Promoting Your Blog: Marketing and Social Media
Did you read the Blogging Toolkit post from last month? Then you may have some ideas about how to start a blog. Now it’s for marketing your blog!
I suggest sticking to only a few marketing channels at first. You’ll easily overwhelm yourself if you set out to post on every social media platform in existence. I have found that a combination of organic search, Pinterest, commenting on blogs and a little of Instagram bring traffic to Passport by Design. Platforms such as YouTube require so much video-editing time that I know I don’t have. Twitter is not a platform I even use on a personal level, so I figured I’d stay away from that for the time-being as well.
Organic search
I talked about this in my SEO post. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Google will market your site to relevant people for you. Just make sure your posts feature the keywords you want to be found under. Don’t under optimize by not using your keywords enough. Also, don’t over optimize by using your keywords too much. It’s all about balance.
This was a platform I’d never used before blogging. Think of pinterest as a digital cork board where people pin all the things they like. How can you use pins to market your blog posts? Create pins that people will want to either “try” or “pin” for future reference. Many of my most popular pins have included DIYs that people want to try for themselves.
Think about what you want people to take away from your posts. Those that have read your posts can save pinterest pins straight from your blog. On the other hand, they can find your pins and be directed to your blog.
Commenting on Blogs
I started this blog because I enjoyed reading other blogs. I love commenting on blogs with subjects I’m passionate about. Of course this is another way to market your blog. This blog is part travel so I comment a lot on travel blogs. I even geek-out on aviation blogs and merge my love for travel and design. (I go back and forth about adding an aviation design section to the site.) This is a way to meet other like-minded bloggers. It’s also a way to for like-minded readers to learn about your blog.
I’ll be the first to admit that I need to spend more time on the Instagram for Passport by Design. Planoly has been a big help in scheduling my posts, though I need to work on using all the features it has. A Facebook business page is necessary to create a business Instagram page. Though, I do not actively use Facebook for the blog.
Email Marketing
This one actually includes marketing in the name. I currently use Mailchimp for my email newsletters. A newsletter is a great way to keep your blog on the mind of your readers. Every time you post they are alerted. Also send special subscriber-only updates via email.
These are just some ways to create and market to a blog audience. Can you think of some other ways?
