You Wrote a Blog Post. Now What?

Something that many bloggers think about is: How can I get my blog read? We would all like an audience and to think that our writing is being read by someone. Anyone?

Here are a few tips for getting your blog noticed, read and shared.

1. Share your blog in your email signature. I use WiseStamp to create my custom message.
2. Add your blog to Pinterest. I pin using the Pinterest “Pin It” Button. 
3. Stumble your blog. I wrote a detailed post called Maximizing StumbleUpon for Your Content Sharing Strategy which provides detailed information in StumbleUpon.
4. Make sure that you are utilizing the available space on your profiles (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) by adding a link to your blog whenever possible.
5. Engage with people who visit your blog. If someone new comments on or shares your blog, continue the conversation with them. Visit their blog, share their content and go beyond one interaction.
6. Guest BLOG! Great post by Darren Rowse, @ProBlogger, Why Guest Bloggers are Great for a Blog, goes into great detail but the Reader’s Digest version is that it gets you whole new audience and links back to your blog. Win/win!
7. Be a part of the blogging community by reading, sharing and commenting on other’s blog. Again, common sense, but I think this is where some bloggers drop the ball and others really knock it out of the park.
8. Make sure that you make it VERY easy for readers to share from your blog. Add a tweet button at the top of your post and sharing buttons on the side or bottom of each post.

Power tip: One thing that bloggers should try to avoid is only tweeting their own blog links. Look in your Twitter stream. Is it just a stream of you tweeting your blog? Why would this be interesting to anyone? Following the 80/20 rule (more on that it the ROI of your Twitter ROE ~ Rules of Engagement) and sharing eighty percent of other’s peoples content and twenty percent of yours creates an environment of engagement. There are various thought processes on how many times you should share your own posts. Four is the maximum that I have heard is commonly acceptable, include in this number the times that you retweet others sharing your post. If you are going to share the same post multiple times, space them out through different time zones and days.

Create a personal network of bloggers or social media friends that will share your content and you can share theirs as well. This system of social media reciprocity works well on many levels as you make friends, your content is shared and you have great content to share as well.  This can be done individually or through Triberr which makes it very easy to have your content propelled through social media. I am not a fan of  the direct message to ask to share something, unless you are a real friend to the person and have that arrangement.

And, now I will state the obvious, if you really want people to read your blog write good material. Being interesting is the best way to keep people interested.

Please share what you do to get your blog read?  I look forward to learning from you.

Resources:

How to Get Visitors to Your Blog by AskShane.org

Featured image courtesy of Thomas Hawk licensed via Creative Commons.