When you start a new blog, you jump in, setup your site and start writing and writing. You write amazing content and then you realise, no-one’s reading it except your Mum and your cat. You wonder what to do! How can you get people to know your blog exists? How can you get your amazing content read?
How you market your blog very much depends on your niche and your style. There are a range of approaches such as Guest Posting, Commenting, using Forums, helping other Bloggers, starting an Email List, writing an eBook or using Youtube Videos.
One of the simplest methods is using Social Media. I have found some success in this area and in the month of February have raised my blog views by over 300%.
One of the major methods I use is Facebook. In the last seven days it is the largest referrer of traffic to my blog and it’s traffic that stays around.
Let’s get connecting.
I use five specific techniques to connect with people through Facebook. It’s the combination that creates the traffic.
1) Use your Facebook account for Marketing
This is a decision you need to make before proceeding with using FB for your blog. Do you want your FB account to be just actual friends, or do you want to use it for marketing. It’s a question of whether your blog is your passion and whether you want to share that passion with others.
I made the decision and gradually increased my friends in my circles of acquaintance and through friends of friends. I currently have 1,128 ‘friends’. I promote my posts on my wall, encouraging people to read them and discuss them.
2) Set up a Facebook Page for your Blog
A Facebook Page will spread your content wider, to people who are not your friends. It is not easy, in the beginning, to raise your ‘like’ numbers to a level that makes it interesting, I found that friends were not very interested in going to the page. I raised my initial numbers through an FB advert without a large cost. I now have just under 300 ‘fans’, a number that is gradually growing.
It’s a great idea to have your posts published automatically to your page. I use RSS Graffitti for this.
3) Put a Like Box prominently on your Home Page
Once you have your page setup and some fans on it you need to promote it to your readers. This process of cross-promotion is central to FB marketing. You engage your readers so they feel more comfortable with your work.
The box displays people who have liked you and enables readers to simply click a button to join. Use a WordPress Plugin for this, there are many available, or simply put some code in a text widget. You can get the code here, direct from Facebook.
4) Put Facebook ‘Like’ Buttons on Your Posts
Now link other people’s FB accounts with your posts, creating authority for your work. Put a simple like button at the top and/or bottom of your post so readers can click it if they like your post. It’s easy to do and puts a link on their wall referring back to your post. If a lot of people do this you can get a post going viral around FB.
I use a premium theme that enables me to put this in the code easily, the simplest way, however, is to use one of the many plugins available.
5) Integrate Facebook Comments in your Posts
The most exciting feature is one that FB have just upgraded, the ability to put comments below your post and on FB at the same time. This is could mark a dramatic shift in how people comment on your post. The comment will appear on your wall, the commenters wall as well as the post. This will enable cross-referencing of discussions that could significantly increase them.
There is a great plugin, ‘Facebook Comments for WordPress‘, that will do all the work for you. This doesn’t work with pages yet, but that will come along soon, I think.
Closely linking your blog and Facebook means that conversations can take place in both places. The interaction is widened and many more people see, and can join in, the discussions. If your content is interesting or controversial, the results can send a post viral. One of my recent posts was shared 149 times and received record traffic. That’s worth encouraging.
Do you use Facebook? If you do, how does it work for you, if not why not?