Mastering Shameless Blog Promotion

Posted on January 27, 2010 by

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four plasticine figures It makes little difference whether you are a Business Blogger, Professional Blogger,  Technical Blogger or a Personal Blogger, or any other kind of blogger, mastering the use of Shameless Promotion in social networks key to success. So are you up for it?

Social networking sites are centered on member profiles, which include personal information, photos, interests, goals, websites and blogs. These descriptive profiles publicly display  one or more lists of  each member’s “friend” connections, to make friends’ friends accessible and approachable.

“According to research by Harvard Business School‘s Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, people spend 70% of their time on social networks looking at profiles and photos.” – easeyboy

Social networks have communication tools including private messaging (email), instant messaging, chat, groups, forums, and video and photo sharing, etc.  The tools are designed to facilitate ever growing webs of  ” friend ” connections.

Bloggers will be well served  if they take these four preparatory steps before stepping into social networking and connecting.

(1) Write an appealing profile

Here’s your opportunity to briefly showcase your knowledge in regard to the subjects you blog about (or products or services your sell or review) . Once it’s complete you can place it on the profile pages of all blog directories, blogging forums, social media sites, social networks, online forums and groups you are a member of.

Select some attractive images, videos, podcasts, etc.  that depict you in relationship to what you blog about.

(2) Write a concise and informative blog description

This will give you an opportunity to let reader know what to expect in your blog, which categories and tags best characterize your blog, and what makes it unique from other blogs on the same subject(s).

Use it on your About page on your blog, and on social media sites like twitter, hootsuite and friendfeed, as well as, on your Profile pages in blog directories, social networks, online forums and groups.

(3) Write an Elevator Speech

An “elevator speech” is a super-short explanation of an idea, a business, or a blog, designed to create further interest that can be delivered in the time it takes folks to ride from the top to the bottom of a building in an elevator.

There will be many occasions when you can use an elevator speech in either written form and verbally. Limit  the text to 140 characters and you can “tweet” it to your Twitter followers.

(4) Prepare a  Shameless Promotion Paragraph

Expand your elevator speech by composing a short paragraph that may be included in a newsletter or perhaps a press release.  Aim to include enough information to “hook” those who read it into wanting to:

  • visit your blog and read your posts;
  • join the discussion;
  • become subscribers.

Tips:

Be aware that those who are prepared to listen may want to know the answers to these three questions:

  1. What do you blog about?
  2. What is your brand? In other words, what makes your blog (product, service)  unique from all the others in the same niche?
  3. WIIFM? (What’s in it for me?) How will a visitor benefit from visiting  your site?

Matt Cutts gives two pieces of advice to those who want to optimize their sites for search engines on a small budget. Watch the video and see if his advice helps you decide what’s essential when it comes to effective  Shameless Promotion.

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Posted in: Better Blogging, Blog Promotion, Blogging Tutorials, Business Blogging, Social networks, Writing for the Web