It is all about promoting your blog and finding effective and efficient ways to do so. If used the right way, Twitter can help increase traffic to your blog. Twitter is just one place on the internet where there is an ocean of people connected 24/7. If you are not on Twitter, you are missing an incredible opportunity to increase readership and reader engagement. Twitter marketing strategies used by the gurus are now available to you.
Post Announcements
Tweet to your audience when you have a new post on your blog. Be mindful that you do not spam anyone or annoy anyone with a thousand tweets about the same post. A good guru tactic is to rewrite the title to your new post three times and tweet one version a few minutes after your newest post goes live, another version about 12 hours later and the last version the following morning. In general, a good time to tweet is in the afternoons and evenings. Include the title and the link to your blog.
Tweet Content
You can bag more reader with more bait. Consider extracting an interesting piece from your post and tweet it rather than just the title.
Get into the Twitter Convo
If you notice that another blogger has written on a similar topic and received many comments, do not be a hater. Instead, jump into the conversation and say something like, “I completely agree or disagree. I recently addressed this or a similar topic and would love to know your thoughts.” This type of conversation directed to the blogger will strike up a dialog that can help both parties. His or her audience may decide to follow the conversation and your blog because you seized an opportunity.
Give Life to Older Posts
Make it a practice to have a monthly recap of posts from the last 30-60 days. Chances are not everyone on your twitter list will have seen them. This gives those who have not an opportunity to read the posts they may have missed.
Give instead of Take
Promoting yourself and your blog should be done sparingly. Instead, focus on giving valuable information to your followers or thanking them for doing something specific and you still reap the benefits of self promotion without appearing shallow.
A good mix would be as follows:
- Update your status with an inspirational quote that is relevant.
- Update your status with a reply to someone else
- Update status with a promotional link to your blog or newest blog post
- Update status with another blogger’s article that is relevant and is helpful
- Update status asking a question
- Update status with a link to your site where that question is answered
Answer Question
Continuing with the concept of giving, answer questions from people in your niche. This is similar to the concept of visiting the forums and supplying quality answers. In return, people are more likely to follow you.
Show Your Appreciation
Search for followers who have shared one of your links. For the followers who have included your @username, this is a very special gesture, and should be called out. Make it a practice to retweet their message with a thank you message from you. This is an indirect way to get your link retweeted without appearing spammy. It also, shows your followers that you are appreciative.
Be sure to place a Twitter button on your blog. This makes sharing so much easier for your readers.