If you’re an author or a book reviewer, you’re probably interested in getting more people to visit your blog. Heck, even if you’re rambling without an agenda, you’d probably love more blog visitors. It’s fun seeing your traffic stats climb.
We’ve talked about building links to get more search engine traffic to your blog, but social media sites can be another good way to attract visitors. I’m a fan of Twitter since it’s hard to waste a lot of time there (hey, how verbose can you be in 160 characters?), but it’s easy to check multiple times a day, and you can even get to know people over time. And — the reason why you’re here — you can use Twitter to bring more people to your blog.
Here are a few tips for promoting your blog (effectively) on Twitter:
- Use titles or blurbs that answer the “What’s in it for me?” question for your followers — If your blog post title already does this, you can simply use it in your tweet, but you might have a little more room to entice folks. If you just say something like, “Hey, I updated my blog and here’s the link,” you’re less likely to get clicks than if you detail what you’ve written that’s worth reading.
- Don’t just tweet links to your blog — I don’t even follow people who do this (and I’m not picky about who I follow back). Most tweeps want to engage with people, not get someone’s RSS feed in an alternate format. It’s called social media for a reason.
- Don’t bury your own promotional tweets — While it is called social media, you won’t get many clicks if you post the link and then respond to thirty @ messages in the next five minutes. Most people aren’t sitting at their computers, following your Twitter stream 24/7 (an ego buster, I know). I often post a link to my blog before I’m heading offline to do other things. This gives people who check my tweets more time to notice it.
- Link to your old articles too — I should do more of this myself. There’s nothing that says you can only tweet about your most recent blog post. Do you have some gems from the early days of your blog (back when you had no followers)? You can tweet links to them if they’re still relevant.
- Have enough followers that you’ll get retweeted — This is the true power of Twitter. Thanks to the “retweet” button, it needn’t be just about promoting your blog to your followers. Your followers can promote it to their followers and so on and so forth. An interesting article could bring you quite a few new visitors. You don’t necessarily need thousands of followers, just some that like to spread the word and share cool links. (Make sure to retweet them once in a while too so everyone benefits.)
- Tweet during “prime time” — I’m not the best about this, since I’m a night owl in a late time zone, but Twitter tends to be most active during the work day (which says volumes about our culture), especially the morning. Your link will be more likely to be noticed if more people are online. If you’re in a different time zome from many of your followers (maybe you’re in Australia, but you have a lot of U.S. readers), check out some of the free services that let you schedule tweets.
Do you have any tips you’d like to add? Let us know below!
I haven’t gotten into Twitter yet. Still trying to figure out the point but this helps. Thanx.
You have the most useful website! Tweeting older articles is a brilliant idea. Thanks for these tips.
I’m guilty of burying my promotional tweets and tweeting at weird hours ;D Thanks for the tips Lindsay, helpful as always!
Another tip I’d add is using hashtags to your promotional tweets whenever possible. There are people who browse by hashtags and/or the link gets picked up by people’s paper.li pages. I haven’t been picked up by a paper.li page that resulted in a torrent of traffic, but I think getting any new pair of eyes to your blog is a good thing.
Thanks for the comments, gals! Good point on the hashtags, Frida. I like to keep it to one or two when I use those, as I do think a row of them looks a little spammy.
Good point about the hashtags. The third one usually is the least useful anyway.
I love your tip about tweeting old posts! I have a huge archive of writing articles and I’m always looking for ways to get them “out there” in the world. Blogs tend to be what’s new is what’s better, but a lot of informational blogs have a wealth of information in older posts.
I actually have old posts from other blogs I read that I link to on mine. It just never occurred to me to do the same thing for me. Thanks!
I’ve learned to love Twitter. It’s so quick & I’ve met so many interesting people. Like you. I believe I first ran into you on the Twitter.
Don’t forget hashtags. #amwriting #writing are great for anything author / writing related. There’s tons more. You can search on twitter to look for appropriate hashtags.
And retweet others. It attracts other people into retweeting you and wanting to follow you. Same as blogs I guess. Be generous. Eventually it pays off.
Say something social then ask a question invited everyone to answer. Not many people will, but it’s a good way to start conversations with folks.
I’m all excited that Alex Bledsoe followed me back on Twitter today. 😀 Cool.
I’m still working on my Twitter skills so it was nice to learn and be reminded on how to use it. I really like how you tweet about your books – using keywords and themes – it sure worked for me!
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I love Twitter too. Writing a post in 140 characters is a worthwhile challenge I think. I’ve been promoting my blog and my book on Twitter. I try to remember to use hashtags, mostly #kidlit, #amwriting
Going to take a look through you blog at more postings; got here from Joel Friedlander’s email post today, just so you know. I always like to know how people found me.