The Ultimate Guide to Blog Promotion

By: | March 14, 2015 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Tips for Blog Promotion

Do you know how to promote your blog post?

Do you feel like you work hard at researching and writing your content just to be discouraged by low readership?

There is more to blogging than researching and writing.  There is a fine art to blog promotion, an art that must be fine tuned as promotion techniques evolve.

Does the ability to get more eyes on your blog rest in your ability to promote your blog?  If yes, you need a guide for blog promotion, an ultimate guide, this post.

If not, you need to find out who would be able to promote your blog, or at least, help you promote it.

My post How to Network Even if You’re Not An Extrovert began with a conversation between three people.  You got to listen in as they discussed how time-consuming blogging is.  It takes up as much time as a full-time job.  Much of that time is spent on blog promotion.  I read that people should be promoting far more often than they should actually be writing.

In my post How You Can Increase Your Blog Traffic Using Triberr, I explained that there are groups of people just waiting to help you share your links.  These tribes only ask retweets in return.

What if there were additional people who can help you promote your blogs?  What if they were important people?  Wouldn’t you like to have people so important that they had massive Twitter and Facebook followings tweeting your blog post links to their followers?  That would certainly cut down on the time you spent promoting your links if you had help from other people.

Let me introduce you to them.  Are you ready?  MostlyBlogging readers, meet the influencers.  Influencers, meet the MostlyBlogging readers.

Now that you are all acquainted, let me explain who the influencers are, how they can be of assistance to you, and how you can find them.

The Influencers

The Influencers are people, leaders, if you will, that are influential in your industry.  I explained in How to Network… that making connections is paramount to successful blogging.  My post Secrets of Successful Bloggers explains that networking is the only secret to blogging success.  I have since reconsidered my position.  (Janice changed her mind, gasp.)  I actually narrowed my position; I didn’t change it altogether.

You need to network if you want to be a successful blogger.  Bottom line, end of story.  However, I now feel that who you network with determines your blogging success.    You need to network with people who share your theme.

For example, I recently was introduced to an influencer.  She is a Mommy blogger.  Networking with her would get my blog women who would expect child-rearing techniques, which I don’t provide.  You need to network with influencers who share your theme.  Their audiences need to be your audiences, so when they tweet your link on Twitter, their audiences come to your blog.

How to Find The Influencers

  • Whose blogs do you read?  Connect with them on Twitter.  See how many followers they have.  Their number of followers is how many people will read your posts if they retweet your links.  Add RT.  Links are more likely to be retweeted if people such as the influencers know you want your links retweeted.  Their Twitter follower count should be massive, far greater than your number of blog followers.

When you follow people, Twitter will suggest others, “You might want to follow…”.  Check out their follower count, if it’s massive, consider following them too.  The shotgun effect works in numbers.  The more you try, the greater the chance you will have success.

  • Go to Topsy.com.  From the home page, type your niche into the search bar.  (In my case, it would be blogging.)  Then, click influencers.   Hit Enter.

There they are, right there on the screen in front of you, your influencers.  If you click their name, Topsy will send you straight to Twitter where you can see their follower count.

A final note of caution, though…  As explained, blog promotion is a fine art.  Part of that art includes being discreet.  Using the tips in this post, make connections.  Network with the influencers in your industry.  However, How to Get Noticed Online Without Looking Like a Spammer was the subject of a whole other post.  That is how important being discreet is.  It took up a 550 word blog post.

Go ahead and network.  Following this advice will give you a foot in their door.  Read, comment, and retweet their posts for them.  Let them get to know you, and the rest should follow.

Don’t you just love happy endings?

Readers, if you feel others can benefit from these tips, please share.

Bloggers, do you have any experience networking with influencers in your industry?  I’m sure we’d all be inspired by successes you’ve had.  Please share in the comments section.  I look forward to your views.

Sources:

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/twitter-users-and-influencers/

http://www.britishmumusa.com/

 

  1. clara

    Whilst I agree with most of what you say, I tend to avoid people on twitter with massive eg 20k etc followers. They will never see your tweet in amongst the constant flow they must get. Plus there’s no way they are actually managing their own account, that’s being done by a machine. Any interaction with them is unlikely to be very meaningful. I usually look for people with similar interests and if they have around 1, 000 followers all the better. I would also question how many people ever click on a link on twitter. …

    • Janice Wald

      Hi,
      I saw your comment come in yesterday and have thought about it ever since.
      1. Where do you promote? I’d love to know. I’ve been trying to find the key to blog promotion since I’ve started. I once asked somebody where they promoted and they answered “SMH”. I didn’t even know what that meant then!
      2. Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook… even if only a few are clicking on the link, for new bloggers without many followers, that could be 1/3 or even 1/2 of all their traffic for the day.
      3. I interviewed people with big blogs for my 19 Experts Tell All round up post. I wrote them on Twitter. They responded within the day. It was so successful, I’m doing another one with different experts. Again, they wrote right back.
      Please tell me where you promote. I am trying so hard to learn so I can grow my readership and help my followers grow theirs. Thank you.
      Janice

      • clara

        Hi Janice – I don’t think there is any one answer to this. Sometimes I think it really is just down to luck! In my view (and I am pretty new to this too), how often your blog gets read simply comes down to how often it is shared by others. And that is hard to predict. It’s just about writing the right blog on the right day. I did one the other day for my people who live in small places series on Gibraltar. It got read by close to 3,000 people and shared 350 times on Facebook. I couldn’t have predicted that! I also like to cary what I write about, within a very lose theme of expat living and travel, to try and bring in different audiences. So I do book reviews, I write about travel, I write about famkily life, I write about expat life, I write about relationships etc. All of these things bring in a slightly different reader. Another thing I do is write guest blogs for various outlets – Expat websites, magazines etc. But this is a lot of extra work so you have to be prepared to put the hours in. Otherwise I only really promote on FB and Twitter at the moment – I am sure in time I will try other places but as always it’s a question of time 🙂

        • Janice Wald

          Hi,
          Thank you for trying to answer my question. Congratulations on your amazingly successful post.
          I promote on Twitter 8 times a day. However, on Facebook, I only promote once on my Facebook page. Do you do more than that?
          Thanks again for trying to explain.
          Janice

  2. john doe

    This post was packed with great information but I still maintain that without content you can not have a successful blog. People will never share or re blog if you have nothing to say . The reason why you have 3400 followers is because every blog you write has something to say and it always is informative and is chock-full of important information

  3. Naijahomecaterer.wordpress.com

    lovly, what an interesting post, very inspiring and educating. Thanks dear janice, hope to hear from you.

    • Janice Wald

      Thank you so very much, as always, for the praise and support of my writing.
      Janice

  4. Lysa

    I have actually become really good friends with one of the influencers in my Lifestyle niche over the past four months. Not all of your influencers will be as friendly or willing to take the time to get to know you but I was rather lucky to have connected with her. She has taken me under her wing and has given me some wonderful advice and support over the past few months! I’m blessed and to have her as a friend and I hope you ALL have the same good fortune I had!

    Thanks again for another wonderful post filled with EXCELLENT blogging tips Janice! You Rock Girlie!

    Much love,

    Lysa xx

    • Janice Wald

      LOL Lysa. Your comments always make me smile. Thank you. I found the influencers!
      As far as my luck with the influencers…
      When I wrote 19 Experts Tell All… I started to network with some of the other experts in my interview. They were kind and shared it. After that, the contact ended. I sporadically try and retweet their links, but again, no communication since.
      I’m not surprised you’ve had better experiences. Your guest post on how to promote will be a gift to my readers and me. Thanks for writing.
      Janice

      • Lysa

        Thanks so very much for your kind words! I am sending my guest post to you shortly! xx Lysa

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  7. Rellick

    You have posted amazing information here that I really haven’t been doing. Love it.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi!
      Thank you so much for your visit to my site today, and your kind words about my post. I’m glad you found the suggestions inspirational. Thanks for your visits. I really do appreciate them and your help on Twitter as well.
      Janice

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  10. Katie Jenkins

    Hi Janice, I just want to let you know I always look forward to your posts. You are so, so generous with your information. I truly appreciate all your quality tips and that it’s not all about luring us in to an e-course that costs $100’s upon $100’s. Thank you for that. Going off a comment I read above, I wanted to see if you had any suggestions on possible ways to ask an influencer to be a mentor. I feel as though I’m implementing your tips and I just cannot seem to grow my email list! I am at a loss. Any help would be HUGE:-)

    • Janice Wald

      HI Katie,
      Great to hear from you! Thank you for contacting me and your nice compliments. I do have ideas for you!
      How to ask an influencer to be a mentor:
      For a price, you can ask Jon Morrow. His blog is BoostBlogTraffic. He charges $600.00 for his year-long guest blogging class, and I think $2,000 to mentor people.
      For free: I don’t think you could get influencers to mentor you; however, you can get them to promote your writing to their many followers.
      1. Find the influencers in your blogging niche. Topsy.com is great for this.
      2. Follow them on Twitter and Google+.
      3. Include their name in your blog post. This could be in the reference or “sources” section, or you could embed a quote from one of their articles in the text of your post.
      4. Send it to them on Twitter and Google+.
      5. If they don’t share it, politely ask them to share it “if they have a moment.”
      Af far as other tips for growing your Email list, networking really does go a long way. Find like-minded bloggers, people who’ve visited your site or other’s sites that you visit. Visit them and respond to their articles.
      Keep me posted. Thanks again for writing.
      Janice

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  12. Mark

    As usual you have provided some very straight forward advice Janice!

    And I’m definitely looking forward to implementing several of your
    proven techniques.

    I’m especially looking forward to implementing your strategy involving
    Topsy.com.

    Thanks, I’ll have to keep you posted on that one!

    • Janice Wald

      Older post. When I click on topsy, nothing is there. I’ve been using the Twitter tool Tweepi to find influencers now.
      Thanks for writing.
      Janice

  13. Otis

    Dang – it looks like I got to the party waaay too late!

    But undeterred, I’m still leaving a comment (see? that’s tenacity. or something)

    I think I remember you mentioning Triberr before. In fact, I’m sure it was you because I’d never heard of it previously. A social network is cool with me. I’m comfortable with those.

    It’s the “networking” part that gives me some pause. I dunno. Truthfully, I can’t say I’m scared (’cause I’m not). But maybe a better term for it would be ‘hesitant’.

    And I say hesitant because in this moment, I’m a fledgling blogger that doesn’t have a crowd of his own & no certified expertise, reaching out to an influential blogger?? Ehhh….I don’t see how I’d be worth their time.

    Funny thing is, it isn’t in my nature to be negative. But I feel like I shouldn’t ignore the obvious either.

    So I could use some advice on this one: Janice, if you were me – how would you handle it?

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Otis,
      1. Regarding a tribe: I wrote about 18 Facebook groups that allow daily self-promotion. A group is like a tribe. Here are the groups: https://www.mostlyblogging.com/facebook-groups/
      2. My blog, MostlyBlogging, has a community for followers. We promote each other: https://www.mostlyblogging.com/blogger-collaboration-group/
      3. Regarding Triberr, while it is true there are influencers there, they are there to promote other people so they get promoted. That’s how they became influencers. Triberr is potential. Try it. If it doesn’t work don’t go back.
      4. Regarding the defunct site Topsy, there are other ways to find influencers I emailed you about. Tools like Commun.it and Tweepi can help you find influencers as well as what I emailed you.
      It was great to hear from you again. Thanks for your lengthy comments. I am sorry I couldn’t comment on your Twitter chat post. I did try, like I explained in my email.
      Janice
      Janice

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Otis,
      Leaving work, but I remember waking up and reading that you called me an influencer. That meant a great deal. Thank you so much!
      Janice

      • Otis

        Well Janice, that’s because it’s true!

        I certainly appreciate your genuine modesty (I really do – it’s refreshing). But put yourself in my shoes. If you visited a person’s blog & witnessed real engagement, got credible advice from the posts, and even received sincere reciprocation after reaching out – AND was coached through stumbling blocks? Wouldn’t you also consider that person an influencer?

        I would. And I do.

        Girl, wear your crown with pride! Believe it or not, but you have put yourself in a position to earn it.

        And yes, you are indeed an influencer.

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