Pre-written hashtags to promote in Instagram.

Do you use instagram? I do not but I keep myself updated by reading all about the usage of Instagram by a blogger. I like Pinterest and I will stick with it as far as promoting my blog posts in visual social media.

Oh yes, I use hashtags in Pinterest, twitter and FB though not very frequently. I think I am yet to learn how to effectively write hashtags. I must admit I would welcome pre-written hashtags on specific niches.

The titled blog post that I stumbled onto in Pinterest is all bout pre-written hashtags (50 hashtags) are on "Life Style".

I poured over the list but I did not found much that I would use if I ever publish a relevant blog post .
Moreover, as I said, I am not using Instagram as of now.

Please visit Hashtags to promote in Instagram

35 places to promote every blog post.

Image via" http://www.bookpromotionhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Promote-Your-Blog-Content1.png

"35 places to promote every blog posts."... This title should catch the attention of every blogger  out there in the blogosphere irrespective of his experience and I certainly am no exception. Once a blogger published his post, he wants it to be read by as many people as possible-right?

There were not so many ways to make it happen when I first published my blog post in the year 2005.  There were not so many social media including twitter. We depended on very few avenues to promote our blog post that included mybloglog.com, (ceased to exists now) a very active bloggers community owned by Yahoo!, email marketing, traffic exchanges etc.

The blog promotion scenario is very different now and the options are plenty to us. Every keen blogger is constantly on the look out for new ways to get his blog post read; that's why titles like the one above would certainly attract every one.

The list of 35 places cited in the above blog post contained a few that are new to me.
Snapchat and Growthhacker

While the first one is an App based platform, the later is a website that challenged me about how it can help a blogger to promote his blog post. I found out a few guides on how to use Growth Hacker but I do not have patience to go though a guide.

Nevertheless, I hope you would visit the original blog post and get benefited as a blogger.

How can a blogger use Pinterest for blog promotion?

For the past hour or so, I have been clicking on PINS  in Pinterest.com related to
blogging
money blogging
blog traffic increasing

The following points were observed by me on what made to click on a PIN to read further. After all, this is the success of the said pinners in Pinterest and I must pay rich accolades on their creativity to PIN an image on correctly named boards and the compelling title that force you to click on.

Of all the PINs that I clicked today, I realized that I wanted to know more on how bloggers should make use of Pinterest to
attract new visitors
increase the number of visits of followers
sell anything through blogs
stamp your authority on your blog's niche

When I started composing this blog post, I thought I would show at least 5 PINs on which I clicked related to using PINTEREST for blog promotion. Now, I realize I am not able to do that because, I have collected and saved as many as 23 PINs on the topic of my interest.

One thing I can assure you that PINTEREST can be anyone's ultimate content curation tool. I forced myself to pull away from Pinterest.

Oh, let me at least show blow a PIN. I am sure you will click on it to read what is inside.

Note: I am not the authors of the PIN.

How to use Promoted PINs to bring large number of visitors to your blog.

Pinterest, the not so popular avenue to promote blogs and products among majority of the bloggers and online entrepreneurs, is my favorite browsing site. I spend considerable time in Pinterest, picking up useful info on myriad subjects.

A few minutes ago, I stumbled on to post in Pinterest titled, "How $3 brought 50,000 new visitors to my blog in 3 days". As a blogger, I was impressed and instantly opened the link to the blog post. It said about how to use 'promoted pins" to market your product online. The name of author of the blog is Nadine.

Promoted PIns work like any contextual advertising like Google AdSense or Facebook Ads. In Pinterest, instead of raw textual content, you promote your physical or digital information product using eye catching images.

How to use promoted pins.

Using Promoted PINs

1. Change your personal account into business account in Pinterest. It is free dear.
2. Decide on which blog post to promote that contains attractive and clear images.
3. Decide on your daily budget for each click on your PIN and go through all the necessary filters you need to apply.

That's it. Wait for a few days and check your Google analytics and AdSense too. You will be surprised to see the sudden spurt in the number of visitors and AdSense earnings.

This is just a brief about using Promoted PINs to market your brand in the Internet with very low budget. You must do your research further to enhance your knowledge before spending money on advertising through Pinterest.

Is it really possible to generate traffic to your blog through Facebook?

When you browse through Facebook with professional eyes of an Internet marketer, you will see posting from all the fishes of blogosphere sharing the links to their blog posts, Fan pages etc. Why do they do that? Do they expect casual browsers like you and I to click on their FB posts and visit their web pages?

Yes, obviously. So, it is possible to use the social media giant FB to attract visitors to your websites and blogs. Here are some useful tips which you can use to emulate professional social media marketers.

1.  Complete Your Profile in all aspects.

To use FB as a tool to establish yourself as an expert in your field and drive traffic to your blog, you need to include as many details of you as possible in your profile that include links to your blogs, photos of yourself and blog posts, your personal interests and professional achievements etc.  Don’t you want visitors to your FB page to all about you to connect with you?

2.  Find Friends

By using the search box intelligently, you can find friends that you know and want o know or want them to know you. When you find people who match your search criteria,  send them a friend request!

3.  Join Groups or Create Your Own Group

FB groups are great places to gain friends, to propagate your blog posts and visit blog posts of others that interest you. Alternatively, you can create your own FB group too. Do you know that you send out group invitations to all of your Facebook friends? However, please do not spam the groups you join by sharing irrelevant posts. 

Is blog promotion getting tougher?

Yesterday, a person from Kerala asked me over phone, "Is blog promotion getting tougher?".

I replied, it depends on your blogging age. He was not prepared for such a blunt reply. Nevertheless I went ahead and explained why blog marketing seems to be difficult for most of the newbie bloggers.

It may be due to the lack of quality bloggers network that existed 6 years before. Moreover, social media marketing is not fully grasped by the beginner bloggers.

Above all, I think bloggers are not focused on creating blog posts for the really targeted readers. They just publish anything they like and expect it to be read by a wide range of audience.

The Keralite requested a short online course on blog promotion from me using the current Internet marketing avenues.

Ways To Promote Your Blog's RSS Feed

Even experienced Internet marketers often ignore the potential of using their blog’s RSS feed effectively to promote their blogs. Several times I have pointed this to a few of my blogger friends. In fact, they even do not know how to burn their blog URL to generate blog feed URL.

You might have noticed that the RSS feed link on most blogs is usually so inconspicuous .Therefore, your first priority should be to make it more visible on your blog.

Adding a large RSS feed button in a prominent place on you blog is vital so that readers are urged to subscribe to the feed. You should also include smaller buttons for these links at the bottom of each blog post, plus a bit of text at the end of each post to remind people that these subscription and sharing options exist, and to encourage them to use them.

In fact I think it is a good idea to have a page on your blog that explains to visitors what the RSS feed is about and why it can make it easier for them to view your content on a regular basis in their favorite rss reader.

By having a special page on your site with this information, you can link to this page in your blog posts and in your blog theme beneath your subscription and sharing buttons.

Another great way to promote your RSS feed is to use RSS feed directories. RSS feed directories are special directory websites that publish the contents of your RSS feed.

Having your feed published at an RSS directory site means that the visitors to that site can find your content.

It also means that any links to your content that are published with the feed will become backlinks to your website, which will encourage search engines to index and rank your blog.

You can find RSS directories by using a search engine to search for them using terms such as "RSS directory", "RSS feed directory", "RSS directory list", "publish RSS feeds", and many similar search keywords.

You would come across many more ways to promote your RSS feed during blogging career. 

How to promote your blog using Twitter

There can be no difference of opinion about the value of promoting your blog posts through Twitter-right? However, not many people know how to use Twiiter  for blog promotion. Learning how to promote your blog using Twitter will help you to not only increase the traffic to your blog but also to help you increase your chances of your content going viral.

Twitter being the top social media site on the net, thousands of people are using it every minute. Because the character limit is only 140 characters in length, you have to be creative in your tweets. 

One of the most important things to remember is to always tweet about what is going on at your blog. This will show your audience that you are adding value with your tweets and not trying to sell stuff on twitter.

Another key to getting traffic to your blog using Twitter is to create curiosity tweets.  These should be short little tweets that say something like “looking for ways to do this or that ?  Visit “http://yourblogurl.com”.

With these salient points in mind, let’s look at some addition things that can be done to drive traffic to your blog using Twitter.

These are some basic steps on how to promote your blog that you can follow :

1.) Sign up for an account on Twitter and include your blog url in your profile description.

2.) Search for groups in your niche and join those groups.

3.) Add the twitter plug-in to your blog. 

4.) Ask readers to retweet your post for you.

5.) Create a fun contest, if you have the resources available. This may involve consulting with an attorney to make sure that all of the legal aspects are covered.

By implementing as many of the above methods as possible for your blog, you will see a good increase in traffic to your blog as a result of learning how to promote your blog using Twitter.

30 ways to promote your blog.

I liked this infographic that I found on Pinterest. The image is hyperlinked to the source.

How to make use of blog contests to attract visitors to your blog?

Though extremely effective, majority of the bloggers don’t travel on the blog contest highway to increase unique and targeted visitors to their blogs. There are two reasons that come to my mind for this reluctance to tap the potential of giveaways for blog promotion.

1.     There are nothing worthwhile to giveaway

2.    Don’t know how to promote the sweepstakes

If there is one word in the Internet that attracts maximum clicks, it is the word “FREE”. From digital information to product samples, people love to take what is offered free, whether they want it or not. 

Do you know that there are literally thousands of people who constantly scour the Internet to find online competitions that offer monetary benefits as well as free products and discount offers in leading shopping malls? I am no exception. However, I like only digital information and I know how to make money out of it as an ‘infopreneur’.

So, what is blog contest?

You host a contest on your blog. It means you announce an event that ends on a particular date and you also declare the prize you would give to the winner.

An example of blog contest:

Let us say you have a Facebook page and you want it boast of ‘1000 Likes’. In order to encourage people to ‘like’ your Facebook page, you announce a prize which can be anything that you can afford to giveaway.

You announce a starting date and an ending date. You publish an image of your Facebook page and link it too.

When the contest has ended, you may draw the lucky winners (say three people from those who have ‘liked’ your FB page) and giveaway the prize.

Once you have published the giveaway event on your blog, it is time to spread the word. If done the right way, you can expect a big spurt in traffic to your blog and to your Facebook page as well.

More blog contest ideas.

I only gave an example of what a blog contest is. If you spend time to read blog contests announced in the place mentioned above, you will get inspiring ideas. Sky is the limit to be creative with your giveaway event.

 

Where to promote your blog contest?

Do a ‘Google’ and it will reveal many blogs and websites that operate solely to announce blog contests.

I once published a blog post titled, ‘List of Giveaway Sites’.

If you are targeting Australians for your blog contest, go to this link: http://biggiveaway.com.au/

I have a page in Listly especially for Giveaway sites. View it by clicking on the link below.

62 places to list your giveaways.

View more lists from Malathy Badri

There are exclusive online directories for announcing blog contests. Online-Sweepstakes.com comes to my mind immediately because it is very popular and heavily-trafficked directory of online sweepstakes and contests.

ContestBlogger.com

Forums are assured placed to get your blog contest noticed. They are constantly watched by people like me waiting to grab some free lunch. (Smile) ContestBlogger.com offers several forums for blog contests and online sweepstakes.  

About.com Contests Forum

There is a folder dedicated to sharing news and information about contests and sweepstakes, including blog contests, in the About.com Guide to Contests forum.

SweepsAdvantage.com

Sweepstakes Advantage boasts having the largest directory of free online sweepstakes, freebies and contests. There is a special category for blog contests, and it's free to register and submit your blog contests. Just select the "Add Listing" tab in the left navigation bar. You'll be prompted to create a new account if you don't already have one, and then you can submit your blog contest free-of-charge. (Courtesy: about.com)

What information is needed to submit to sweepstakes and giveaway directories and blogs?

Your blog URL

The URL linking to the giveaway blog post

The prize details

Contest start and end date

Can you get a sponsor for the prize?

Yes of course but that depends on the popularity of your blog, the niche of your blog and the nature of the prize.

 

Free Facebook share, G+, Pinterest repins, twitter follow.

Relentless activity is going in the world of web to meet the frequent changes in Google’s indexing algorithms. No sooner than we modify our internet marketing strategy as per Google’s Panda and Penguin updates, we face with ‘Humming bird’ update.

Though the latest change in indexing strategies do not warrant any big reaction or changes from us bloggers and webmasters, we are kept on tenterhooks by the big boss Google. As soon as an update is announced, we go berserk. We hop between all the blogs dealing with search engine related news, trying to find a verdict by majority of the authors and we take steps to implement the suggestions.

What I have gathered so far is, the veterans in digital marketing world don’t foresee any big change in the importance of getting strong social signals. This means we must ensure that more and more people from diverse fields should ‘like, share, follow and retweet’ our digital foot prints.

We should aim to get:

1.     Facebook wall post likes

2.    Facebook wall post shares

3.    Facebook fan page likes

4.    Facebook followers and friends

5.    Google +, post shares

6.    Pinterest followers and ‘likes and repins’ of our pinterest pins.

7.    People to follow our Linkedin posts, ask questions or comment on our Linkedin posts

8.    Twitter followers, retweets of our tweets

9.    More followers for Bloglovin profiles, ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ for our bloglovin feeds

10. Instagram ‘likes’ and ‘followers’

These actions sound easy but require plenty of effort to get people engage in our social networking activities. There are micro job sites where you can see people selling these services for money. It is not advisable to pursue that strategy for getting social signals for obvious reasons.

Bloggers Social Platform  (BSP)

I recently came to know of a Facebook group dedicated to get free social signals. The group is called Bloggers Social Platform (BSP), a free to join group. It comprises of about 130+ members as of now.

How it works?

There is a social sharing schedule. It is given below. As per the timetable, you will a see new ‘tag’ every day the following steps to take for the group members.

Timetable or Tagging schedule

 MONDAY-BLOGLOVIN TAG

TUESDAY-G+ TAG

WEDNESDAY-INSTAGRAM TAG+LATEST BLOG POST COMMENT TAG

THURSDAY- PINTEREST TAG

FRIDAY- FACEBOOK TAG+LATEST BLOGPOST COMMENT TAG

SATURDAY- TWITTER TAG

SUNDAY-BLOG POST COMMENTS TAG

Today is Monday 7^th October 2013

MONDAY "BLOGLOVIN FOLLOW TAG"

RULES
If you are unable to participate fully we kindly ask you not to leave your link!

1) Leave the link to your Blog's BLOGLOVIN PROFILE. Please no chatting.

2) Visit the other member's Blog's BLOGLOVIN PROFILE.

3) FOLLOW
And Like or Share one of their posts.

4) Then come back here & hit LIKE on the blogger's link ONLY if you have completed no. 3) above!
Please keep in mind that it’s not fair for someone to take their time to visit, repin and comment on your images and not see the favor returned!

5) This TAG SESSION will be open for 24 hours from the time it is posted.
Once the time is up the moderator will leave a comment saying TAG CLOSED, which means you cannot leave your link anymore.

6) When you have finished leaving comments and sharing the love, please leave a comment after the TAG CLOSED comment saying "done all"

Even after the tag is closed you can catch up on commenting until you have commented on all the participants’ links

Ah, so clear instruction without any ambiguity-right?

Join BSP by visiting the link below.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1420366298184577/

 

As mentioned above, BSP has 130+ members as of now. Like any Facebook group, not all members are active participants here. In addition, the present members are blogging about beauty and makeup by majority. I think majority of the group members are from India.

We need more members to join BSP and that too from different niches from all parts of the world. I invite to join the group and participate for two or three days of action. If you like it, I request you to invite your friends.

In addition, comeback to this blog post and share the link with your social media sites. We all can stand to gain by joining in BSP and by spreading the word.

We get 100% genuine social signals.