How to Promote your blog with Social Marketing: A Beginner’s Guide

So, maybe you just started a new blog, or maybe you’re an experienced blogger looking to boost your readership. You’re thinking about taking a more proactive approach towards your presence on social media, but you have no idea where to start. If that’s the case, then this is definitely the guide for you.

If you’re looking to market something, there’s literally no reason for you to not be using social media. I don’t care if you’re promoting a blog, a business, a product, or just yourself – at its core, marketing is about connecting with people and in 2015, social media is undoubtedly the best and most accessible method for connecting to a large number of people at a very low cost. Don’t believe me? Here are some of the benefits that you can reap by using social media in an effective and engaging way:

• Driving Traffic – Social media is a great way to drive traffic to whatever it is that you’re offering. In particular, bloggers will find that an effective social media push can essentially be used as a launch pad for a new blog or idea.
• Diversify Traffic – If your blog or business has been relying on the whims of Google to drive traffic to your site, social media is a good way to diversify and protect yourself – if you can generate consistent traffic from social media, a Google algorithm change won’t hurt nearly as much.
• Boost Brand Recognition – The more active you are on the various social media platforms available, the more people will begin to recognize your brand. Even without the budget for a big advertising campaign, you can get your name out there into the zeitgeist and get people to recognize you as a legitimate business/brand.
• Build Relationships – One of the more underrated aspects of social media is that it’s a great place to get in touch with influential people in your industry. If you’re able to build up a rapport with experts/celebrities in your niche, that opens the doors to a whole new set of opportunities for your business or your blog down the line.
• SEO Benefits – This applies specifically to those of you who primarily work online. While it’s unclear whether Google takes social signals into account in their ranking algorithms, what we know for sure is that if you get enough social traction, that can often lead to strong, authoritative organic links (the best kind). It’s not uncommon for major news outlets to source story ideas from social media, and links from these kinds of sites are incredibly powerful in SEO terms.

So, are you convinced yet? Social Media is an incredibly powerful, very cost effective tool when used in the right way. Now you know why you should be using it. Next up, we’ll explain how.

Choosing the Right Social Media Platforms

One of the most common mistakes that people make when trying use social media for promotion is that they take a one-size-fits-all approach. This is especially prevalent with big corporations. The truth is, different social media platforms serve different audiences, and you don’t need to be on every single platform to be successful. In fact, I would recommend that you focus on just one or two platforms, and go deep on them rather than spreading your effort out among 5 or 6 different ones. Deciding which platform is best for you will depend on who your audience is and what their habits are. Here’s some info to help you decide.

Facebook

• The most generic social media platform
• Paid ads can be effective if correctly targeted
• Can be used by businesses to have extended communication with customers
• Pretty good for developing a dedicated following
• There are many public groups that you can post content to spread awareness

It’s probably a good idea for most blogs and businesses to set up a Facebook page, but in many cases it shouldn’t be your #1 focus. I’ve heard that Facebook Ads can be extremely effective – we may post about that in the future. In our opinion, FB is a bit too generic to focus in on as a priority unless you already have a large following, but you should definitely have a FB page set up to take advantage of the large number of users.

Twitter

• Incredibly useful for connecting to industry experts and insiders
• Can be excellent if you’re trying to develop a personal brand
• An effective platform for showing off strong customer service
• A good platform for promoting giveaways and contests
• A great tool to discover what people are talking about in your industry/niche

Twitter is useful for being ‘in the conversation’ – if your niche or industry is news focused, then twitter can be effective both for promotional and educational reasons (Example of niches that are news focused: Finance, Entertainment, Celebrities, and SEO). Twitter can also be useful if you plan to run a lot of promotions, contents, or giveaways. Giving people an incentive to retweet can potentially help you go viral. Last but not least, Twitter is probably the best platform for building relationships with industry influencers – it only takes a single tweet to strike up a conversation, and because of the character limit, it doesn’t feel like a burden to talk to someone you don’t know. As such, even people with a great deal of influence are usually happy to interact with other folks on twitter.

Pinterest

• Entirely image focused – if you can’t use images to market whatever you’re promoting, don’t bother with Pinterest as a platform
• Skews heavily towards female users, and also skews a bit older than most other platforms
• If you’re marketing something that interests woman, Pinterest should probably be your focus
• Traffic from Pinterest tends to be slower and steadier than other networks – it doesn’t spike up and drop off as often.
• Requires the ability to put together visually attractive images (or hire someone who can)

Pinterest is the place for anyone who wants to promote primarily to women. It can be an extremely effective platform for promoting products, particularly products that are in the realm of the visual (clothes, jewelry, tourist destinations, etc). Also, Pinterest users are more indiscriminate in the things that they share (it’s easier to share an image than to endorse an opinion).

Reddit

• Reddit skews heavily male, and its users are mostly tech savvy
• Generally a protective community that will try to punish spam and cynical marketing efforts
• On the other hand, reddit users tend to reward good content and generally appreciate honest attempts to add value to the sub communities (subreddits)
• Will yield better results when you post to more specific subreddits
• Can cause huge traffic spikes – occasionally reddit has been known to overload the servers or smaller sites

Reddit is essentially the opposite of Pinterest – it skews male, and it has touchy users that will attempt to punish you if your only goal is to promote your product/brand (just ask Woody Harrelson). Generally speaking Reddit rewards active engagement and community building, and it can be a huge traffic driver if you post the right kind of content. On the other hand, it can be a hard nut to crack if you’re not promoting a certain kind of blog/product/brand.

Instagram

• Shares similarities with Pinterest, but skews younger and more urban
• Allows for videos as well as images
• Largely a personality/brand driven platform – the trick is to build your follower base
• Probably most effective for promoting stores and shops that can be presented well visually – e.g restaurants, clothing stores, etc.
• A good way to show what ‘goes on behind the scenes’ or other kinds of ‘candid’ photos and videos

To be honest, I’m not super familiar with Instagram, but it seems to me like it’s the younger, more chic version of Pinterest. A simple example would be that if I was selling fine jewelry, I’d probably go with Pinterest – if I was selling edgy artisan jewelry, I might go with Instagram instead. In any case, I won’t pretend to be an expert on Instagram, but my guess is, a Pinterest/Instagram combo would be a strong 1-2 punch if you’re marketing to women.

LinkedIn

• Business oriented social network
• The best network to market on a B2B level
• Good for making connections if your niche is business related
• The right type content can get decent traffic on the network
• Most people don’t spend a huge amount of time on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a very professional oriented social network, so it’s only useful for promoting a certain kind of blog or product. That being said, my guess is that people will be more engaged in something when clicking through from LinkedIn because it suggests that they might be genuinely trying to learn about a new idea/skill rather than just browsing for fun. LinkedIn can also be a great place to network with people in certain niches, and it is definitely the best platform for marketing on a business to business level.

Social Media Promotion and Platform Hubs

Now that you know which platforms fit your needs best, it’s time to get started. If you don’t already have accounts on the platforms you’ve chosen, you’ll need to create them.

After you’ve done that, the first thing you should focus on is finding the hubs on that. I use the word ‘hub’ here as a generic term – on different platforms, it might mean a different thing. A hub is basically wherever the people gather – it’s the way you can get access to a large number of people with minimal effort.

• On Facebook, hubs are generally groups – it takes time and effort to add people as friends individually, but joining a group and posting there gives you access to a bunch of people who might be interested in your offering without adding them each individually
• On Twitter, the hubs are trending hashtags and users who have a lot of followers. Use hashtags when you see an ongoing conversation that is relevant to your niche – that way, people who look for that hashtag will see your tweets. Follow users who have a lot of followers (generally, when you follow someone, they follow you back) and tweet high quality stuff to them and hope that they’ll RT you.
• The hubs on Pinterest are group boards. Creating your own boards and building up a following takes a long time – if you can get access to a large group board, you can access a large number of people almost instantly.
• On reddit, the hubs are the subreddits. Subreddits are basically communities within reddit that are interested in certain topics. If your posts are high quality and get upvoted enough, it’s possible to stay on the first page of any given subreddit for an extended period of time – this can provide your site with a lot of traffic.
• The hubs on Instagram are personalities (people who are famous) – so your goal is to get big names to follow you. Do this by following them and commenting and liking their photos. Instagram also has hashtags, so you can also dig up some industry/niche relevant hashtags to use in your uploads.
• LinkedIn is useful for B2B marketing, and there is also a group system similar to FB.

Other Tip for Social Marketing

Here’s a collection of other tips that I think are important to remember as you begin your social media marketing efforts.

• It’s better to post frequently than to post in large batches. Even if you’ve got a lot of content to share, you should drip feed it to the platforms you’re using rather than posting everything in one go.
• Don’t approach social media cynically. At best, you’ll receive indifference – at worst, you can turn the people who should be your most loyal followers against you. Remember that you’re dealing with real people and act accordingly.
• Find plugins and tools to make managing your accounts easier – for example, if you use WordPress on your blog or website, there are a huge number of plugins that might be useful. Since we’ve covered so many different networks, it’s hard to recommend a plugin for each platform specifically, but there are tools and plugins available to use for pretty much any social platform you can think of. A few of the more popular social tools include HootSuite and IFTTT.
• Think about time zones. If you’re targeting people in the US, you don’t want to be doing your social marketing at 4am EST. Think about who you’re trying to connect with, and adjust your posting/uploading schedule accordingly. A reddit post that could net you 20k views at 4pm will get you nowhere at 4am.
• Engage the users and communities that you’re dealing with. The biggest marketing advantage you have over a large corporation is the ability to provide a personal touch – people are much more likely to like/share/RT/upvote/repin/follow you if they feel like they’re dealing with a real person rather than some corporate PR department.
• Use social platforms to find out what people want from you. They’re social platforms – the communication shouldn’t just be one way. Social media isn’t just a place where you can tell the world about yourself and your brand – it’s also a place where you can learn more about what people want from you and your business/blog.

So, hopefully you’ve learned a little something about social marketing from this post. Hopefully you liked it – and if you did, feel free to Like/Tweet/Share the article on Social Media.

Site visitors make snap judgments about you within seconds of loading your pages. They're likely to notice what your brand is all about, what your website's niche is and even what your take on your industry's hottest topics are. But the biggest things that will stand out are the visuals – your site's design, your logo and the images you use as illustrations and navigation cues.

Humans process imagery far more efficiently than text. In today's web browsing culture of "bounce in, bounce out," you've only got so many milliseconds to grab people's attention and help them feel that they've arrived somewhere worth staying. Every aspect of your website’s design should match your brand and the emotional response you want to evoke in your readers and customers. This principle applies to everything from your header and sidebar widgets all the way to your social media icons and the background patterns you use.

There are so many icons available that website owners often just opt for haphazardly, but it’s worth putting some thought into getting them right. Your blog and your social media profiles are key parts of the ecosystem that is your brand, and the icons you place on every page are an important opportunities to convey your brand's flavor.

1. Dynamic Timeliness

If your brand is meant to project fun and creativity, you may want to switch your icons according to season, topic or a timely theme. Consider these examples:

• Put up Christmas-themed icons in December.

• Switch them to Easter-related ones in March.

• Run fireworks in July

• Sand castles in August

• Textbooks in September

• Fall foliage in October

These are just a few examples to get you started. There is so much more you can do if you think creatively.

Users will love seeing something new every time they land on your homepage. They may even visit the site just to see what icons you have up today, like people do with the ever-dynamic Google Doodle series. By keeping things fresh, you lower the chances that repeat visitors will tune out your icons, and you give them a little something extra to enjoy.

2. Edgy Flatness

To project a trendy, super-contemporary brand image, choose flat social media icons. Those puffy, photorealistic icons (called "skeuomorphism" style) that were once ubiquitous have now gone out of fashion and been replaced by simple and clear ones.

The latest operating system designs by leading companies like Microsoft and Apple leverage the flat (or "metro") style of design, and other tech brands have followed suit.

The flat design trend makes a lot of sense. Back when computer monitors and mobile device displays were first becoming capable of photo-realistic representation, interface designers were keen to showcase the literal connections between the symbolism on screen and the actions represented. But now users are more sophisticated, and we know that a folder icon is meant to be a virtual representation of a folder, for example. So when we allow symbols to be symbols, the beauty of the shapes themselves is what stands out.

3. Subdued Calm

For bloggers who want their content to speak louder than their design, subtle monochrome and embossed icons are excellent choices.

These are noticeable and recognizable without detracting from page content or distracting readers. If your content is serious and your posts are longer than the average, you can project a distinguished image with these icons. The embossed effect, with its subtly implied sense of depth, allows you to use color schemes that have limited contrast. What's more, when the icons look like they can be touched, you're using the visual language as a kind of call to action, asking site visitors to click through.

Visual Coherence for Alluring Publications

Consistent branding is crucial for creating an immersive world with your publication that visitors want to come back to again and again. Every single element of your site's interface either supports or detracts from that image, and social media icons are no exception.

So before you download the first icon set you find on Google, spend some time researching icons and choose the ones that best match your branding. Your site will become stickier, and you're likely to gain more followers on your social channels as well.

You may think that programming all your social media messages for the weeks at a time is a good thing, but there are some serious mistakes to that strategy alone. Like any good marketing plan, a balanced blend is what’s needed to succeed and pre-programmed messages alone won’t cut it.

Here are 3 tips to help you avoid scheduled social media disaster.

Problem: You Look Fake

When you schedule all your social media ahead of time through a service like Hootsuite, your posts all show up with a little line of subtext that discloses they’re coming from hootsuite, so everyone knows your faking your live interaction. While some scheduled, released posts are fine, if you want to look genuine and like you’re interested in real-time conversations with your social media communities, don’t rely on scheduling alone. Everyone can sense a phony. Certainly you’ve been out to dinner with someone at some point in your life where you could sense they were just “going through the motions;” it’s not a good feeling to be on the receiving end of that one-way conversation. So don’t do that to your community and expect to have raving fans of your business.

Solution: Schedule things like blog posts you expect to come out that week or important holiday notices or closures, but make sure you have at least a 50/50 blend of pre-scheduled posts with live interaction generated from each unique social media outlet. If you don’t have time to consistently do so, hire a company to do this for you. There are many affordable options out there like $99 dollar social that for just $99/month will help you with your social media posting.

Problem: You’re Out Of Touch

You’ve scheduled all your topics and posts for social media for the week and now you’re onto the daily business of running your company. The only problem is, someone commented on a post or someone sent a complaint through Twitter, but you didn’t notice because you’re out of touch with your social media communities. After all, you programmed out all your socials so no need to check your accounts. The trouble is your reputation gets damaged and your community falls apart if this happens too often, sometimes if it happens even at all. Folks might let neglect slip once or twice, we all get busy, but consistently ignore or neglect them and they’ll leave you fast – or worse, complain about you fast. Don’t chance your reputation.

Solution: If you find it difficult to remember to check your social media accounts, set triggers through each one to notify you on your phone when you or your business are mentioned in a social media post, comment or message. It will help you keep track of live conversations and get involved in real time so your communities don’t feel neglected, while protecting your company’s reputation at the same time.

Problem: You’ve Got Glitches

When you schedule all your posts and then don’t keep an eye on your accounts, you run the risk of not knowing when there are problems with one of your platforms. Glitches happen in automatic scheduling platforms like Hootsuite all the time. If you’ve ever seen or experienced the “fail whale” in Twitter or a link not producing a photo in a Facebook post, you know how true this is. You’ll have to log into your accounts to even know if any of your scheduled posts had technical glitches and didn’t deploy. So while you may think you’ve got social media covered for the week, the reality is that you may have a big problem if there’s a glitch and you have no idea.

Solution: By checking into your social media accounts at least every morning and night, or by assigning that task to someone on your team, you’ll ensure you catch glitches as they happen. That makes your messaging on social media consistent with no big blackout periods while you think you’ve got coverage.

For small businesses and international corporations alike, social media platforms have become an essential part of marketing strategies. It’s relatively inexpensive, and a great way to reach out to new customers, and give existing customers a platform to discuss your business. But it’s not easy. Millions of users are posting information on a daily basis, and social media sites exist primarily as an avenue for community interaction. To attract attention to your business, you’ll have to utilize plenty of creativity, prepare a precise plan, maintain consistency in your interactions, and find a way to gauge success.

Get Your House in Order

Before you begin a social media campaign, you’ll want to ensure your website and blog are set up for easy navigation and search engine optimized. The last thing you want is to drive a bunch of people to your blog or landing page and not deliver the goods. Create an online environment that informs, entertains and offers something unique to users. Then, register on all the social media sites you feel are relevant. You want to secure your brand and build and maintain a presence as many places as possible, within reason. Make sure your website and blog communicate with the same voice and expertise as your social content. If you start to attract fans in the social sphere, they’ll expect consistency.

Select a Platform and Set Clear Goals

What are you hoping to gain from your social media campaign? Are you trying to reinforce your brand identity to consumers with short bursts of advertising? A Twitter campaign may be best. Do you want to offer promotional competitions or organize sponsored events? Facebook may be your answer. Are you going to focus on business to business transactions? Linkedin may be the way to go. Identify your target audience and formulate a plan that addresses their interests and desires specifically.

Be Creative and Stand Out

How does your audience interact with social media? Try to formulate a strong campaign theme that will stand out amongst the rest of the chatter. Effective social media campaigns require a large dose of imagination and should include clear calls to action. They are also all about timing. Keep a keen eye on what’s trending in Google, attempt to forecast fan activity, and implement your campaign at the right time. In addition to knowing when to launch, you’ll want to know when to bring an end to your campaign. Even if users genuinely enjoy participating, there is always the matter of fatigue to consider. You don’t want to alienate your fans by overwhelming them. And whatever you do, don’t spam. Everything you say should be entertaining or offer a creative solution to a problem.

Stay Engaged

Social media marketing is not about speaking at potential consumers or clients. It’s about speaking with them. It’s fairly easy to get users to “like” your post, or even repost it. But you should be seeking more than that. Try to initiate a conversation. If people are acknowledging your posts, acknowledge them right back. Ask open-ended questions and don’t be afraid to be provocative. Remember, the more people actively engage with you and your business, the more they become invested in what it is you have to offer. Make it easy for users to participate and reward them for doing so. Additionally, don’t be afraid to address negative comments. If you simply ignore negative feedback, other readers and viewers will notice and wonder why you’re being evasive. Address concerns and supply answers with a human voice. If someone is obviously trolling and purposefully trying to damage your business without good reason, keep a positive attitude and remain polite. Don’t get dragged down to their level. Other users will notice that you took the high road.

Track

Do you best to analyze which social marketing methods are working best. Track actions that users are taking. Which posts and on which platforms are they responding? Experiment with different versions of Tweets or posts to determine what is generating discussion and action. Once you begin to understand how users are discovering your social outlets and how they are interacting with your brand, you can begin to tweak and make adjustments until your social media rewards are worth your investment of time.

The following common traits of a typical introvert can work in the favor of the marketing or public relations specialist, especially online.

Be a Good Listener

Those of us not busy talking have plenty of time to get busy listening. Not only are those with introverted qualities more likely to be listening than talking, as it turns out, the introvert is a better listener than the average conversationalist. Social media offers a unique opportunity to listen to what customers and competitors are saying, and by “listen,” I mean read at your convenience. Take it all in, and you’ll be able to develop a marketing plan based upon what the customers want, rather than what the extrovert is telling the customers they want.

Typically, the introvert likes to keep everyone else talking. Follow suit online and pose a contentious question in the realm of your business on Facebook or Twitter to draw comments to which you can listen and use to develop a marketing plan.

Be Strongly Perceptive

Being the quiet one in a group of many throughout a lifetime will inevitably develop the introverts’ ability to pick up on unwritten subtexts and other intangible indicators. Make the most of the ability to read between the lines about what your target market wants and how to best put it in front of them. Notice what types of posts draw comments and which are relatively ignored. Is this related to the content, or does it have something to do with outside factors?

Build Stronger One-on-One Relationships

Rather than playing the role of a social butterfly and stopping to chat with many different people at any social gathering, the introvert will almost always spend a longer amount of time with just a few individuals. Social media can help to further expand and develop these relationships outside of the face-to-face line of conversation. Facebook allows you to work on building those relationships day and night, and therefore you have an infinitely greater chance of getting in front of the next big account.

Speak Concisely

Introverts will likely say what is on their minds quickly, concisely and to the point. Twitter may be just the right marketing tool for you. Squeezing a message into a maximum of 140 characters is more difficult than it may seem to be on the surface. Maximizing your ability to keep it short can definitely play in your favor here.

Get the Message Across Non-Verbally

Are you better visually or creatively than verbally expressive? Websites such as Pinterest and Instagram may be a better route for you. Visual marketing has always been an extremely powerful tool in the public relations game; some simply have a better knack for it than others. Play up your unique eye for graphics and set your company apart from the more wordy competitors.

Having an introverted personality in no way means that a marketing professional can’t be highly successful. Making the most of the marvelous qualities that make you an introvert will allow you to utilize tactics that most in your industry won’t likely employ. Being an introvert in your field could actually be your best marketing quality for yourself!

1. One Word:  Google

You can literally manage your entire online business for free using all the apps provided by Google, including real time document sharing, blogging software, email and an interactive calendar.  Granted, some of the stuff is simple and has limitations; but if you’re starting out and aren’t familiar with a lot of the other apps this is a great “one stop shop” for everything you need.

2. Taxes for Freelancers

A comprehensive tutorial for calculating the taxes you owe, including depreciation on your home office and protecting your losses.

3. Creative Commons

A site which lets you license your photography or graphic designs with various levels of permissions. Creative Commons is a non-profit organization and offers their licenses for free, making it simple to protect your work and share it with others.

4. You Send It

No need to take up space in your email when sending bulky files.  You can instantly send files up to 2GB to your clients using this free service.  They will receive an email with a safe link to download your file directly to their computer.

5. Protolize

Web designers and developers collaborate and rank the best web tools for their work.

6. Form Site

A service with several levels (including a free basic) which allows you to create web-based surveys and forms to gather valuable information or register your clients for services, appointments, etc.

7. Fax Zero

Free internet fax service to send signed documents to companies who require a paper fax.

8. Free Contracts for Freelancers

Includes free templates, how-to articles, and tips for drafting your own agreement, regardless of the type of work you do.

9. Freelance Switch

A massive freelance community that includes a job board and message board for making connections.  Includes an informative blog that will keep you up on the news affecting the freelance market.

10. Zoho

If Google Apps had a big brother Zoho would be it.  This service provides an enormous array of business management tools that Google does not (yet), including invoicing software, document management, presentation software, a database creator, a customizable wiki…and much more.  Pricing is very reasonable starting at $12 a month for up to three users.

Most of the sites listed here are either free or available a nominal cost.  However, for each item on this list, there are at least twenty more similar sites out there with a loyal following.  I would love to hear some comparisons between these sites and the ones you are using.  Do you have a favorite place to search for freelance job postings?  Are you using another form-building site?  Is there something you’ve used that you think everyone should know about?  Leave a comment and let me know.