First of all, let me ask you a question. Do you have a Facebook account? As far as bloggers are concerned, I bet the answer would be yes! Let us not just limit to Facebook, most bloggers have accounts on various social networking sites like Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn and loads more.
Why this excess of social media sites and sharing, you might ask. But for bloggers, these sites are sources of valuable traffic. Gone are the days when only Google’s organic traffic used to be the major source of traffic for blogs. Now, webmasters are clever enough to put their eggs in more than one basket! They’ve now turned their attention towards social media sites for gaining visitors.
So, this acts more like an insurance policy. When traffic from one source dries up, you have many other sources to depend upon! That’s the power of social media. Let us discuss some strategies to implement, which will make blogging more productive. But, before that, find some no brainer reasons why you should use such sites.
Reasons to use Social Media
There are plenty of reasons why you should use social media. First of all, your blog’s presence and performance on such sites has an effect on SERP (Search Engine Result Page). Yes, out of the more than 200 factors that Google considers while generating SERP, social media presence is a crucial one. Content having good number of tweets, likes, shares and +1s tend to fare better than others.
Another reason is the sheer number of visitors you can drive to your blog from such sites. These sites are frequented by millions daily, who spend hours there. It is not at all a bad idea to share your content in order to attract potential visitors to your blog. Organic traffic is good, but you just can’t trust on it anymore! A single algorithm update can cut organic traffic by as much as 60%! So, it’s better to have alternative sources of traffic.
The most important reason why bloggers should use social media is for the sake of networking! These social sites double up as an excellent platform where bloggers can build mutually beneficial relationships with each other.
Social Media Strategies to squeeze out that extra bit of productivity
#1: Strategies to Avoid misuse of time on social sites
To make your presence felt on all the social networking sites, plenty of time is required. And time is something that bloggers are short of! Here are some tips to save time while not compromising on your social media presence :
1) Find out sites with most ROI
Being a blogger, you are basically investing your time on social sites. For this investment, you get something in return. The returns could be- more shares for your content, more publicity for you, more followers for your blog etc.
Focus only on those social sites that gives you good ROI (Return On Investment). Why waste time on some fringe social site that doesn’t benefit you even after repeated efforts?
Instead of being the jack of all networking sites, be the master of few selected ones. Use analytics tools like Google analytics to find which sites refer you the most traffic. Invest more time and effort towards those sites.
2) Automate social sharing on sites with less ROI
Okay, I’m not saying to ignore those social sites that bring less traffic and value to your blog. But instead of wasting time manually sharing content on them, why not automate that process? There are awesome free plugins and tools to get this job done.
Check out the following tools for automating social sharing : JetPack by WordPress, HootSuite, NextScripts Auto Poster, Social Sharing toolkit, SocialOomph etc.
3) Make a schedule and stick to it
Efficiency should be every blogger’s prime priority. Wastage is like a thief. Many times it happens that you visit facebook to promote your blog posts. But, instead of sharing them, you end up visiting pages showing funny memes! You too might have had similar experiences. The classic example of time wasting.
This can be avoided through scheduling! Make a schedule. Dedicate time for various activities like promoting, networking etc. Never let other activities interfere with your schedule. Make it a habit to stick to your schedule and finish the tasks within the allotted time.
We are talking about ways to increase productivity here. Timing of sharing a post determines whether a post gets good exposure or not. More exposure means more productivity.
Try to share your content at such a time, when more people are active on that particular site. A post shared at an awkward time, when barely anyone is noticing goes unnoticed! Who would like their well written post to go unnoticed? Not me!
#3: Follow ‘Influencers’ of your niche on social sites
When it comes to social sites, the big whales and the small fishes of blogging world exist together. It is very much possible that you get a chance to follow or befriend influential bloggers of your niche on Facebook/Twitter/Google+. Doing this is beneficial.
There are many advantages of doing so. You get to know them closer, learn from them and let them take notice of you. If an ‘influential’ figure finds out that you are writing quality content and cares to share or tweet your content, it’ll get you good exposure. Do follow and befriend them.
#4: Become an influencer and build reputation
This can be done by solving others’ problems and helping them out. Make use of these sites to answer others’ questions. A problem solver is always respected. It helps you build good reputation. Once you accomplish this task, just watch visitors flocking to your blog!
#5: Some tools you might be interested in; For better social promotion
Sites like EasyRetweet.com and JustRetweet.com are boons for bloggers. I’m a big fan of JustRetweet. Basically, such sites are credit based platforms, where users have to promote others’ content for credits.
The credits earned by sharing others’ content can later be used to promote our own content. JustRetweet helps your content get promoted on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
Over to you
I’m sure that following these strategies will make social sharing lot easier for bloggers. While writing this article, I focused mainly on enhancing productivity, which will thereby reduce wastage of time and effort. Hope you liked the strategies I discussed. If so, then please spare few seconds and share/like/tweet/+1 it! I’d appreciate your action! Happy blogging!
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