How To Promote Your Blog Via Social Networks

This article focuses on the 4 questions that can establish a robust grounding for you to begin using social networks to promote your blog. Simply, reading the answers to these 4 questions can provide you an innovative outlook to optimize a network of followers through social media marketing.

1.     How does a social media networking site help?

Let us begin by understanding – how does a social media networking site help in boosting online traffic? A social media networking site is a common platform for all online users to meet and share their interests; online users can share views and communicate interests, irrespective of their ethnicity, demography, and regional segmentation. Geographical location is not a limitation anymore; you can be located in Australia and yet manage to sell snowboarding equipment to a customer in Alaska.

2.     Does the popularity of a social media networking site matter?

Another relevant question would be: Which social media networking site is most popular? Perhaps, the answer should be that a social media networking site with more followers is the key to social media networking success. Not quite, because the popularity of the website does not really equate with your own success on the social media networking site.

For instance: according to the infographic below, courtesy of thesocialmediahat.com, it is evident that Facebook has the maximum number of followers in 2014. However, this information is subject to change from time to time. Facebook is followed by YouTube, Google plus, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest. There are different reasons for the popularity of each social media networking website.

On one hand, Facebook is popular for the ‘who is doing what kind of updates’ whereas; Twitter is more about online news sharing and Youtube for videos.

On the other hand, Google has capitalized on its email account members to make its social networking site – Google plus a popular social networking platform, whereas; LinkedIn is more about connecting with professional contacts for jobs and business.

Lastly, Instagram and Pinterest are social media websites about sharing images.

It can be observed that the reason behind the popularity of each social networking website is not as important as the reason behind the popularity of your own blog website. Besides, the most evident and significant point is that: All social media networking sites serve a unique purpose that is to share user content in a specific format.

Therefore, it is most important to relate with the unique purpose of the social media networking website rather than trying to relate with its online popularity.

3.     What is a cross-posting plan?

A cross-posting plan is finding commonalities between different types of content formats and then collating all or most of the formats to create a common thread of information. The purpose of doing this is to share the common thread of information on different social networking websites.

Let us illustrate this by asking ourselves – What is common between a PowerPoint Presentation, a Graphic, Infographic, a Snippet of Content and an Online News Piece?

1.     A PowerPoint presentation highlights the most important take-away of a content in the fastest way possible through small slides.

2.     A Graphic communicates in an even faster way. Just one glance of the online user is enough to understand ‘what the graphic is trying to convey’.

3.      On the contrary, it may require more time to understand an Infographic.

4.     A video or a podcast may take a little more time than the graphic to convey the information but it has immense impact.

5.     A snippet of content is like a very small summary of the entire subject of discussion. It consists of 100 characters or more.

6.     An online news piece can be even shorter, if we consider the headline alone or it can be longer like a small or big blog post depending on the amount of information that is to be communicated.

Now that we are aware about ‘what is the function of each type of content’; the commonalities become apparent:

·         Information Production: All content formats are trying to share some information

·         Audience Appeal: Each content format is trying to communicate or persuade the audience by appealing to their faculties which are: visual, audio, video, audio-video and reading.

·         Audience Perception: Each type of content format is perceived by the audience in the most unique manner. For instance: it is very different for an online user to spend time watching videos on YouTube, than pinning images on Pinterest. Still, both content formats can share the same information.

4.     Is there a difference between friends and family network vs. business network?

Yes, there is a difference. The difference is you will use your family and friends network for sharing personal updates such as marriage anniversary, birthdays and so on.

And you will use your business network to share professional updates such as a press release, corporate presentation or even a change in company logo. You will also use a business network to share human resource requirements.

Now, that the difference is established, it should be noted that there is no restriction for using one social media networking website over the other. All websites welcome users highlighting both personal and professional backgrounds.

For instance:

• A Facebook fan page can be personal as well as professional.
• A click on the LinkedIn Like can be for a change of photo as well as for a change of job.
• A click on the Twitter Like can be simply for a change of address or even for an academic course that you are planning to pursue.
• A pin on Pinterest could be simply because the image of office infrastructure shared by you is too good. But this may not have anything to do with a user buying your product. At the same time, you have created visibility and brand value.

Thus, it can be observed from the above analysis that content format is highly important for conveying information to our audience. In fact, connecting with people by using a specific format of communication forms a big part of the social media networking website.

The take-away of this post is that you can be anywhere in the world but as long as you can create great content on your blog and publish it by using images, infographics and useful information on the social media network – people are going to look at you! World-wide exposure to a market of a billion users becomes available with social media networking.