Your Content, Their Content, and Using Both to Promote Your Blog

Relating your blog back to current events is something that will help your blog gain traction, for a few different reasons. I covered some of these reasons in earlier posts on BloggingTips, but they all were regarding the selection of a topic prior to writing an article.
What about after writing an article?

Oftentimes an article you have written coincidentally pertains to something you see in the news. For instance, an article you have written about your own opinion on children starting social networking at an early age may be relevant to a CNN news article you come across about a recent study on the topic.
This is a great opportunity for you to promote your blog.

Socialize It

All of your content should be run through your various social networking channels anyway, so when you post your link about the article you wrote, include a link to the additionally relevant news article as well. Mention how the two articles relate, and give yourself some credit. You were bright enough to think of the topic in the first place. Why not leverage other commentary to further establish yourself as an authority?

If you have already published and promoted your article across the social web, post another update about the additional news story you found, and link it back to your initial shared update of your article as well. This can be tricky depending on the type of social media profile you’re using. If you cannot link back to your first shared update, go ahead and link back directly to your blog where the article was published.

Comment On It

The relevant news story you found most likely came from an online publication that supports comments. If you are able to leave a comment on the site, do so. Include a link back to your coverage of the similar topic and be sire to sign up for email alerts for any additional comments left on this news story. Be sure to remain genuine in your interactions for comments threads, as blatant promotions can easily get your comments marked as spam.

Depending on which type of commenting application you use, your comments themselves can be further spread across the web. Services such as Disqus can help you manage your comments across the majority of your social web, linking them to your commenting activity as an entity revolving around you and your content. Other ways in which comments can further discussions about your lucky topic include tweeting and comments on shared social media content. For instance, you may share a news article as it relates back to your own article with wall posts on Twitter. Foster conversation by responding to comments left on your Facebook wall post, engaging those users as well. This level of interaction reflects nicely on your ability to raise awareness regarding your blog.

Plan On It

Use this coincidence as a lesson learned. There is a great deal of potential when it comes to linking your content with other writers, news sources and websites. The fact that you have covered a topic that has shared interests across the online publication industry means that there’s something to it. Connecting across the social web in this manner can help you promote your blog as you increase visibility in relating your content back to relevant coverage.

Set up Google News and Reader alerts for keywords pertaining o this topic so yu can see any other stories that get published in the future. These can not only be linked back to your initial article, but they can serve as inspiration for stories you may want to work on at a later date.

Written by Kristen Nicole from Kristen Nicole
Posted on November 2nd, 2009 and filed under Blogging
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