So far this week we have covered several ways to be social and drive more traffic to your blog. Since today’s post is all about using video I made a small video to explain this method of using social video. Enjoy the video. And go easy on me. Its my first stab at it.
Social news. Are you submitted? 8 sites to broaden your traffic.
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Like I mentioned at the beginning of the week, this week is all about social media and utilizing it to get your blog more traffic and readers.
Starting off with Digg. This is to be considered the mack daddy of Social Media Sites. I’m sure someone is going to disagree so let me clear this up. It is said that if your story makes it to the front page of digg you can expect 30,000 uniques. I just saw a post go to the front page a couple weeks ago and the number was closer to 60,000. However it sometimes takes an act from a higher power to get to the front page so that is why you must keep reading this post to discover other places to submit to.
Reddit is another super power but doesn’t get nearly the traffic that digg gets. Although according to Alexa it is still in the top 1000 sites. The strange thing about Reddit is this is exactly what digg looked like about three years ago. Very basic but had all the right features.
Now we’re starting to get into the more specialized social news sites. Sphinn was started by Search Engine Land. Basically Sphinn is a social site for search and interactive marketers. So if your blog has content related to these things feel free to submit.
Propeller which used to be Netscape (not to be confused with the web browser) is a social news site that was supposedly the digg killer. The difference is that once stories are submitted there is an editor that reviews the story and writes a little more about it. I figure the reason they caught som much bad pres is because they had the potential to steal some digg user base with the star power they had behind the project. Now that it doesn’t occupy the netscape.com namespace I guess its just a side project for someone at AOL.
PlugIM is a socially driven Internet Marketing community. So the IM stands for Internet Marketing. And the Plug part stands for . . . Oh you get the idea. Same voting method as the rest applies. ou either like it or you don’t.
Mixx is a site that you can mixx the stuff that you like and have it delivered to you when you log in. The good thing for bloggers is that the categories cover pretty much everything.
I wanted to make sure I included Hugg in this list to show you how specialized social news sites can get. Hugg was started by Tree Hugger and is for Blogs and articles devoted to green.
Newsdoggy is the real digg killer! Ok maybe I just said that because Newsdoggy is a sister site of SuccessForYourBlog. This is one of my pet projects that I just started and hope everyone takes the opportunity to become an earlier adopter. I have many ideas for NewsDoggy but those ideas will only come to life with blogger participation. So jump in and get your free account. For now its another great way to promote your posts.
Have you been Bumped lately?
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Continuing on with this weeks theme of social networking, blogging communities and blog networking I would like to talk a little about Bumpzee. I am a little less familiar with Bumpzee as I am with MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog so part of this is going to be taking the journey together.
Bumpzee has a familiar feel after having used MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog. But there are a few more features that your gonna like. Once you signup for your free Bumpzee account the next thing to do is claim your blogs or add them to your profile. Then your off to update your profile, add friends, join communities and conversations.
The Bump part of the site is the social acceptance part where you can “Bump” (if you like it) or “Dump” (if you don’t) blog posts, and conversations. This is basically just like digg but all posts titles are automatically added once your blog is added to Bumpzee. You can also add a Bumpzee widget to your blog to track visitors that are members of Bumpzee. In addition you can add a Bumpzee badge on your posts to help promote Bumping. Certainly one to start using. I will report back my Bumpzee experience once I have more Bumpzee Karma (term I made up).
Build your MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog communities
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This week I am going to focus on building more social networks. Starting today with MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog. OK First things first. If you don’t have a MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog account, you should go sign up now. These are two great places to build readership and connect with other bloggers.
BlogCatalog is social blog directory. Whether your looking to promote your blog or find other blogs that your interested in BlogCatalog has you covered.
Like Blog Catalog MyBlogLog is a Blogger community directory, now owned by Yahoo. Its a place for bloggers to connect with other bloggers and discover other great blogs out in the Blogosphere.
The great thing about both of these community sites is that you can have conversations and see who is reading your blog. Both have widgets that you can install on your blog that shows a users gravatar, which can be clicked on and takes you to their community page. There you can discover blogs they have or leave messages for them. You can also encourage people that have read your blog to join your community or subscribe to your feed. Your feeds are also syndicated to extend your blogs reach.
Now that you have join both BloagCatalog and MyBlogLog go ahead and join SuccessForYourBlogs MyBlogLog Community and BlogCatalog Communities. This will ensure that I find your blog. Find some other communities that your interested in and join them, leave a comment letting them know you like their blog and chances are they will either befriend you or join your blogs community. Good luck and keep on blogging.
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12 forums for bloggers
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When it comes to being part a community there is no better place than in a forum. Its a great place to find answers to your questions, answer others questions and build your network of colleagues. If you found Success For Your Blog and enjoy the tips, tricks and best blogging practices, then chances are you would like the forums I’m going to tell you about today. These forums are geared toward helping you make the best out of blogging and network with other like minded people. I will list 12 (now 14) forums to get your started. Its up to you to list any others in the comments. Enjoy!
I recommend you pick a few and become active. If you have the time and resources join a couple more but if you get to 10 your going to find it very difficult to keep up while doing everything else.
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