3 Smart Ways to Grow Your Blog with Social Media

Posted August 29, 2013 by Amanda Shofner in Blogging / 4 Comments

grow-your-blog

Together, your blog and social media profiles make your Internet presence go ‘round. Rather than viewing them as completely separate, think of your blog and social media as two complementary tools to grow your online presence.

Here are three areas where social media can extend the reach of your blog:

1. Sharing

Sharing your posts on social media gives them greater traction. And it’s not just you sharing your posts. Which is good and helpful. It’s your readers sharing your posts. Which is even better.

You have a limited number of followers, but your followers have followers (who have followers) they can share with. Don’t be afraid to ask for shares or to make it easy to share your post.

Don’t wait for people to land on your blog: get out and start spreading the word.

2. Networking

Social media is one of the best ways to find new people to connect with and to determine whether they’re worthy of your time. Events like Twitter chats provide easy opportunities to meet and interact with new people.

And hitting the follow or like button is easy. It requires little commitment. You don’t have to give up precious inbox space to someone who might abuse the privilege. You have the choice to make further contact…or not.

I’ve always likened social media to the playground and blogs to school. Social media is where you drop a little of your seriousness and have fun. Talk about something unrelated to work. Bond over your mutual love for coffee, wine, or tentacles.

We’re naturally curious creatures. If we find someone interesting, someone we like talking to, we’re going to seek them out in other places. Like their blogs.

3. Positioning

The obvious point here is that you can use social media to position yourself as an expert in your field. And if you’re an expert in your field, your blog must be a quality resource, right? Right.

And because that’s obvious, I want to focus on the not so obvious point: positioning yourself as an engaged, caring member of your niche/community.

If you’re only getting on social media to prove to everyone how knowledgeable you are, people are going to tune out. Who likes a know-it-all who’s only interested in being seen and heard?

Please, for the love of all things social media, don’t do this.

But here’s a secret about being an expert: you’re more legit when you share other content. Because no one knows it all. And being able to point people to content they need–whether it’s yours or not–is an excellent way of establishing your expertise.

If you’re an expert, then of course you know the best resources your community can benefit from. You have the smarts to wade through the overwhelming amount of information and pull out the best and brightest to pass on. And people will appreciate your effort.

If your community trusts what you share, they’ll trust you–and your content–more. When you share content that’s not yours, you show your engagement within the community at large. I trust people who send me to quality resources because it shows they care about me, not landing their next client.

How do you use social media to grow your blog?

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4 responses to “3 Smart Ways to Grow Your Blog with Social Media

  1. Absolutely on the last point. The legitimacy comes from knowing that you’re aware and confident enough in your own knowledge to show them another option, another place to go for advice. I also love that we’ve come to a place that our so-called competitors are actually trusted resources and friends online.

    I try to share others’ information as much as I can, mostly on Twitter, but also on Facebook.

    • Sharing content that supports or restates what we’ve said also strengthens our own claims. If I say you should be doing X, and I can share a few articles from trusted sources saying you should be doing X, then you know I’m not just pulling the information out of thin air.

      I also fall back on my academic training here too. When writing papers and conducting experiments, your research has more validity when other studies have supported your results. We don’t exist within a vacuum, and acting that way does us no favors.

  2. I write poetry. It is hard to get another poet that has the same tone as you.I heard different things about sharing. But what if you have people that are so negative; business oriented people in your Facebook. Twitter is the best social media I know. How do you like Facebook ?

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