If you had to name one aspect of blogging that you consider the best, what would it be?
Many bloggers would name community.
Consider this comment from a reader:
Blogging is cool… you comment and someone is usually nice and friendly…alas energy spin has me fighting logic thinking where’s the catch? But…there isn’t one… people here are cool… I’ve met some neat people…. very, very neat people ?
He is right.
My posts have consistently insisted networking is the way to grow blog traffic.
However, if you are looking to network for the purpose of growing blog traffic, there are some social media sites that are preferential to others.
According to Stephanie Frasco, a vice president of social media, you should network with people who post on social media. According to Stephanie, etiquette insists you reply to their posts and notifications.
Blogging is about social media. I agree with Stephanie. You should be social. Wouldn’t a nice perk of networking on social media sites be an increase in blog traffic?
According to Ashley from NoseGraze.com, you should network with like-minded bloggers in order to engage interested readers who will comment and return for more.
Let’s play a game I like to call “Yes, No, Maybe So.”
Can you predict on which social media sites it is preferential to network with like-minded bloggers in order to increase blog traffic?
I am defining like-minded bloggers as bloggers within your blogging niche.
11 Free Social Networking Sites That Will Increase Your Blog Traffic
Yes
Recently, I was consistently getting 150+ page views a day from StumbleUpon. I decided to push the envelope and shoot for the moon (and the sun and the stars as well).
If I became even more active on StumbleUpon, I could get even higher hits from StumbleUpon, I reasoned. The problem is you can’t post your own links on StumbleUpon if you want to get massive page views from it.
The answer– I joined two Facebook StumbleUpon groups. The purpose is we stumble each other’s links, so are links are getting stumbled, but not by us.
Did my hits from StumbleUpon reach the sun, the moon, or the stars? No. My page views from StumbleUpon tanked.
Confused, I Googled the question, and blogging guru Neil Patel had the answer. You have to stumble like-minded bloggers’ links, he explained, in order to get high page views from StumbleUpon. The people in the group with me were “Mommy Bloggers”. I am not a Mommy Blogger.
My case study post, This Will Make You See 566 Page Views in 12 Hours explains how a like-minded blogger, Bob Barocas, who also blogs about blogging, stumbled my link, and I received 566 page views that day, a large amount from StumbleUpon.
The power of Instagram lies in the hashtag. If I post a blog photo to Instagram with the hashtag “blogging,” I might be found by blogging-tips bloggers there who also use the hashtag “blogging” on Instagram.
Once you search the hashtag of your blogging niche, follow Instagram users with the most followers. They will learn about you. If they like your photos, you have the potential to get discovered by others in your blogging niche on this popular social media site.
I have many magazines at Flipboard. All of them are subtopics in my umbrella niche, blogging. People who search those subtopics are interested in what I am interested in– topics related to blogging. By searching my subtopics, like-minded Flipboard users (flippers) find me.
Google+’s Communities are all based on your interests. I am a member of SEO, social media, and blogging communities, so like-minded bloggers can find me. I receive consistent traffic from Google+, and subscribers as well.
I joined a blogging forum at LinkedIn and met people who became readers, subscribers, and eventually friends off the blog from LinkedIn. There are many forums there like the one I joined.
I even posted an original blogging-tips article to LinkedIn, so like-minded readers could find me.
Like Instagram, Twitter’s power for bloggers lies in the hashtag. Sites exist just for the sole purpose of advising bloggers which hashtags to use, so they can be found by like-minded bloggers. Hashtagify.me is one of them.
No
Recent Pinterest articles all point to the same answer to getting blog traffic. Due to Pinterest’s recent algorithm changes, the solution is commenting on other pinners’ pins.
Comment on any pins. They don’t have to be in your niche. If people who made them comment on your pins, your visibility, and therefore your traffic, will increase.
I join the Pinterest game every week with many hostesses. I also have a commenting buddy. All these people regularly comment on my pins who are not in my blogging niche, and my visibility is rising.
It doesn’t matter who asks you questions at Quora. By answering users’ questions, you will establish yourself as an expert in your niche. This could lead to more subscribers. Also, you can leave links to articles relevant to your answers which will lead to increased readership.
Maybe So
According to blogging guru Neil Patel, users aren’t on Facebook to read blogs.
Then, why isn’t the answer a “no”?
It depends on who your Facebook friends are. If they blog in your niche, the answer is “yes”. If they don’t blog or don’t blog in your niche, the answer is “no,” so the answer is… “maybe”.
My Facebook friends don’t blog or don’t blog in my niche, so I post my articles to my Facebook page.
BizSugar, as the name says, is for business bloggers. However, they have so many threads that have nothing to do with business, this can go either way. You can leave links to your productivity posts, and social media posts in addition to marketing or SEO articles or anything else business related.
I’m not sure if WordPress.com counts as a social media site, but it’s a great place to network.
Why “Maybe So”? Blogger Danny Ray advocates searching using tags. By using the tag of his blogging niche, he has boosted his growth up to more than nine thousand followers!
On the other hand, I have searched at WordPress.com using blogging, the tag of my niche, as well as many other tags. I am happy to say I have increased my growth by searching many tags, not just the tag of my niche.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I am not trying to make you or anyone into a cliquey blogger. One of the many joys of blogging is networking. Many of my closest blogging friends are not in my niche. I am fortunate to know them.
That said, enjoy the community networking brings, wherever you network. However, if you want a perk of networking to be blog traffic growth, follow the advice in this post.
Readers, please share, so other bloggers know networking strategy.
Readers, what do you consider the best social media site to network on? If you only had time to network on one site, which would it be? Which site will bring the greatest return of visitors from your time invested? I look forward to your views.
Related Posts and Pages
79 of the Most Effective Ways to Get Free Blog Traffic
89 of the Best Free Blogging Tools That Will Save You Time Blogging
How to Get Swarms of Free Blog Traffic with Flipboard
This Will Make You See 566 Page Views in 12 Hours (Relates to StumbleUpon)
This is the Way to See Staggeringly High Blog Traffic– StumbleUpon
How to Get Tremendous Blog Traffic from Instagram
How to Get Blog Tremendous Blog Traffic From Instagram Part II
7 Ways You Can Increase Your Blog Traffic Using Google (Relates to Google+)
8 Ways to Attract Hoards of New Blog Traffic Using LinkedIn
How to Quickly Tweet Your Way to Blog Traffic
How to Increase Blog Traffic with Quora
5 Ways to Get Massive Traffic with No Extra Effort [Pinterest Group Boards]Â
This is How Facebook Can Always Help You Blog Better
