» Social Media

Is there anything more ironic than using a newspaper to promote your blog? I mean, blogs (and the whole social media revolution) are really pitted as the reason for the decline of newspapers. But with that said, that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of your local newspaper or online publications. Newspapers are always looking for stories, content, and money and will always have open ears and pockets if you’re looking to promote your blog.

First off, let’s look at this from a financial situation. Newspapers need money - always have and always will. If you have the extra money, one thing you want to look into is taking out an add in your local paper. Now, depending on where you’re located (big city, small city) you’ll find a variety of different options and prices. If you’re a sports blogger, you’ll want to take an advertisement out on the sports page. If you’re a entertainment blog, you’ll want to put it near their gossip column. If you’re a business blog, you’ll want to put it in the business section. It’s very important that you match your blog niche to the correct section of the newspaper to make this an effective marketing strategy.

If paying for a full out blog advertisement isn’t something you’re interested in, you’re still not out of luck. As I mentioned before newspapers and online publications are always looking for content - especially free content. What you’ll want to do is contact somebody from the newspaper or online publication and let them know you’re interested in writing a small piece on a relevant topic that matches that papers needs, but, that also compliments your blog. Simply asking what they need in terms of content might not be a bad approach. Making “friends” with your contact is the most important part here. Once they’ve given you a topic to write about, hopefully they’ll publish it in your local paper or on an online publication and you’ll get free promotion using that method.

It’s actually something I’ve seen done before and I can’t understand why it’s not used on a more consistent basis. It’s a very cheap and easy way to promote your blog to thousands of people, if not more.

Give it a try!

One of the more difficult things to do with blogging is promoting your blog. It’s not that it’s hard to do, however, it can be extremely time consuming…time you really don’t have. So, one thing I always do is look for ways that you can promote your blog without actually doing any of the work. One such way to do that is to sign u p at Blog Upp, which is a great and simple little service. You literally do two simple steps and you’re done. Your blog will be freely promoted without you lifting a finger.

How does it work? Simple!

First, you visit Blog Upp by clicking here. Once you’ve done so, you’ll then put in the link to your blog in the requested space and click the “get widget” button. You’ll then be given a code which you’ll copy and then paste into a “text” widget in your sidebar. That’s it. It’s really that simple.

When you return to your blog, you’ll now see a your live widget which will display a random blog that also signed up for the service. Every time you refresh, a new blog will appear…and as long as you keep that widget on your page, the same thing will be taking place with your blog on somebody elses page. It’s like blog promotion on autopilot.

There is no private information involved, no need to create an account, no annoying e-mails, nothing. It’s as simple as copy and paste and your blog will now be promoted on other blogs. A very sweet deal if you ask me, especially in this day and age of everybody trying to nickel and dime you.

There is also a 10:9 blog ratio, which means that for every 10 blogs shown on your blog, your blog will be shown 9 times on other blogs which is a very solid ratio for free promotion. And no need to worry about losing traffic. If somebody does click a link to another blog, it will open in a new tab/window so your blog is still on their page.

To visit Blog Upp, click here.

When you start a new blog one of the first things you’ll do in the process is get a domain name, or at least, “find” a domain name if you don’t make one up yourself. As you go along, you’ll start to notice that many two, three, four, or five letter/word domains are gone. Why? Because they’re simple to remember. Simplicity is one of the biggest advantages you need to look for when you’re trying to find a new domain. Below, I’ll run down a few important issues you’ll need to keep in mind when selecting a domain name.

1) Simplicity - As I stated above, there is a reason most simple domain names are gone. You need something easy that everybody can spell. In this situation, the shorter, the better. My best suggestion would be to keep your domain name below 10 characters. It’s also best to keep your domain at one or two words. For example, “BloggerInstitute” would be a “two word” domain. However, “BloggerInstituteOfTechnology” would be a “four word” domain and pretty much be totally worthless.

2) Easy To Remember - This is similar to the above need to keep it simple, but you need to find a name that not only you can remember but one that everybody else can as well. Just because “Auatua.com” might be a short name, it doesn’t mean people will remember it. How many websites and blogs do you visit off the top of your head? Many. So make sure you keep it simple and easy to remember.

3) Spelling Issues - This again could be thrown into the first idea of keeping it simple, but, we’re not just saying to avoid incorrect spelling of words. We’re also saying to avoid hard to spell words. For example, a word like “cappuccino” is difficult to spell for most people, so, you’d want to avoid a commonly misspelled word in your domain name.

4) .Com domain - This one is a little tricky in my book. Do I think it’s necessary? Not right off the bat, no. This is something you’d want to look into further down the road if your blog becomes a success. The reason for this however is because people will always think “.com” in their brain when they’re looking for a website/blog. Hosting companies charge a lot of money for available domain’s that end in a .com address, and with good reason. Stick with a .net or .org domain for now, but keep an eye out on an eventual move to a .com domain.

As I’ve mentioned a few times here on Blogger Institute, simply writing quality postings is not enough to have a popular blog. Despite how interesting, in-depth, or informative your articles might be, they aren’t of any real value unless you have visitors. And to get visitors, you have to market your blog. Most of us don’t have the money it requires to seriously advertise our blog(s), so we result to social media websites such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and more to promote our hard work.

But, the problem many of us run into is the amount of time it takes to deal with all of these sites. I just named a few off the top of my head above and they all started running together. Between your blog(s) and life in general, you only have time to seriously use one, maybe two social networking sites to your advantage due to time restrains. It’s just impossible to use them all. Or, it was…until now.

There is a new service (free!) that will be your all-in-one social media website hub. The service is named Streamy and it’s really proving to be a very amazing tool for bloggers. First off, unlike most other “similar” services, this product is NOT a downloadble desktop application. Those only slow down your computer and eat away at your memory. With Streamy, you simply sign up, put in your information, and you’ve now got an increadible social media hub where you can view all of your social networking profiles at once, and can update them as well! No more going to Twitter, then Myspace, then Facebook, etc. You simply log in and you can post to all of them using your Streamy Dashboard. You can even chat in real time using using chat networks like AIM and Googletalk.

I’m pretty difficult to impress, but, I highly suggest Streamy for any blogger who uses social networking websites to their advantage. It’s a technological marvel. The system is set up perfectly for bloggers to share stories as well, so it’s something you really should check out.

To visit Streamy.com, click here.