Even the most beautifully crafted blog posts containing excellent content are no good if nobody reads them.   Promoting your content is an essential component of your blogging success.  Here are a few tips to help you get found through social media. 

1. Write good quality content that is worth sharing – Nobody will tell their friends about a dull and boring blog!  Take care to make your blog posts interesting and of value to your readers.
2. Work at growing your social networks – Unfortunately as internet users continue to grow their own social networks they are more likely to forget about you!  To make sure that new people continue to find your blog you should join new social networks yourself and ensure that you follow/friend request from new people who are interested in your content.
3.  Target your blog posts carefully – Do not use your blog as a sales pitch.  Make good use of the ‘categories’ in you blog so that your readers can easily find the posts about the subjects that interest them.  Your readers are busy people and they will not want to read everything you publish!
4. Encourage comments from your readers – Posts with an active flow of comments are desirable for a number of reasons:

 From a social media standpoint people who leave comments are more likely to ‘share’ your blog with their friends  as they will feel that they are part of your post. 

Comments will give you confirmation and reassurance that readers are finding your posts interesting and of value to them.

5.  Spread out your shares and avoid synching your networks – If you have a presence on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, don’t syndicate your updates across all sites. Chances are that you will have the same people connected to you on more than one platform, and if they see the same content, presented in exactly the same way, they might see you as ‘spammy’.   Produce a specific update for each of your social media channels and update each at a different time.  If you post daily why not rotate your updates?

6. Say thank you for shares – This will encourage your readers to share your content more often and will also demonstrate to others that people feel your content is good quality and worth sharing.  Also consider re-tweeting any shares you get on Twitter with your thank you. That way any of your followers who missed your original share will have another opportunity to click on the link.

7. Don’t just use Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn – Consider building a presence on ‘bookmarking’ sites like Digg, StumbleUpon Delicious or Redditt. The key to any of these sites is that you have to be an active participant in the network to see any real benefit from being part of it. Simply creating a profile will not do, you need to build your community there, connect with people and share content outside that is not only your own – on a regular and frequent basis,  If appropriate look to join any relevant industry specific social networking sites. 

8. Be creative on Twitter – Twitter is used by people from all across the globe in many different time zones.  If you simply share your post once there is a strong possibility that not everyone will see it.  You need to find ways to re-share it without merely re-posting the same content as before.   Try adding a “just in case you missed it” message so that those who saw it first time around don’t become annoyed. 

9. Let people know – If your post makes reference to someone else in your industry or another brand, let them know about it.  If your post is positive about them they are likely to share it with their own social networks (or through their own blogs). 

Many businesses have installed automated monitoring services such as Google Alerts. If you mention a brand or business in your posts there is every chance that they will know about it – and read it to see what you are saying about them. 

Whilst there is no way you can guarantee that each and every post you write will create a buzz on the social networks, or indeed generate a lot of traffic for your website, unless you try it you will never know!  It is up to you as the business blogger to offer quality content that your readers will want to share with their own social networks. 

We hope you have enjoyed this series of 8 posts aimed at helping you achieve online blogging success in 2011.  If you would like any further information please leave a message or visit WSI IMS – WSI Internet Marketing Services for UK Businesses.