A reader of my post on how to get started on Twitter says: “I want to promote my blog there but don’t know how.”
To be honest, I haven’t pushed it on this blog, but we’ve had success on other sites and have researched it well. Here are the top 10 things you should be doing, in my opinion, to promote your blog on Twitter:
1. Regard Twitter as part of your SEO (search engine optimisation) strategy. If your profile has been set up correctly, your Twitter link will rank quite high on Google. Similarly, a lot of Twitter content makes its way to the first Google results page. The lesson: use key words strategically in your tweets.
2. List your blog on your Twitter profile in the URL field. Some bloggers claim to get daily traffic in this way.
3. Install a Twitter widget on your blog like the one I have on the right. Many people would rather follow you than subscribe to a blog feed. Two that I’ve used are Twitter Widget and Twitter for Wordpress, but there are loads others.
4. Considering deploying a “tweet this” type function on your blog. I use TweetMeme, the green button top left of this post. (Go ahead, try it now!) Some bloggers encourage readers more actively to retweet an article.
5. Use Twitter sensibly by keeping your tweets relevant to the themes and topics covered on your blog – your niche. I believe that “what-I-had-for-lunch” type updates should be limited to Facebook. Make sure you add value for your followers. Use hashtags to help you define your focus.
6. Don’t however use your Twitter stream exclusively as an unashamed promotion for your own blog. Mix your pitches with links to other blogs and helping others. Chris Brogan on ProBlogger, who claims to be successful on this front, believes in a 75/25 ratio, in favour of others.
7. Enter keywords relevant to your blog on Twitter Search, look for questions that people are asking about your area of expertise, then check their profile to see if it’s a regular theme in their feed. If so, follow them and answer their question with a link back to your blog.
8. I don’t like using services like Twitterfeed, which automatically tweet your blog posts. Rather do it manually, keeping it topical, and write a headline specifically for Twitter (see my next point).
9. Many marketers believe that tweeting a question instead of a statement is more effective as it engages your community.
10. Employ services to improve productivity such as Twollow to build more relevant relationships and the rich features of Tweet Later.
Bonus: Something I haven’t tried myself yet is IntenseDebate, which enables your visitors to send a simultaneous tweet when they comment on your blog. Does anyone have experience with this?
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Very helpful. Thanks for the great advice.