Blogging Tips

How social networking sites can work for you

Last week I wrote about using free publicity to attract traffic. This week I’d like to examine another self-promotion venue: social networking sites.

Most people have a MySpace page, a Facebook page, or both. Even if you hate these sites, you’re probably on there somewhere simply because these and similar social networking sites are a good way to, well, socially network. They help you keep track of your friends, find people you used to know, and – most importantly – stalk your exes on the sly. You might also be using LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.

Raise your hands in celebration now, because it turns out that these sites can actually be useful to you: they can help you promote your blog. Here are a few quick tips:

Erase all personal information on your profiles except the URL to your blog. Anyone who wants to see what you’re all about will have to visit your blog to find out.

Message your friends and connections via whatever method the social networking site provides, letting them know they can read your blog if they want to hear about what you’re doing. You can also message them when you write a particularly good post, but be careful because this method can easily backfire. Too many messages about your blog will just irritate people, and can actually drive traffic away.

Facebook has a widget that allows you to post a screenshot of your blog on your profile; you can get it here. Having a image of your blog will help grab the interest of people looking at your profile.

If you run a professional blog, create a Facebook group for it and invite your friends to join.

Do you have other tips on how to use social networking giants to promote your own site? We’d love to hear them.

Written by Kris Larson from Carthage
Posted on January 24th, 2008 and filed under Promote your blog
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6 Responses to “How social networking sites can work for you”

Author comments are in a darker gray color for you to easily identify the posts author in the comments

Tim E. says:

January 24, 2008 at 11:44 pm

Those are some good facebook tips. I am going to get that widget and try it. You are probably right about over-mentioning your blog. I tend to turn off things like that that keep getting in my face all the time.
Goyin Home Business says:

January 25, 2008 at 12:39 am

Excellent post! Social network truly works and has been proven by many marketers to be a great method of networking.
Rizwan says:

January 25, 2008 at 6:53 am

Facebook has a couple of decent apps that actually render your blog posts within your profile.

The one I prefer for showcasing your posts is called Flog Blog, because it publishes the first paragraph of your last 5 posts which is good for driving traffic.

The other one is Blog Friends which is a bit better at maintaing a blog community and letting you see and favourite other people’s posts on topics that interest you.
Mieszkania Poznan says:

January 25, 2008 at 9:39 am

I wouldn’t be too happy if I got messages to look at somebody’s blog. Most of friends on social networking sites are really acquaintances and maybe they don’t wish to get your blog address. I’m sure you can get a lot of traffic when you write really good and unique blogpost about whatever you wish and submit it to social bookmarking sites like digg, stumble upon and similar.
Kris Larson says:

January 25, 2008 at 12:28 pm

Rizwan, thanks for the heads-up. I’m going to try those applications.

And Mieszkania, you have a good point about most online “friends” being acquaintances.

Thanks for your comments, everyone!
Joy says:

January 25, 2008 at 4:59 pm

I also have an account in Facebook and all I can say is I’m really satisfied with all the applications that I installed. It’s efficient and easy to use. My fave is the Stumble Upon application. It made my stumbling easier than before plus other Facebook members can also see my recent discoveries and stumbled pages.