You have your blog set-up. The design is perfect and you have a topic and format picked out. You might even have some posts written. Now, all you need are readers. Readers are the most important part of a blog. They comment and criticize your posts, which might improve your writing. They can also bring in more readers. But, how do you attract loyal readers who will keep coming back for more? Word of mouth
Just telling your friends and family is the least effective way to promote your blog. If your blog has a specific topic, then chances are that your friends and family will visit the site once or twice and then probably infrequently after that. That’s good for a quick surge in page views and your visitor counter but it is not what you need. What you need are readers who will read your posts and be interested in what you have to say. These are readers who are invested in your blog.
Twitter People are constantly finding new uses for Twitter. It’s still a relatively new tool for bloggers but many bloggers are on Twitter. There is also a widget that can put your Twitter on your blog. The most common use for Twitter is tweeting when new posts are up on the blog, or when readers ask questions. Twitter is a great way to keep in touch with your readers but it is also a good way to find ideas for blog posts. For instance, if you have a blog about Chicago sports, some people to follow are ChicagoSports, ChiSportsFeed and BTCsports. They might or might not have things that are relevant to your blog. Facebook/MySpace Which one do you use the most? I tend to use Facebook more for professional and aesthetic reasons. Facebook is simpler and it has a uniform look to it. You can make some changes to the look of your profile but not drastic changes. It also, thankfully, doesn’t allow background music. Almost everyone I know uses Facebook, including my former employers. Most bloggers I know also use Facebook, Facebook groups and Facebook pages to promote their blog. There are applications for Facebook that are just for bloggers to promote their blog. One I recommend is NetworkedBlogs, where you can promote each blog post on your News Feed and have your blog put into a directory with other blogs of a similar type. StumbleUpon/Digg/Delicious/Reddit Sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious and Reddit are similar enough to lump altogether. These are bookmarking and link sharing sites. You create an account and submit interesting links to the site and look at other links that other people have submitted. For a blogger, these sites are essential for getting your posts noticed by people who would have never known about your blog otherwise. StumbleUpon is my favorite, because it goes beyond the other sites. It has a toolbar that can be installed and a ‘Stumble’ button that, when pushed, opens up a random website/blog based on a list of your interests. It also lets you set the interests if you are looking for a topic in particular. As always, I hope these tips prove valuable to you bloggers. I hope to make life easier for both bloggers and blog readers. If you have any questions or if you want to talk about blogging, my email is LSOcasio@gmail.com and my blog, The Zaftig Latina Blog, is http://zaftiglatina.blogspot.com.