Bloggers know very well that plain blogging won’t lead them anywhere. Unless they include social media in their strategy, establishing thought-leadership is impossible. What social media workarounds must a blogger undertake?
Let’s find out:
#1. Leverage LinkedIn Pulse
For building thought-leadership, there’s no better platform than LinkedIn Pulse. First, LinkedIn is a virtual meetup place for industry insiders and key business decision makers. Secondly, many of them consider Pulse as a content-based knowledge sharing platform.
It’s not rocket science but common sense that Pulse can get your best posts read – the ones that may not get read if published on your site. Bloggers sometimes couldn’t figure out
#2. Select video sites carefully
Adding multimedia elements into the marketing mix is no longer optional but a must. We are living in the era of visual web when visual marketing is often the cornerstone of a successful social media campaign. Bloggers are encouraged to tap into video marketing, but they should use sites that are blogger-friendly. Not all video-hosting sites are optimized for all niche areas.
For example, Ooyala is seldom used by bloggers. Top brands use it for product promotion and other marketing needs. Bloggers are more into building a base and less into product sell. They do make money from AdSense and other affiliate networks, but they primarily eye at increasing their reader-base. For bloggers, the important things to consider when selecting a video hosting site are:
- The total video storage space allotted to them by the site
- Built-in tools to add special effects to the video
- Monetizing options
- Sharing and bookmarking options
YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe and Blip.tv are used by too many bloggers, largely because these sites are free. Some podcast sites and apps have lately mushroomed. Podbean is one of them. Others are Switchpod, Buzzsprout, PodOmatic, etc. All these site ease hosting and creation of podcasts. For regular blogging, as well as for vlogging, these sites are a must.
On the other hand, Wistia, Framesocket and 23 Video are for business professionals. True, these sites do have free versions, but their popularity largely owes to the premium versions.
#3. Blog sharing communities
Social media presents bloggers an opportunity to bond and create networking ties. Whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Slideshare or YouTube, bloggers can create communities, invite others to join those communities and extend their network.
What benefits does this yield?
First, new avenues for guest blogging open up. Bloggers from the same nice can exchange guest posts and drive traffic to each other’s blog. Secondly, they can make interview type posts live on the site and share such posts on social media from both ends, increasing their virality score. Curation also becomes easy. Blog admins can mutually curate each other’s posts, so that their network grows and users find them as thought leaders.
Facebook is filled with guest blog sharing groups. Their organic reach went south in 2013, largely because bloggers were not going along with updated methods.
#4. Giveaway goodies
There should be some incentives for readers to visit your blog and stay there for a while. Giveaways function as incentives. Hosting blog giveaways can instantly endow your site with positive outcomes. People love giveaways and prefer visiting blogs which are hosting contest or offering giveaway goodies.
Studies have found that readers don’t consciously expect incentives, but feel delighted when they are rewarded with any. Another perspective is contests and resulting giveaways prompt them to show a leg, instead of plainly reading a post and then move to another site.
Social media is the best place to advertise giveaway contests. Some bloggers even use social media to host giveaway contests. Here are some Facebook contest ideas that bloggers and non-bloggers alike can follow. Alternatively, bloggers can run social media giveaways and integrate them into their blogs. Put simply, they can experiment with contests and giveaways to grow their sites.
#5. Understand big data
Incorporating data science can increase the effectiveness of content strategies. Social media is the breeding ground of data. Millions of people all over the world log on to social sites, interact with each other, react to organic and sponsored content and buy branded products.
Using analytic tools, bloggers can monitor their activities. When such activities and hidden patterns in them are reported to bloggers, they acquire actionable insights on how to improve the content. Let’s have a better idea of this in relation to analytic tools. Some of the best analytic tools in the industry are Hubspot, Buffer, Hootsuite, Marketo, etc. These tools can dig out the following insights from social media:
- Engagement level and parameters
- Content curation score
- Demographic details of fans, followers and those whose like, share and comment on posts
- Social authority and indicators
Without big data, it’s impossible for bloggers to identify these factors on social platforms. With big data, they can not only identify all these factors but shape their marketing strategies in tune with an impressive virality score and better engagement.
#6. Reuse powerful posts
Very few bloggers try this technique. If applied properly, it can bring them favorable results. Neil Patel described the benefits of reposting old content. Among the bottlenecks specified by him, the most difficult one is to identify the most impactful posts.
The number of shares on social media doesn’t make a post impactful. Of course, reader’s reaction matters but the content quality, the presence of visuals and the clarity in perspective matter more. The blogger needs to be a bit intuitive to sort out the impactful posts himself.
When reusing old posts, timing is key. There’s a relationship between the network where you are reposting the content and the time when you are doing it. On Twitter, you may have to post quite a few times compared to Facebook, where posting once or twice is enough. That’s because updates keep coming on Twitter and the old ones tend to get buried quickly.
Summing up
Though social media is a boon for blogging, wrong use of social media can deter bloggers from becoming successful. The tips shared here can enable them to harness social media to the fullest.
