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5 Ways to Grow Your Blog Using Twitter

Any blogger trying to expand their audience needs to be on Twitter. This social media platform can be one of the most useful tools available to bloggers if used properly. If used incorrectly, however, it won’t do anyone much good.

Twitter is a two-way street that encourages communication over one-sided link sharing. That’s why it’s important to toe the line between self-promotion and engaging with other users.

Here are five ways to use Twitter to its full potential:

1. Be Active

There’s a fine line between using Twitter actively and overdoing it. When it comes to building your blog, though, both of these are actually better than not being active on the platform at all. The more you Tweet, the more likely you are to reach out to new readers. There are no firm guidelines on how often to post, but 14 tweets a day is considered ideal by content marketers at Buffer.

Of course, just rambling on isn’t the most effective. A study looking at what’s most likely to be retweeted shows that news is at the top. After that comes instructional, entertainment and opinion. The least likely to be retweeted was small talk.

While small talk helps to engage with others and build a relationship, it has to be interspersed with more substantial offerings.

2. Find Relevant Followers

It’s best practice to follow anyone relevant to whatever you’re blogging about. If you do nothing beyond this point, then at the very least you’ll see what’s going on in your area of expertise and what everyone else is talking about.

However, Twitter isn’t the place to be a wallflower. Join in on discussions and target influences when sharing tweets. Being active and engaged in your subject matter of choice will help establish you as an expert. Building credibility creates more engagement, which leads to more exposure and followers.

3. Share Your Content Sparingly

Twitter users that constantly spam links to their blog and little else aren’t creating much value and will find it difficult to develop an audience. Twitter is an appropriate place for self-promotion, but it must be done sparingly.

Instead of nonstop links to your blog posts, round out your Twitter posts with photos, retweets and links to content your followers might find interesting.

4. Reach out to People Cited

When you are promoting some of your content, you want to position it for maximum impact. One way to do that is to mention those you may have used or cited in your articles in your tweets. This is a good way to reach out to influencers in the hopes of receiving some extra attention. At the very least, it helps build a rapport with someone who might be able to help you later on.

5. Have Some Fun

There is a time for seriousness on Twitter, but it’s a platform that’s best used with a sense of fun, too. All sorts of brands have humorously engaged on Twitter and have attracted an audience. There’s so much marketing and promotion that people appreciate some well-timed wit and playfulness. Keep that in the back of your mind whenever you’re using the platform.

Twitter can be useful to help grow your blog’s audience, but it must be used correctly. Keep these tips in mind when you’re employing the use of this handy platform and watch your audience increase.