5 Tips For Using Social Media To Build Your Blog

There are a whole lot of blogs out there on the internet. Tumblr reports a cumulative total of 300 million blogs on their site since 2011, while WordPress reports that over 400 million people visit their blogs each month. And those two numbers don’t even account for the many other blogging platforms and self-created blogs that are out there. As you sit and read this article, the number of blog posts written around the world has been climbing at a rapid pace.
On one hand, this means that the world of blogging is incredibly crowded, which can have a whole lot of bloggers feeling like very small fish in a very big pond. On the other hand, though, the numbers show that people are reading blogs more than ever, which means that bloggers have the chance to reach an enormous global audience with their content.
Reaching that global audience, however, requires a good deal of conscientious effort. While a blog’s content is the most important element of a widely-read blog, good content alone will not necessarily guarantee a huge audience. More and more, bloggers have to reach out to their audience in order to attract viewers to their sites. One of the main platforms through which bloggers reach their readers, perhaps not surprisingly, is social media.
With that in mind, here are five tips for using social media to build your blog.

Find Out Where Your Readers Spend Their Time

While you’d certainly be wise to make sure you cover at least some ground on the major platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, it’s also worth honing in a little bit and seeing where you can make the biggest impact with your social media content. If you haven’t identified your target audience already, do that. Then figure out if there’s a particular social media site that they frequent. Are you writing for a tech-oriented audience? Then maybe focusing some efforts on sites like Slashdot or Y Combinator’s Hacker News will help you get the most bang for your buck in terms of devoting time to social media. Analytics for social media platforms can dig up unbelievable amounts of valuable insights, so make sure you do your homework in order to efficiently optimize your blog’s social media presence.

Watch Your Words

You want to write catchy headlines for your blog content on social media. That’s a given. But there’s a science to the whole process, so you want to make sure you’re selecting keywords properly. SEO principles dictate that organically highlighting the major keywords in your native content and social media posts will help boost your Google results page position, and this should go without being said, but the higher your blog is listed for relevant Google searches, the better off you’ll be in terms of reaching the greatest possible audience. Be careful not to go overboard with keywords, though; there is such a thing as over-optimizing, and it can actually hurt your search rankings.

Automate Your Content Sharing

Your audience most likely respects consistent and timely content creation from your blog. Make sure your social media presence is equally timely by posting your social media content on a (somewhat) fixed schedule. Figure out roughly what time(s) of day your audience is most often interacting with you on social media, and schedule your posts during that time. There are all sorts of social media automation tools that allow you to schedule posts ahead of time, so you shouldn’t have to sweat getting your content out at the right time.

Reuse Old Content

One of social media’s most prominent functions in society is to serve as a forum for people to react to breaking news around the world, so if you’ve got an old blog post that relates perfectly to the latest bit of hot news, it’s in your best interest to share that content via social media. It’s not enough, however, to just post a link to the blog post via tweet or Facebook post. Reworking content for an updated post requires conscientious planning and even revising the headline or title of the piece. But it’s often worth it since reusing old content is a great way to get the most out of old posts and maximize your social media presence through timely content linking.

Get Personal

Many social media experts have written at length about a phenomenon called social media karma. It’s a pretty self-explanatory practice, which is meant to promote etiquette and good stewardship on social media platforms in the name of making yourself and your business look good. Keep this social media etiquette in mind, but don’t be afraid to engage with your audience on a more personal level. Use different social media sites to respond personally to users interacting with you, and be sure to link to and comment on other people’s content to show that you’re actively involved in the community, as well as an authority on recent activity and what is trending in your field.
Social media is there to help you gain the wide audience your blog deserves. Utilize these tips to make sure you’re promoting your blog via social media in the most efficient and practical way possible.