Hi, I am Shalu Sharma. I am the founder of YouBihar, the social networking site for the people of Bihar with over 13,000 members. I am also a travel blogger and writeabout India and travelling to India.
Traffic is the lifeline of a blog; if you don’t have it, you don’t exist. Most people rely on the mighty search engines for their traffic. But there are other ways of getting traffic to your blog byutilizing the power of social media.
The role of social media sites is front and center when it comes to driving traffic to my site. The most popular ones include; Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn in descending order in terms of traffic. This means that Facebook is the biggest traffic referrer to my site, other than the search engines. But how do I really do it?
Using Social Media for Blog Traffic
The best social media sites for driving traffic to your latest blog post
Facebook traffic
After publishing a blog post, I would head over to Facebook and post it on my timeline Don’t just post the URL ‘as is’; try to write a small description to go with the link otherwise it looks stupid. People are more likely to comment on a link that has some sort of description with it. When others see it and comment on it, it all counts as a “thumbs-up” on the number of likes. Also join groups where you can share your blog post.
There will be groups in your niche that allow you to submit your posts. Even I have such a group where you can just post the URL (and a description of course) and many of us would actually visit the site and some of us could comment on it. I personally am a member of about 10 such groups that allows me to post my latest post. Even if about one person from each group likes your post, you have 20 likes that looks good on your Digg Digg counter. If your posts are good and compelling, obviously you will soon make a name for yourself and you will start getting traffic through this method.
Google+
The second thing I do is head over to Google Plus. I have 3 accounts and I post on each one of them. I have also joined groups in my niche and most of them allow me to post my article on their group. Believe me, it does work and again you will get a small trickle of traffic from Google Plus. I am not sure what the goal of Google+ is but some analysts are saying that Google wants to prevent the migration of internet users to Facebook and other social networks. It is interesting to note that some of the biggest brands are not yet active on G+ including McDonald’s. In fact, they don’t have a single post on their page.
The third social site here I head over is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is not just for networking, it even allows you to post things just in the same you would do on Facebook. You need to remember that you must have a good looking and professional profile. Try to make connections and if you have 500+ connections, they stop counting, you are then in the 500+ super connector’s club.
It takes a bit of time to get these connections but eventually you will get there. Share your latest post on LinkedIn which will be seen by your connections who will in turn engage with your post. I see a direct connection with my activity on LinkedIn and traffic to my site. Try to update your status few times a day. If you are a business owner, you should even have your own group.
Twitter is great social networking site and it has great abilities to drive traffic to your blog post. It has done wonders for my site as well. I have two accounts and as soon as I have published an article, I then tweet about it on both the Twitter accounts. Now there are some brilliant retweet sites that allow you to get retweets on your new blog post.
If you are looking for retweets and traffic then join JustRetweet and Easyretweet. I use both of these tools. They allow you to retweet other blogger’s content and in return you get offered credits which you can use to get retweets. Both of them are free services but their paid accounts allow you to get featured, get more retweets and more followers. Recently JustRetweet has integrated Facebook and Google +1 which means than you can now get more retweets, Facebook Likes and Google +1′s under one platform.
Stumbleupon
StumbleUpon is another one that I use. But it has not worked as well as I like. You need to use this sparingly and stumble other people’s content more than you do yours. The ratio recommended is 80:20 (other peoples VS your own content).
YouTube
YouTube is another one that I have utilized but too be honest, I have not been able to leverage the power of YouTube to drive traffic to the extent some people have been. But nonetheless, I have created videos that have attracted good views which in turn drive traffic to my blog posts. Ms. Ileane teaches you how to promote your content on YouTube.
If you are not using images then you are missing out on major traffic. Always include images in a blog post and add Alt tags to it. I have a travel site so it’s easy for me to use images. Even if you are not, there are plenty of royalty-free images than you can pick to use in your blog.
Once I have published my article and when traffic from social media begins to fade away, I pin the image from the post to Pinterest and then resubmit to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn giving the article another lease of life from social media. I also try to engage more with others and repin other people’s pictures some which return the favor. It all adds up.
Remember you can automate some of this. I have set mine with HootSuite but I just like doing it manually as well. This means that my latest post gets posted a couple few times on each of those social media sites. If you’re not posting everyday then you can repeat this couple of days later.
Here’s another great article by Ms. Ileane’s on social media traffic. Just don’t fall asleep when you are listening. Not because Ileane’s boring or anything; it’s because she has a smooth, mellow and motherly voice – almost like a lullaby. Isn’t she lovely?
Twitter retweets, Google+, and Facebook at the moment are very effective in increasing your rankings, social back links and making your site look better in the eyes of others. Remember, provide good and entertaining information and gain the trust and credibility of your fans and followers. Finally, always share other people’s content more than you promote your own.
How do you drive traffic to your latest blog post? Share your social media strategies.
Source: basicblogtips.com
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