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Of course you want to encourage your readers to share your posts on social media. This is the way your blog’s content is exposed to a larger audience, spreading your expertise and message further afield than was possible before.
That is the beauty of social networking. It is also an indication that shows which format works best for promoting your blog, especially if you place counters against your share buttons.
Prolific bloggers like to share impressive statistics about the number of visitors they get to their blogs, and generally they have to work very hard to achieve these results. I confess that if I do get a higher than average record of click throughs to a social network, I’m hopping around the room with joy. This is because I don’t put in place carefully constructed marketing processes to get a higher sharing rate, which I really ought to do if this blog is to succeed.
However, this blog is not short of call to actions asking my readers to share. Usually I’m quite happy with a small number of responses (as long as I’m not stuck with a big fat zero), and it does depend upon which kind of reader has the opportunity to read what I have written.
But, when some kind, influential person does retweet my post, the effects can be amazing! Suddenly I’m looking at numbers this blog does not normally see; jaw-dropping statistics that totally surprise me. And it is also interesting which position these call to actions need to trigger the best response: ie the floating bar on the left that stays in the same place when the reader pans down.
Recently I had to change this plugin, as suddenly the original floated too much to the right, placing itself over the text. In fact I noticed this more with another blogger, and drawing his attention to it, persuaded him to find an alternative. Ever since the new version was installed, the counters have recorded phenomenal figures – in spite of it not being visible on the main blog page.
I can only deduce that my other plugin that retweets old posts managed to catch the attention of beneficial blog readers who were suitably appreciative enough to share my posts, providing a higher readership than had been encountered before. I am thoroughly pleased that the effort I took in activating these plugins: ‘sharebar’ and ‘tweet old post‘, has finally paid off, and suggest that those who have WordPress.org blogs should install them as well.
I’ve written a post – now what?
Fairy Blog Mother
Well done for writing a post – after all, that’s what your blog is for. Now you’ve got to let people know so they can see and read it. This can either be done manually or through automated systems.
Here is a list of what can be done to spread the exposure of your post:
Set up a RSS feed: RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, which means automating a procedure for something to happen simultaneously in several places at once!
This means your subscribers will receive your latest post in their email inboxes, or view the latest feed in their search engine reader pages, immediately without you having to send it to them, or they remembering to visit your blog to find out your latest post.
Update your status: You can also use RSS to automatically feed your posts into Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and any other social media you’ve joined up with.
After you’ve published, your posts will automatically appear in your profiles via the special applications available, either with the headline, first paragraph and connecting link, or in Twitter as the headline accompanied with a tinyurl linking back to your post.
Allow readers to share: You can add applications to your blog to encourage people to share your post once they’ve read it, for example, there are the three boxes at the top of this post to encourage my readers to retweet in Twitter or share via Facebook and LinkedIn.
At the bottom of the post there is another button to encourage my more technical audience to share and save in any of the myriad of social bookmarking sites, which will boost the post’s exposure considerably.
Contribute your content: Sometimes it’s worth spending a bit of time manually promoting your post, especially if it’s performed with a personal touch, as that can set it apart from automated feeds. Start slowly with one or two locations, and build it up gradually.
If you’ve joined any relevant LinkedIn Groups, contribute to the discussion by posing a provactive question or statement, backed up with a link to your latest post, and do the same for LinkedIn Answers if you post qualifies and contributes to your answer.
Join in on other discussion groups and forums, either with helpful and relevant responses or by starting another thread with a link to your post. Comment on other blogs within your niche or industry, as that will automatically link back to your blog, as well as drawing attention to yourself, and some blogs will automatically show the last post you’ve written too.
Update your email signature: If you send out a lot of emails, you could be missing an excellent publicity slot if you don’t include your blog’s URL in your signature. You could even type in the latest post’s permalink for direct access.
That will do as a start. Automation will make your life easier, but don’t ignore manual contributions which can differentiate your post from others, and ensure its relevance to the environment it is posted into.