Calling all Bloggers: Top 3 blog tips needed!

One of the most effective tools we have found with regard to our blog is posting links to new blog articles in the “news” section in appropriate LinkedIN groups.  
 
Our industry has over 75 LinkedIN groups covering various sub-categories, and by posting our new blog posts in each of those groups, we effectively add several thousand potential readers that have a good chance to become customers!!

This is an excellent tip Ken. We also do this from time to time. When we have relevant info for each group. This does work great though at driving new traffic to our site and also building a relationship with new unknown prospects.  
 
Thanks for sharing this tip Ken!  
 
I’ll keep you posted as things progress!

It’s pretty predictable that I’d leave this as a tip, but it’s a valuable one. Twitter can be a fantastic source for finding readers, story ideas, sharing links and driving traffic, but it really helps to find the right tools. 
 
Blogging tools: http://oneforty.com/category/Blogging%20Tools 
 
Guy Kawasaki’s Top Twitter tools: 
http://oneforty.com/GuyKawasaki/twitter-indispensable-tools 
 
David Armano’s “The Social Business” Toolkit 
http://oneforty.com/armano/the-social-business-toolkit 

Laura, 
 
Thanks for taking the time to share these tips. I will check out all the cool Blogging tools you mentioned and let you know what we think. I agree Twitter is a huge part of our blog success. I am sure you, Guy and David have several tools the readers will benefit from.  
 
Thanks for your help Laura! 

Hi Dale, 
 
Here’s my two cents:  
For blog article inspiration (I suggest this to my clients as well) I set up a Google alert for a topic that to blog about. Typically the alert captures the news and current topics, which serve as excellent idea generation for blog articles.  
 
Another technique is to create lists of references or websites. Even if it is not an exhaustive list, it’s helpful and becomes a potential link generation magnet for your site.  
 
Hope this adds to your bag of tricks! 
 
Jody

Jody, 
I have never used this technique. I have been meaning to try it for sometime, but never got around to it. I will however give this a whirl and hopefully have enough experience to use it in the presentation I will be giving. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for sharing.

Quoting Shaun Pinney, HubSpot IMC…”would you subscribe to a newspaper that only published every 17 days? yeah, people won’t subscribe to your blog either.”

Excellent point Erin. Thanks for sharing!

Hi Dale, 
 
Lots of great ideas so far. Here’s another one for you. 
 
I follow other bloggers who write about topics I cover and who also tend to get lots of comments from readers. 
 
Reader response to a particular blog post can help generate “off-shoot” ideas to create a post that expands the topic, or even a post that takes off in an entirely new direction. I find that if you write in response to points readers make, you will remain highly relevant with your posts. 
 
If your post idea relates to the blog post that sparked the idea, mention the blogger, and the post, and link back to it. 
 
Sharing the love between like-minded blogs is a wonderful way to build traffic – for both bloggers. Even better is when the favor is returned. It’s one of those “do unto others…” things.

Ardath, 
Thanks for including your great tips. First off all bloggers should follow and read other bloggers, although this may not have been one of your points, it is a good one to make. 
 
Then finding blogger who get a lot of comments is a great way to learn, share in the discussion and also drive traffic back to your blog. 
 
Using reader response to create more in-depth conversations is a great idea. We have done this a few times and it works nicely. This would be a good habit to build especially if you are a blogger that has writers block from time to time because you already know there is a need or interest on this topic. 
 
Sharing the love is huge and really goes far in the social media world (also in real world, maybe not as measurable though). I know that we have some followers that really do a great job of sharing the love (thanks @heidithorne, @pc4media, @debsylee, @zdeluca, @minutemanjon, @synergybcast). We have built some really solid relationships with a handful of people who really are willing to share the love. 
 
Thanks again Ardath, I will add your tips to the page where people are able to vote on the top blog tips – check out this page and other tips here and don’t forget to vote for your favorite tips – http://www.getbrandwise.com/vote-for-the-top-7-blog-tips/

This just in from Sherry Green of Technology Team 
 
Great comments, so far. I too have found asking a question and posting it on several Groups has been a good way to promote articles and get comments. Other than that, we too are struggling with traffic/comments on our blog. We believe we are writing relevant content, but just are not getting the comments we want. I think writing about something you may have read, heard or experiencing can be done quickly. I personally do not want to read long blogs. If I did, I would read the publication myself! 
 
Hope this helps. I can’t wait to see your finished product!

Sherry, 
 
Thanks so much for your comments and thoughts on blogging. One thing I would ask is, do you know what your daily, weekly and monthly blog traffic is? I would try to figure this out then evaluate where things stand. I would say that if you are not getting comments you either need more traffic to your blog or more compelling content that drive visitors to speak their mind and share their ideas on this topic. Most people do not read long content unless it is really relevant to their specific needs, wants or likes. The key is to define your target customer and their needs then start writing content that specifically speaks to them. 
 
As far as reading the publication instead of the blog article, this is great for something like the business press, a magazine or newspaper, but what about the blogs like yours and mine that do not have a paper publication, is this instance, we are out of luck. Again though, this goes back to attracting the proper audience that is willing to read an article, even if it is a long one. 
 
Thanks again for your thoughts! These are great and I really appreciate you and everyone who has participated so far.  
 
Don’t forget to vote for the top tips, there is only a short time before we produce the final top 7 blogging tips presentation. 
 
Thanks and have a great day!

Here are three tips from me: 
 
1. Decide how often you will update your blog and then stick to it. Regular contributions encourage people to stick with your blog if they know there will be new content regularly. 
 
2. After several posts, find out which topics or post types are the most popular and create more of them. 
 
3. Find industry experts and request a guest blog from them. This adds credibility to your blog and makes the industry aware of you.