4 Benefits of Using Twitter to Promote Your Blog

Have you considered using Twitter as a way to promote your blog and brand?

I was late in boarding the Twitter train, to be honest. After all, how could typing a simple sentence or question several times a day do anything for a blog? I just never realized its potential until I joined up, added some friends, and sent out a few tweets.

As simple as the service is, using it comes with some great benefits to you, your blog, and your brand. Here are four:

Networking

Twitter is full of people to chat with, many of which may eventually become friends or fans of yours. Reach out to them- they'll listen. Strike up a conversation just as you would any other day when meeting someone face-to-face. Twitter is a place for sharing thoughts, ideas, events, humor, just about anything.. the possibilities are endless.

Some have found it useful for hiring guest bloggers or finding new advertisers for their blogs. All it takes is a simple tweet to an engaged audience. Be careful not to spam your requests though- doing so could cause you to lose some of your following. The purpose of a community is to give, and by doing so, you will reap the benefits.

Traffic

Twitter is a great place to advertise your blog, as long as you connect with the right people and do not spam your links (like I mentioned above). Keep in touch with your network- pass on helpful links, give advice, just chat with them. By showing them that you're approachable and giving back to the community, your contacts will be more apt to pass on your links to their friends. If used regularly, Twitter could be a great source of traffic for your blog.

Keep in mind, Twitter is not a long-term source of traffic. However, it can expose you to a large group of people, some of which could become loyal readers if you can manage to catch their interest.

Branding

Reaching out to others away from your blog is one of the best ways to build your brand, and because Twitter is such an interactive community, it's a great place to expand on what you have already established.

If people see you everywhere, they're bound to take notice and check out what you have to offer at one point or another. Start conversations and join in on the ones that appeal to you. People will reply (as long as you are actually giving to the community, rather than only taking from it), and when they do, they are linking to your profile and advertising you to their networks at the same time. If that isn't a great way to make your name and ideas known to the masses, I don't know what is.

Feedback

Because Twitter is so quick and simple to use, it is the ideal place to start a poll or share an idea and receive several responses within a matter of minutes. (This will vary due to the number of followers you have, and the relationship you have with them.) It's also a great way to gather inspiration for new posts, or collect links to new sources of information. Get creative when addressing your followers. Ask questions that interest them and they won't let you down. Twitter is all about chatting and connecting with others, so get the conversation started.

All in all, I must say that having a Twitter account can benefit any kind of blog, as long as you are providing great content on a regular basis- not just on your blog, but also within the community.

However, it is rather addictive for some and has the potential to distract many a blogger from his or her work. As with all good things, Twitter should be used only in moderation (that is, if you want to get anything done).

What are your thoughts about the service? And what has it done for you and your blog?

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Comments

[Tom Kephart]

I'm also a bit late catching the Twitter train. (I'd say I grabbed the back of the caboose, but I haven't seen a caboose on a train in years.) I'm seeing some nice traffic when my new posts are tweeted using Twitterfeed. As you mention, Raivyn, bloggers should avoid abusing the Twitter community by spamming links. So far, though, people seem to like the notifications of new posts, provided the user is involved in the community in other ways and not just having a bot send out tweets non-stop.

Like any other social networking tool, Twitter can become addictive... just a sec, I just got a tweet... sorry. What was I saying?

[Francis]

Oh,it's hard to visit your blog.
Maybe China government's GFW didn't allow your blog.....

[Mark]

New and late to Twitter too. I like it but it hasn't done anything for me or my site as I haven't felt comfortable enough using it for that purpose. Yet.

At the moment I'm enjoying using it to find a few people to follow, then checking out all the people they're following and seeing if any of them are worth following. In fact, that's how I found you so it could be said that Twitter is working to promote you even when you're not actively promoting yourself too.

[I Review You]

Hey Raivyn, I'm new on your blog. And I like it, it's clean and full of advices. Also, we share the same 'conditions': I'm 22 too and I'm also a musician who blogs about internet. :)

I've just subscribed to your RSS.
Do you take guest posts?

Ren

[I Review You]

Sorry, Raivyn, I missed the small link on the sidebar. =/

[chris]

I'm late getting on the Twitter train too. Thanks to your post, I'll check it out.