Share Other Works

The biggest mistake I see people make with their branded accounts is that they’re all about the blog itself. You’ll build an audience for them much faster if you diversify with content from places other than your own blog.

This is hard for some to grasp. Most major blog pages and profiles do not do this. They can afford to not do it. Until you build something as big as Mashable, there’s no reason to mimic them. Build an audience with tons of relevant content even if not all of it is helping to promote your own site.

Final Note

All of this is much easier with money behind it. Facebook and Twitter have great and inexpensive advertising models. You don’t have to spend a ton. A few bucks consistently utilized for promotions can help take your blog higher much more quickly than trying to build it through strictly organic promotions.

If you care about your blog and the content you post, you’ll put in the effort to get people to see it and love it.

via Soshable http://ift.tt/1wIBu33