For many of the people who want to make money or at least build a reputation through their blogs, social media is basically like something sent from heaven. Why? It’s because it makes promoting their blog much easier than it has ever been before!
Way back in the day, bloggers need to work extra hard to make sure that people actually discover their blogs – they need to find forums, join blog communities, or comment on as many places as possible. Of course, you still need to do that these days; but you’re likely to reach more people faster by Tweeting your post or sharing it on your Facebook account (plus points if you have an actual page for your blog). Among other things, it makes it much easier for your existing fans to share it with their own connections. It also doesn’t hurt that you can advertise or promote your blog using these sites.
But, as we all know, even some of the best partnerships can have their hiccups. It’s most definitely true for social media and blogging. This is why you need to ask yourself whether or not your social media efforts are really helping your blog. After all, the following could be true:
You’re not using social media the right way
A lot of us may think that social media is “idiot proof” because it’s insanely easy to use; but that’s simply not true. It really doesn’t matter how easy it is to use those sites for socializing. Unless you know how to use them in a way that actually helps other people find you and reach you, and unless you share the kind of content they actually want to see, you can’t expect people to come (even if you “build it”). It’s like having toll free numbers – if you don’t make them useful to your “customers”, it’ll only backfire on you. And seriously, your readers ARE your customers.
So what are the things that you might be doing wrong? Well…
- You’re not doing much more than tweeting or posting about the stuff you put on your blog.
- You’re not paying attention to which blog posts are getting the most responses/traffic per based on social media sites.
- You’re not getting the right people to follow you.
Until you actually use your social media accounts to interact with followers, analyze your metrics, and attract the right people, you can’t really say that social media helps your blog.
You’re letting it get in the way of SEO
Whether you like thinking about it or not, SEO is still important when it comes to promoting your blog to other people. After all – the higher your place is in search engine rankings, the better your chances of being discovered as “an authority” by readers. There are a lot of people who feel like their social media efforts are helping them on this front, and it might be true if you were only thinking about generating back links and the like. But, if mismanaged, social media in combination with SEO can be a nightmare for a new blogger.
See, the problem with social media is that it lets things spread easily. Do you know what that means?
- When people say bad things about you, it can only take an hour for your reputation to be ruined.
- It’s very possible that if you get a fairly negative reputation, that will be the first thing that comes up on search results for you.
If you’ve ever been on a Twitter flame war, you’d know how bad that can actually get. So if you don’t think you can find a way to manage your social media in a way that helps SEO, it may not be a good idea to make it a PRIMARY means of promotion.
Are you using social media to promote your blog? How has it helped you or hurt you?
