Promote Your Blog Through Social Networking
Most of us want to generate traffic to our blogs. Unless you’re blogging solely for your friends and family, you’ll want to attract as many readers as possible. The more traffic you generate, the more success you’ll have in generating income from your blog.
Today, I’m going to explain how you can promote your blog through the top social networking sites. These 
sites give people a chance to meet and interact with others who share their interests. Keep in mind social networking sites are not all created equal; some of them hold far more potential to drive traffic than others.
Promoting Your Blog On Facebook
As you probably know, Facebook is the 800 lb. gorilla of social networking. Not only do millions of people connect daily with their friends on the site, but constant media coverage ensures it remains in the public eye. Their popularity works to your advantage.
There are several ways to promote your blog on Facebook. For example, you can create a Facebook Page. Attract “fans” to your Page by updating it with articles, short posts, and pictures. Each time you update your Page, your fans are notified. You can include links to your blog in each segment that you post.
You can also create a Facebook Group that focuses on your blog’s topic. A lot of Facebook members search for Groups that discuss the topics they’re interested in. As a community builds around your Group, new and returning members will see a link to your blog positioned prominently at the top.
Driving Traffic From Other Social Networking Sites
So far, we’ve focused on Facebook because of its enormous popularity. There are several social networking sites that you should use to promote your blog. They work on the same general principle: people with the same interests interacting with each other.
StumbleUpon generates a lot of traffic to blogs by encouraging their members to “Stumble!” them. When members view a page they enjoy, they submit it to StumbleUpon to share it with other members. This site is powerful enough that Firefox created a browser extension that lets members “Stumble!” sites with a single click.
BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog are social networking sites which are specifically focused on helping bloggers promote their blogs. You can form groups with people who are interested in your blog’s subject matter and encourage them to tell others in their network. The more readers you attract to your profile and group, the more traffic you can send to your blog.
Other powerful social networking sites include MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg, and Twitter. Even though Facebook has become more popular, MySpace still has an enormous community. By creating a profile and linking to your blog, you can generate a steady stream of traffic. Twitter is one of the newer social networking sites. You can post short “tweets” for your followers, whet their appetite for more, and send them to your latest blog post.
Set Aside Time To Socialize
One of the keys to promoting your blog successfully on any of the social networking sites is to get involved within your communities. For example, if you’re using Facebook for blog promotion, update your Page often and interact with members of your Group. Ideally, you should set aside time to socialize every day. The more you interact with others in the communities you establish, the more likely they’ll be to visit your blog.
Don’t think of social networking as your primary blog promotion strategy. Instead, consider it one of many effective internet marketing techniques. You should also be using search engine optimization strategies to drive traffic. As an added bonus, most of the social networking sites I’ve described above allow you to link directly to your blog. There’s no redirect which siphons the link juice.
If you haven’t gotten involved yet, take a few minutes to explore social networking. You may be surprised by the traffic it can send.
