When you create your first blog it’s difficult to know where you should invest your time and money to grow your audience. A blog is the perfect tool to publish content for an audience who is interested in the topics you discuss. However, new blog owners find it difficult to gain momentum and reach a larger number of people. Traditional techniques like SEO work but take time, energy, and resources.
The good news is there’s another way to attract new online visitors, subscribers and customers. The popularity of social media has changed online marketing in recent years. The following killer social media tips will help new blog owners leverage the power of the world’s leading social media websites.
Create a Blog and Social Media Strategy
Many new blog owners create a blog and social media profiles without fully understanding why. However, social media experts and successful online businesses create an ‘online system’. This online system normally consists of their blog, Twitter account, Facebook account or other social media websites. Each of these components work together to achieve a specific goal.
For example, some blog owners increase their website newsletter subscribers by posting one of their blog articles on Facebook or other social media outlets. If the post has a link to their blog, visitors who click the link in Facebook will be directed to the blog. Here they can read the content and subscribe to the blogs newsletter if they so wish.
Before you go any further, you should create a blog and social media strategy. Your blog and social media accounts should all work together to produce certain specified outcomes.
Don’t Jump In Too Soon
It’s tempting to start posting on social media websites as soon as your blog is up and running. However, you have to know what you’re doing. Research each type of social media platform to see which will be the most effective. Get advice from social media marketing experts and visit reputable online marketing websites.
Social media experts have made all the mistakes and have developed ways to use social media more productively. Some may charge a fee for consultancy services. However the money you spend on social media training now, will reap rewards in the future.
Focus on One Particular Social Media Channel First
When blog owners start out they feel they need to participate on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and other popular social media websites. However, if you’re working alone it’s impossible to keep all of these channels updated. Eventually many blog owners become discouraged. They’ve spread themselves too thin and give up. To make matters worse they start telling others social media marketing doesn’t work.
However, if you focus on one social media platform first, it makes it easier to understand how the platform works. You also start to build better online relationships and begin to publish much more engaging content. Once you figure out how to use one social media website you can either keep focusing on that website or start building relationships on other social media websites. However all of this is time consuming. You want to be sure you and your blog benefit from all of this social media interaction.
Publish Shareable Content on Your Blog and Social Media Accounts
The ability to create content people share with other like-minded individuals is the real power of social media. If you can master this, you will have more website visitors than you could ever imagine. People share content that’s interesting, funny, informative, or is available in an easy to share format. Make sure you always publish high quality content that visitors will share.
Make It Easy to Share Your Content
Creating shareable posts on your blog is only half the battle. You then have to make it easy for others to share this valuable content. You can easily add social media share buttons to posts in blogging platforms like WordPress. A website visitor who views a post they like on your blog simply clicks one of these share buttons. The share button automatically displays a link to your blog post on your blog visitor’s social media profile. This link can be viewed and shared with your blog visitor’s friends and followers. For example, if a blog visitor clicks the Facebook share button on one of your blog posts, a link to your post will appear on your visitors Facebook account where your visitor’s friends can see this link to your content.
Build Relationships and Don’t Sell
Spamming social media sites with ads is a big mistake many new blog owners make. It may seem counterintuitive, but the more you try to sell on social media websites, the more you will be ignored. In more serious cases, you will get a bad reputation and could be banned from these websites altogether.
Most people don’t visit social media websites to make a purchase. Instead they flock to these websites to get information and communicate with others. It’s important to build relationships with like-minded people instead. Interact with them, share valuable content and help fellow members if they need a hand with something. Other people will start to trust you more. Once this happens others will share your content and recommend your products and services if you have a business.
Consider Using Paid Social Media Adverting
Social media websites like Twitter and Facebook are the perfect places to build a following. If you have something valuable to publish on your blog and social media site, more people will follow you. However, if you want to reach a larger, more targeted group of people, creating paid social media campaigns is an option.
Many social media websites let members display sponsored ads to other members of the social media website. For example, if you have a Facebook page that sells fishing lures, you could publish Facebook ads that only appear in front of other Facebook members who are interested in fishing. This is extremely powerful because you’re not wasting advertising dollars displaying ads to people who are not interested in what you have to offer.
Once you know how to start a blog, you have taken the first step to online success. Understand that social media is a means to an end. You can’t simply open a social account and start blasting ads out to an online community that doesn’t know you. Instead you have to plan your social media strategy so that you know exactly why you are using social media and what you expect to gain from it.
