This is a guest contribution from Courtney Gordner.
If you want to maximise the potential of your blog, it’s essential that you interact with your followers. And if you want to interact with your followers, you need to know where to find them.
When they’re online and not reading through your latest post, odds are, they’re engaging with social media. This is exactly why if you have a blog, you should be interacting with your readers on Twitter.
But hang on just a second. Before you jump right into linking your blog with Twitter, you should take some time to make your blog “Twitter friendly.” Here’s how this is done:
Creating a Twitter-Friendly Blog
Be Familiar with Your Target Audience and What Interests Them
It’s tempting to think that your blog should be all about your interests, but in reality, if you want to accrue a consistent readership, it’s essential that you write for your audience.
With this in mind, you should develop a marketing persona to understand the needs and priorities of your audience and a social media persona to know where they gather and interact on social media.
Use a Featured Image
Pictures, infographics, and visual aids draw readers in and grab their interest. Pictures should be properly formatted and appropriate for your content. Also, images of people are especially effective, so they should be used whenever possible.
Twitter Tools to Use with Your Blog
Use the Sidebar
Ask visitors to follow you on Twitter in your sidebar. Maximise the value of your blog by getting readers to interact with you on other social media sites.
It’s likely that visitors are already spending a lot of time on these platforms, and if you want to attract more readers, you need to go where the people go.
Incorporate Social Sharing Icons Above and Below Every Post
This is especially effective with your readers who are visually oriented.
Linking Twitter and Your Blog
Develop a Blog Profile
In your blog profile, you should give information about your blog, along with providing its URL, a current description, and gravatar. The name you use on Twitter should be consistent with your blog.
Make Your Blog’s Brand Part of Your Twitter Image and Background
Since you’re using social media to enhance your blog’s brand, you should make sure that your Twitter profile uses brand elements that identify with your blog.
Enlist the Help of Your Friends
Share posts from your friends on your Twitter page, and have them return the favor by sharing your posts on theirs.
Keep Your Eye on the Competition
Use your personal account to follow and interact with your competition on Twitter. The benefits of this are twofold: first, it allows you to develop relationships with people who may be interested in your content; secondly, it gives you ideas for other topics to address on your blog.
Optimizing Your Blog’s Potential with Twitter
Tweet Each Blog Post Multiple Times
Since people on social media live across the country in different time zones, this helps to ensure that your posts get noticed.
Condense Blog Posts into “Tweetable” Chunks
For more lengthy posts, roundups, and lists, make the most of your content by creating a set of tweets to be posted over an extended period of time.
For Reader Accessiblity, Pre-Format Tweets
This works especially well with quotes and data roundups. To promote tweeting, use Clicktotweet.
Extend Your Blog’s Reach with Optimal Hashtags
Keep your audience in mind as you evaluate the relevance of the content for your hashtags. You should use a maximum of three hashtags and keep them separate from the body of your message.
Publish Your Tweets With a Scheduling Tool
Scheduling tools allow you to set the time you want your tweets to appear.
Express Gratitude Towards People Who Share Your Blog Posts
They will appreciate the recognition, and by thanking people, you can develop and strengthen your social media relationships.
Join Pertinent Twitter Chats
Joining chats on Twitter is another great way to build social media relationships. Consider joining #BlogChat on Sunday evenings to learn ways to optimise your blog and interact with other bloggers.
Interacting with your blog readers on Twitter shows readers that you care about them and value their input. It helps you maintain your current readership and even allows you to draw in new readers.
So, if you want a widely followed blog that can’t be beat, the answer is clear: you better start to tweet.
Courtney Gordner is a blogger with a passion for all things internet, social media and SEO. She learned her skills while working for an internet marketing company.
Thanks for an excellent article on twitter. Timing is the really the key when tweeting your blog posts. I am told that Saturday is probably the best day to send your tweet for maximum exposure.
It is also important to separate your personal tweeter account from your business account and on the business side follow the big shots in your industry and their followers. Just take care to reduce the number of people you follow per day as tweeter is clamping down on this as well.
I also like your suggestion of interacting with your blog readers on tweeter. It will definitely promote loyalty to your blog.
Thanks for the feedback!!! Glad you enjoyed it.
Hi Courtney, great post. I always tend to use Twitter frequently closely with my blog, be it for promoting my blog posts or helping other fellow bloggers out. Making a separate account for my blog has been my strategy and I will definitely incorporate these tips in my future endeavors on twitter!
Hey David! Thanks for the feedback. Really glad you enjoyed it!
Blogging should focus about sharing information on things that you are familiar with, interested in and actually know about. If you don’t have a clear direction about topics you want to write, then it will be hard to create relevant and engaging content.
If you stick to your lane, it will be easier for you to interact with other bloggers who share the same interest. People will be convinced that you are an expert on a particular subject and they will visit your blog for tips and advice. In my case as a realtor promoting home listings in Charleston Sc real estate, I normally blog about updates, news, and trends happening in Charleston SC area.
Social media should also come hand in hand with blogging as it will increase the visibility of your posts and attract leads. I definitely agree that optimizing blog using twitter is a good move for a wider target audience reach. Excellent tips! Thanks for this wonderful article.
I never ignore using Twitter as a means of socially connecting with people every time I published a new page to my website. Twitter is by far a priceless social vehicle for connecting with people and effectively conveying messages. I would also recommend people increasing their unique content output on blogs and websites in order to possibly increase their twitter followers.
Hey Courtney, I just started using twitter for my website. However, I think the general rule for social media is to engage with people and show them that you care about their problems. They will most likely use your website and be part of the traffic if they find their answers on your website. It’s all about providing value. Nothing else matters.
This is what Gary Vaynerchuk promotes. ;)
Hey Chris! That’s some great advice! It’s really important to show you care, and social media is the perfect way!
Thanks for the comment!
Hello Courtney,
Great post. I have a few questions for you though. You say to tweet each blog post more than once, wouldn’t that kind of fall along the lines of duplicate content though? Also, I’d be a bit uneasy about littering your blog with too many social media buttons, banners and options. Adding something new usually takes away some user-friendliness.
Hey Shawn!
Great thoughts, thanks for sharing! I think it’s really good to go back to old blog posts and re share them on social sites. Don’t flood the feed with it, but make sure that people have the chance to see what you’ve done in the past, and present!
Clean, user friendly buttons are good, and you only need 1 set! Some people use numerous plugins that have different sets, this does look spammy and not clean!
Thanks again!!
Great post, Courtney. I agree that blogging definitely needs to be a balance between what the blogger is passionate about and what the audience wants to hear. Even though it is important to know your audience and to make sure that you write in a way that is able to connect with them, you also do need to take your own interests into consideration, or you may not have an audience to read your work to begin with.
Twitter is one of the best places I have found to share my work with people just like me.
With blogging, you can stay active on Twitter and get in touch with like-minded people and gain lots of knowledge from them!
I agree Arbaz! Thanks for reading!
Hi there, Excellent post.This is what I have to implement on my new blog. This taught me how to build a strong relationship and to promote my blog. The use of Hashtags was new for me.Thanks ! I will surely apply these on my new blog. Once again thanks for this nice article.
Thanks Vishnu! Glad you enjoyed it and that you are finding success!!
Good luck!
Yes buddy you are right,interaction is needed with you followers esle they are more chances of loosing them.
Hey, Courtney, excellent post about marketing your blog with Twitter! Twitter can definitely be used to maintain a strong relationship with your readers as pretty much everyone is on it nowadays…
Thanks for the feedback Alvin! :)
I have my blog linked to my personal Twitter account. Thanks to your post, I now know that I should create a separate account for the blog. Though that was something I should’ve known from the beginning :D
Yes u are right, it’s essential that we must write for our audience.
from this post, i came to know the essential need of Twitter Tools for blogs .. thanx :)
Thanks for reading! Glad you enjoyed it.
my twitter is not big enough,. maybe i’ll try to focuss on twitter
Good luck! Try using Hashtags to connect with people!
These are great tips, Courtney. Many bloggers only tweet once and feel if they do it more often they spam their tweeps, which is obviously not the case. Do you think adding a pic to your tweet helps? Just wondering if you meant something specifically for Twitter regarding the image on your post.
Having an image for your post is important regardless, not for Twitter sharing only :)
And thanks for reminding me about #blogchat, I had forgotten about that one!
I do agree, writing high quality articles and to your audience is a great way to build your audience. I personally use Twitter to drive more traffic to my site.
Thanks for the feedback Nancy! Good Luck!
I’m discovering nowadays that one can be a potentially million-dollar blogger just by way of blogging, tweeting on twitter and sharing content automatically on social networks. I wish I knew this information about unique content creation and blogging way back in the day, because I would’ve been way ahead of the game in my Internet marketing endeavors today. At least I know I have inspirational folks such as yourself whose blogs I can read about their humble beginnings from making nothing in blogging and affiliate marketing and becoming online millionaires and not having a day job. Thank you Darren for keeping us inspired! :-)
Results of your activities on Twitter appear slowly but whoever comes from Twitter to your blog it converts into your subscriber. A very serious lot of communities are usually found on this awesome platform of social media.
Nice post, i believe a twitter account can really increase the number of visitors, and that it’s still good to have a separate account for the blog, and for twitter. Good quality content directed to the audience is a key factor also.
Thanks for the feedback Robert!! You’re right about content, it still is and always will be, king!
Thanks for reading!
This is so true! If you do not interact with your followers, it’s most likely that most of them will stop following you.
Great tips Courtney! I will definetly make use of them.
Thanks Rick! Glad you enjoyed them. Good luck!
Great tips! I didn’t even think that connecting a blog to twitter is such a complicated task.
I have to start taking your advice on tweeting with a picture. I know I’m, personally, very visually oriented, so it makes perfect sense that other would be too. Great tips!
Hey Erin! Thanks for the comment! Good luck! And yea, try to connect with other viewers like yourself :)
Thanks for this post, Courtney. I was assessing my Analytics earlier today for social media sites with the highest incoming traffic and pages per visitor and found Twitter is extremely important to my site. I’ve been coming designing a game plan for the coming year and will definitely incorporate blog branding into my Twitter account and start schedule tweets for each post multiple times per day. Great tips.
Hey Nikki! Thanks for your feedback. Glad you enjoyed them and good luck!!
I couldn’t agree with the “incorporate social sharing tools” part enough!
My favorite social sharing plugin is Digg Digg – a sticky floating thing that rests on the left of your content. Even though my blog is only about two weeks old, I’m getting over 10 shares per post, solely due to that!
Can’t recommend it enough!
Regards,
JR John
Thanks for the advice JR! Glad you are finding success.
I think that a person, who works with content marketing can’t ignore social media, especially Twitter. I completely agree that you should always catch up with new tendencies, otherwise you’ll fail.