10 Social Media Tips for Bloggers

When it comes to building an audience and driving traffic, bloggers are turning to social media with record results. Instead of relying on organic search or (gasp) IRL friends, successful bloggers know they have to develop a following on key social networks as a way to promote their brands and ultimately get more clicks.

Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon and now Pinterest provide the savvy blogger with plenty of opportunities to attract new readers and engage with regulars, but it can be overwhelming if you’re new to social media or if you only use it for fun.

Here are 10 tips to help bloggers navigate the increasingly complex world of social media — while still making time to write content.

1. Display your social media icons prominently toward the top of your website.

Make it as simple as possible for your blog readers to connect with you on various social media platforms. They shouldn’t have to hunt around to find your Twitter handle, but should be able to click on a button and be taken right to your profile. Bonus points if your social media icons reflect the overall design or feel of your blog.

2. Every blog should have its own Facebook Page.

Even with Facebook’s new subscription feature, there’s still merit to giving your blog its own space on Facebook. It’s nice to be able to post a link every time you publish something new, and not have to worry about annoying your friends. Plus, readers who don’t your name but know the name of your blog can search for it on Facebook. Show your fans some love on your blog by using the Facebook social plugin, which makes it easy to convert readers to fans.

3. Generate traffic with StumbleUpon.

This “recommendation engine” serves as an alternate browser where users click through pages that their SU friends and SU itself have recommended. You can submit your own blog posts into the system, but it works best if you also share them with your SU friends and accept their shares back. Like most social platforms, you need to have a strong following to get good results. While people are still trying to figure out what makes SU content go viral, many bloggers have seen terrific, albeit fleeting, traffic spikes through the service.

4. Import your RSS feed onto your LinkedIn profile using its Blog Link application.

As long as your blog somewhat pertains to your professional goals, you should be showcasing it on LinkedIn. List it as one of your three websites in your profile, where it will be labeled “Blog.” However, by using the Blog Link application, your most recent posts will display right on your profile.

5. Pinterest is the hot new frontier for bloggers.

Pinterest is the cool new kid, and all of the bloggers are scrambling to establish a presence there. Pin your best photos onto themed boards with links to a relevant blog post. Blogs with strong visual content, like fashion, food, design, crafts and travel, are a natural fit. Infographics will also do quite well. Don’t forget to add a Pinterest plugin (like the Pinterest "Pin It" Button for WordPress users) to make it easy for your readers to share your content on their Pinterest boards.

6. Use link shorteners even when you don’t have to.

Twitter will now shorten your link for you, and the length of your link doesn’t matter on Facebook and Google+. But by using a link shortener like bit.ly, you will gain access to metrics, so you'll know how many people clicked and at what time. With this essential data, you can experiment with different ways to tease your content and different times to post it.

7. Use your blog name as your username whenever possible.

Promote your personal brand by consistently using your blog’s name for your Twitter handle, StumbleUpon name, Pinterest name and so on. Then, people don’t have to wonder about your blog’s name — it’s right there. Also, people will remember you easily across platforms, which is key as you develop up your online community.

8. Join blogger groups on Facebook.

There are some very active groups on Facebook that are terrific resources for any blogging issues you encounter. Look for groups like “Travel Bloggers” or “Global Bloggers Network.” WordPress geeks have “Advanced WordPress” and Central Florida residents have “Central Florida Bloggers.” Not only are blogger groups good for problem-solving, but it’s well-known that bloggers like to read other blogs. Do some searching and find a bloggers group that’s suited to you, or start your own!

9. Be generous with other bloggers.

Promote other bloggers' content, and hopefully they’ll return the favor. You can’t simply blast your own content anyway — you need some variety in every social media stream. So why not check out what your fellow bloggers are posting and give them a retweet, a share or a repin whenever you can. And don’t forget to reciprocate and share content from bloggers who share yours.

10. Be on social media — even when it's not driving traffic.

It can be frustrating when you feel that you’re doing everything right (posting good content on the appropriate platforms in the best way possible) and you’re still not getting many clicks. But console yourself by thinking about all of the links that you see throughout the day that you don’t click on. Just spending time on social media platforms is great way to forge relationships, keep up on industry news and find inspiration for that next blog post.

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, ardaguldogan.

Source: http://mashable.com/2012/02/17/social-media-bloggers-tips/

Automate Content Sharing

Social media marketing can take quite a bit of time. We’ve already discussed the process of building online communities that allow you to market to them over and over. It’s not small task to build those communities. And once you’ve built them it’s no easy task marketing your blog posts to them.

Thankfully, there are tools that make it easier.

Automation is your friend when it comes to sharing your blog posts on social media. In this section we’re going to go over the steps for automating as much of your content sharing as you can.

Step 1 WordPress Sharing

WordPress Sharing is possible if you use theJetpack for WordPressplugin. It provides a few services including stats right in WordPress and the sharing function, which automates sharing to a few social networks.

Go to your WordPress Dashboard.

On the left hand navigation hover over Settings and select Sharing in the secondary pop-out navigation.

Connect your blog to the social profiles your have chosen to use. As we’ve discussed, the most likely options are Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

Next, when you start another blog post you’ll see the sharing settings at the top right near the scheduling widget in the editing area. Make sure the checkmarks are selecting for the profiles you setup.

For each new blog post the title will automatically become what is shared along with a link to your post. You can customize what is shared each time by editing the message in this area with each post.

By setting up this automation your new posts will automatically share to a few select social profiles meaning you won’t have to share them manually in as many places.

Step 2 Buffer

Buffer is a freemium social sharing tool. With the free version you can schedule up to ten posts into your queue for about a handful of different social profiles including your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ profiles.

If you’re going to use the free version of Buffer, which is a good place to start, setup each of the social profiles that you’re allowed. Some, like a LinkedIn company page, require the premium version.

Then setup your schedule. You’re given 10 items in the queue at once. Setup to have 10 items share each day for five days during the week. People don’t’ use the Internet as much on the weekends so it’s not as important to share on those days. However, if your industry is unique it might be important to share on weekends. One example would be if you’re an NFL reporter and you need to be active on Sundays.

You also want to share during the times that your target audience is online. For most, this will be from about 11:00 AM Eastern Time in the US to about 9:00 PM Eastern Time in the US. Again, if your customer is more localized than that in the US or somewhere else in the world you’ll have to adjust, but these are the general busy times on social networks.

Another way to determine the best times to share content on social networks is to use Followerwonk. We mentioned this tool earlier in this guide.

Followerwonk integrates with Buffer and identifies when your followers are most active on Twitter. It will also setup your updates to post at those times automatically for you right from Followerwonk.

Each day, schedule new posts to share 5 times every other hour during the day. Create a new, unique title for each of the times you share the post.

For example, the original title is 10 Surprising Ways To Unclog Your Kitchen Sink.

That would be the first title used to share the post.

The other four would be:

This gets your new blog post shared with your audience multiple times so that the most people have the most opportunity to see it. Yet your posts will appear unique because you’re changing the title each time.

And as you share more posts you’ll see the titles that work best with your audience.

For the other updates you can schedule with Buffer you’ll share old posts using the same title tactics, but we’ll talk about this in the next section on re-posting blog content.

If you opt for the paid version of Buffer you can schedule even more content. It’s good to work in content from other sources that are complementary to your blog. You don’t want to promote your own content all the time and it’s good to make those connections with other people that might be valuable members of your community.

Sharing their content is what they want and they’ll likely return the favor if you share theirs enough times.

When sharing updates on Buffer and on social media in general always use appropriate hashtags. These hashtags will work on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other social networks.

To find the best hashtags for your blogs use services such as Hashtags.org,What The Trend and Taglus. These services (free and premium) show you trending hashtags, tags that have high (and low) traffic and suggested hashtags for your specific post.

Step 3 Dlvr.it

Dlvr.it is a similar automation tool that allows you to automatically share new posts to your social profiles. You can set this up using the RSS feed for your blog, which is usually (if you’re using WordPress):

yourblog.com/feed/ or yoursite.com/blog/feed/

With the free plan on dlvr.it you get 3 social profiles and 5 feeds. This allows you to share not only content from your own blog, but content from 4 other complementary blogs. Again, that gives you the opportunity to help others that may potentially help you in the future.

Source: http://www.quicksprout.com/the-complete-guide-to-building-your-blog-audience-chapter-5/

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