5 Ways You Can Increase Your Blog Traffic on Twitter Hashtag Days
62March 16, 2015 by Paula Reed Nancarrow
Thanks to the 189 bloggers who took my 2015 Blog Hashtag Day Survey.
They were all very enthusiastic. You can read the results of the survey here.
Courtesy Death and Taxes
Thanks also to those intrepid creators of hashtag days like #SundayBlogShare (@Suzie81blog), #MondayBlogs (Rachael Thompson, or @RachelintheOC), #wwwblogs (Barbara @chicaderock @womenwriterblog), and #ArchiveDay (Vicky Charles @SingleMAhoy). Because of these people, and that survey, you and I have a lot more information about how people use blog hashtag days on Twitter to do the two things they see as important: create community and grow audience.
I thought I would publish a final post detailing how I maximize my use of hashtag days but in truth I think I’m going to need two – precisely because those two purposes, to create community and to grow audience – are often at odds. The reason for this is something I have explored in an earlier post, and will look at in terms of its implications for my own hashtag practice next week. But for this post, we will focus on audience growth.
Hashtag Days have treated me well since I first began blogging weekly in 2014.
At least the stats that are built into WordPress.com tell me so. In January 2014 my blog had 159 page views – twice what I’d had in the highest month of 2013, when I was blogging at most monthly, and was rarely on Twitter at all.
My Stats as of 3/16/15
I got back on Twitter specifically to promote blog posts. I stumbled onto #MondayBlogs in February, and #wwwblogs shortly thereafter. Page views tripled that month, and kept climbing. #ArchiveDay came to my attention in March.
There were a couple of growth spikes (in July and November) with two very popular posts, but most of the growth was steady. By the end of the year, monthly page views on my blog were over 2000, and the average number of daily page views was 48. That’s up from an average of ummm…one.
Those results may not be much for a business blogger whose income is dependent on clicks or product sales, or for an established author with a strong following. But they pleased me. Still, I had no idea whether or not my experience was typical – or what a good growth goal for 2015 might be. That was one of the reasons I created the 2015 Hashtag survey. So you can just put that One Altruistic Blogger award back on the shelf.
It seems I am doing better than most.
Forty percent of survey respondents claim to be getting between 1 and 49 page views on their highest hashtag day, and 25% between 50 and 99. Along with 12% of respondents, I regularly get 100-199 page views for #MondayBlogs. For more popular content, my page views can be even higher.
Here are five things I do that seem to make a difference:
1. I publish new content weekly.
I try to keep my posts to an ideal length of 750-850 words. That’s not always possible, as you can see with this post. But I use headers that essentially outline the post, and break it up with pictures. Six may seem like a lot, but the number suits my social media strategy well.
2. I promote my posts 24/7.
If you are not taking advantage of the fact that #MondayBlogs is a global phenomenon, you’re not getting the most you can out of it. The UK in particular is very blogger-friendly. I publish late Sunday evening if possible; if not, in the wee hours of Monday morning. I promote a new post on Twitter once every two hours, using six different headlines and images, each twice in a 24 hour period.
3. For every tweet of my own blog post, I retweet eight other bloggers, or about four an hour.
This is on hashtag days only. And it is not always true in the early morning hours; on Mondays I may have just enough time after writing the post and scheduling it to scatter in a few prescheduled retweets before I crash for the evening. On Monday morning before work, I preschedule retweets through lunch time if possible. If not, I take a coffee break midmorning. The afternoon works much the same. If you see retweets coming fast and furious in the evening it is because I had a popular post, and accumulated a debt of reciprocity over the course of my workday.
4. I write down people who have retweeted my post and reciprocate. Religiously.
I only retweet one post per person on a hashtag day and cross out each name as I go. I distribute my retweets over the course of the day so that I am initiating a retweet as often as I am reciprocating one – so in an hour’s time, I am usually retweeting two people who have already shared (and possibly read) my post, and two who have not. This keeps traffic flowing. If I run out of time, as sometimes happens with a very popular post, I reciprocate without the #MondayBlogs hashtag on Tuesday.
Children Reading a Wireless Faxed Newspaper, 1938
5. I do not worry about reading posts before I retweet them.
This is probably the most controversial thing I’ll say. When I was new to #MondayBlogs, I made sure to read everything before I shared it to decide if it was “worthy,” and I tried to include a comment or recommendation in my retweet. But if you want to grow your audience, this is simply not a sustainable practice. Last week, for example, over 150 people retweeted my post in a 24 hour period. Even if I had wanted to, there was no way I could read each of them before reciprocating.
And I still think a retweet is better than a thank you. A retweet keeps a post “live,” which is the key to how social media works. Though people complain about those who retweet without reading, if you have 800 followers and you retweet the post of a person who has 50,000 followers, would you prefer that person say “thank you” and let the link go dead because they have not had time to read the post, or retweet and expand that post’s potential reach by 49,200 people?
So I do some checking to ensure I am not putting graphic content or hate speech into my stream, but I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that if I want audience growth, I have to work at the speed of Twitter on hashtag days, and save most of my actual reading for later in the week. Which I do.
This is one of the ways I’ve learned to balance the goal of audience growth with the idea of building community on Hashtag Days. I’ll focus on that community aspect next week.
How about you? Do you have ideas you’d like to share about growing an audience by using Twitter hashtag days?
Paula Reed Nancarrow 
This is very helpful information, I will try to implement some of the ideas.
First let me follow you on twitter and RT
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Thank you!
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Thanks for sharing this further information and your conclusions re hashtag days and RTs. I was particularly interested in #5 as I am one of those who likes to read first, mostly, but not always. I will, on a hashtag day, RT someone who’s work I am familiar with but have not read. If it is someone I am not familiar with, I will either ignore or check out the post (if it sounds interesting) to make sure there is nothing I would consider inappropriate for my timeline. I often find new people to follow by checking out their material. Perhaps I am reducing the number of potential RTs and followers by doing this, so I will give some more thought to your suggestion and reasons. I am not quite sure of the growing an audience vs growing a community dilemma as I am sure that most of my “followers” read/see little of what I write. The opposite is true. I see little of what is written by most of the people I am following, just my main “community”. I am not as dedicated as you to getting on to Twitter and reading and RTing. I don’t know how I’d make the time to do that!
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Norah: I don’t think it matters whether your reducing potential RTs and followers if you are getting the number of readers you want. I feel a little bad that this post is so weighted toward growth that it doesn’t reflect my real ambivalence about some of these strategies – or at least my awareness that they are a compromise. I have been working on developing a practice that would ensure I engage regularly and genuinely with a core community of readers and writers, and I’ll outline that practice next week. And then, perhaps, we can stop talking about how to be heard and focus on how to listen and have a meaningful interchange.
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Thanks for listening, Paula. I am enjoying our meaningful exchange. It has given me the impetus to think a little more deeply about what I really want to achieve and to assess whether what I am doing is progressing me towards that. As a teacher I felt that everything we did should progress the children’s learning, rather than waste their time. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun. I think some of the best learning is done through fun and enjoyable activities. It also doesn’t mean I directed everything, but I made sure that what the children were doing provided opportunities for learning. In some way, I need to review how I am spending my time and determine its value in helping me reach my goals. The best part of blogging, and tweeting, for me is the conversations. Conversations such as this one that you have inspired are important to that evaluation of purpose. Thank you for it. :)
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For me that’s one of the main purposes of blogging, Norah, and what distinguishes it from other forms of writing which are less interactive. Although I sometimes have the time to have fun conversations on Twitter, the character limitations, the speed of the stream, and the number of people to interact make it hard for those conversations to be meaningful in the same way as conversations in blog comments. The conundrum is figuring out how to use Twitter as a funnel which focuses my energy, rather than a sponge which soaks it all up.
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Very true!
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Thanks for these insights, Paula – so incredibly helpful. I think one of the main stumbling blocks I face is my reluctance to promote my blogging too much, whether it be more than 3-4 times on hashtag days (with other folks’ RTs in between) or more than a couple of times on non-hashtag days. What is the frequency w/ which you tweet your most recent blog posts on non-hashtag days and is the increase in traffic to your site relative to the frequency of your tweeting worth it?
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Jennifer: I use the bulk scheduler on Hootsuite – which means I pay $5 a month for the “pro” version, but it’s worth it to me – and I actually keep to the same posting schedule throughout the week. The bulk scheduler allows me to upload an Excel file, and I use it to stagger the posts so that the different headlines appear at different times of day over the course of the week. I also tweet an old post once a day, usually at 12:05 a.m., which is what allows me to stagger the others so that the same headline does not appear at the same time every day. It’s a little obsessive, and I wouldn’t recommend doing it unless you are producing a new post once a week. To my mind, new content, appearing on the same day week after week, is the single best method for increasing page views, if it’s possible given your other responsibilities.
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Thank you for organizing the survey, posting the results, and your follow up here. Very helpful!
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Thank you, Bill!
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I love all this analytical information. We only began our blog at the end of Dec and jumped on Twitter & FB around the same time so all this is still new to us. We have no idea how to measure how well we are doing, so we were eager to see your results. I manage most of the social media and my husband is the real talent. Because I work part time and my daughter is in school, I have more time to read before I RT, and pretty much always do. A RT feels like an endorsement, so I like to keep it real, lol. But it is definitely time consuming, so I can see how it would be difficult for most people. Thank you so much for enlightening us!
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I have to object to ‘I manage most of the social media and my husband is the real talent.’ It takes a great deal of talent to manage social media. And the other skills you have may well be buried in additional responsibilities. So sell thyself not short. I would love to read more of what comes across my Twitter stream, and as I’ve said in an earlier comment (to Norah), I’m working on developing a practice for engaging more deeply with a core community. When you’re new and just establishing a platform, you can read more broadly, and it’s a great education – so go for it!
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Who dares admit to #5? I applaud your honesty, Paula. And yeah, you’re right. You can definitely get more views, more RTs, more everything if you just RT away.
I’m not saying this is a bad thing, or an unethical thing or anything like that. I just feel it’s unfortunate, because I’ve done it before, but I’m trying not to do it now. There’s something quite amazing about writing and the community of writers we belong to. I have a day job, so I’m not relying on this for my income, but the fact that we’re bypassing reading and learning from our fellow writers is a sad thing.
I totally get that time is a resource, and we’re all strapped because of it. But in this rush to RT, to gain new followers, to make it big, I feel like we’re bypassing the magic that you can find in your fellow writers’ words.
I’m not RTing without a read, and I’m leaving more comments. Granted, I’m not getting to nearly enough writers, and my readership has suffered. But I guess the trade-off is worth it to me.
I’ve already got a job. I don’t want the magical world of writing to be another one.
PS – You’ll get more RTs if you insert something controversial into your post. Great job!
PPS – Anyone new to Paula’s blog should know it’s definitely worthy of a read AND a RT!
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Aw, Greg. Thanks. I actually agree with everything you say. I just didn’t have time in this post to go into the downside of focusing exclusively on growth, or the issue of burnout that can result. Nor did I even get into whether page views and followers are even an adequate measure of anything. The analytics that come packaged with my blog don’t measure bounce rates, for example, which are a measure of reader engagement. There’s a saying that you hear a lot in nonprofit evaluation circles: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” (No, it’s not Einstein.) I already have a job too, but writing on deadline week after week and then having to wait 3-6 months to see what gets funded is probably one reason I obsess over something like blogging that can provide more instant gratification. All the same, the time you spend promoting is not time you spend can writing. Or reading. Anyway, one final post on community, then I’ll let it rest for awhile.
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I’m so impressed with your stat growth using hashtags. And your method is brilliant!
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Thank you Cynthia. Now if only that brilliance will soak into my prose. ;-)
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Fascinating, Paula, and I applaud your efforts to set up and report on the survey–time-consuming, I know, but likely also responsible for a bump in stats. (Yay!)
I’m especially fascinated by your desktop screenshot: yours makes my unread email load look trifling; you have a few apps needing updates; I’m curious about the brown bag with the carrot (what app is that?); and wonder why you have two identical green-and-blue icons to the right of PowerPoint.
I love peering into the secret life of desktops!
As for retweeting without reading: I can’t do it. Except when I occasionally do, and that’s because I’ve come to trust the author of the material and am ‘reserving’ it for myself to read later. Since there are so many hashtag day opportunities, I try to return the favor to my RTers by sharing their tweets the same day when I can; but since I don’t waant to be a slave to Twitter, on the next hashtag day, and I love my Buffer app for scheduling those–puts that on autopilot for me.
There are some RTers who never seem to create original material, and just RT others’ incessantly all day long. Bless ’em. But they frustrate me, as I can’t find anything of theirs to share. And I suspect they don’t read what they RT.
Of course I love having my original material RT’d, but I love clicks to my posts even more. Way more. That’s why I wrote ’em in the first place.
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Jann: Yes, it has been responsible for a bump in stats, which will give me permission, in my perverse little creative economy, to do something less stats-friendly. When I can finally get off this topic, that is. One more post and then I hope to put it away for awhile.
I wondered if I should edit out the top and bottom of my screen shot. ;-) At least you got me to figure out how to get those two completely useless versions of Microsoft Messenger off the dock. The bag with the carrot on it is my favorite discovery, Shop n’ Cook. http://www.shopncook.com/.
For me Twitter is two things: it’s a way to discover and build community with people like you, and it’s a way for writers to promote themselves and each other. I’m not always entirely sure that my retweets do anybody any good, especially if their content is old or subpar, and the reciprocity burden even of retweeting alone is getting so difficult for me to fulfill that I sometimes don’t have time until after #wwwblogs to attend to my own blog comments, let alone begin to work on next week’s post – and that is really what is going to break the system for me eventually.
My goal is to get enough traction so that I can rely on Twitter less for promotion, and more on SEO. I try to at least rotate my reading of posts so that I regularly get to my friends and colleagues, and have time to discover a couple new folks as well.
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Amen to everything you said. I’m cranking on my novel these days, and finding I need to prioritize that more–but I’m unwilling to give up Twitter for all of the reasons you mention, and for the interesting connections and interactions and information I find there. Always always always these days I remind myself not to bite off too much . . . and I love keeping up my blog too, but it’s that Catch-22: the more you post, the more you have to promote, and the more you promote, the more you must reciprocate . . . and on and on.
I just held my nose and paid the big bucks to subscribe to Commun.it for a year, since it’s the best tool I’ve found yet to help with Twitter following, replying and reciprocity.
I’m afraid to check out ShopnCook. Too big a bite right now. But I’m happy I zeroed in on the evil MS Messengers for you!
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I’d love to read a post from you on Commun.it once you know whether or not it was worth the big bucks (and the nose-holding). In the free version there were many times I thought its algorithms (or whatever it was using) gave me less than useful information. What I fear with most products that promise help building up a Twitter presence is that it gives us all the impression that a Twitter presence is important in and of itself. I used to obsess over my Klout score, for example – and while I still think it’s important to have a respectable one, the amount of trash that is getting thrown my way because I am perceived as an “influencer” makes me wonder if we all haven’t been completely snookered. There’s probably a blog post coming on that, too. But not until I’ve had time to touch the core of my creative work long enough to remember that social media is the tool, and I am not; and that any platform I value has my writing at the center, not my marketing data.
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One more thought about all the blog hashtag days. I notice the participants are almost all part of the writing and authorship community. And that they mostly all do each hashtag day—from #MondayBlogs to #wwwblogs to #ArchiveDay to #SundayBlogShare to #WeekendBlogShare and don’t forget #ThrowbackThursday and #FlashbackFriday (apparently only Tuesday is sacred)—so my evolving strategy is to play each day when I’m up for it, but to reciprocate by resharing on the next available hashtag day. At least I’m giving that a shot to get a grip.
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All hail the getting of the grip.;-)
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Thanks for sharing the insight gained from your experience and the poll :-)
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You are welcome, Shawn. Next week’s post should complete the series.
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Wow…thanks for this. As you will have seen I just left a comment on Twitter saying I try to read everything I share but if course that cuts down on my sharing on my own profile so its a relief to think maybe I don’t have to read everything i share!Really appreciate you’re writing that
Great post,I need to read it again,there’s a lot here for me. Thanks again and sorry I didn’t take part in your survey. I meant to but…
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As you can see by the lateness of this reply, I have some time management issues of my own. No worries about not participating in the survey, but I am glad it is proving helpful to you. As I’ve said, I don’t love the fact that I end up retweeting without reading, but one of the nice things about Twitter is that people often repeat posts. Often there’s one or two I’m intrigued by that I don’t click on until the third time I’ve retweeted it. And as Colleen says in a comment on an earlier post, retweeting can also serve as social bookmarking. So I’ll come back to click on posts later in the week as well. And I can tell from the “lag effect” on hashtag days that others are doing this as well.
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I think the 126 tweets for this post already today is testament to your methods. I admire your rigorous approach, and dedication to retweeting (something I’ve certainly benefited from), but not something I can match myself. I take a very ad hoc approach depending on how busy I am on a particular #day. As a minimum, I’ll retweet anyone who tweets my post but sometimes don’t manage this until the next day. Also try to retweet posts that they’ve retweeted in order to spread things around a bit more and see what’s happening in the #timeline to RT anything that catches my eye.
As for retweeting without reading, again it’s a mixed bag. Some I’ll read carefully and comment, others I’ll skim read to check I’m not filling my timeline with nonsense. I will RT posts I might not agree with but like it to be relevant to what I’m about. But I’ll only RT without reading if it’s someone I know quite well and I know I’ll get back to their post.
I think we all write to be read and, in the extreme, retweeting without reading could lead to a scenario where all we know about others’ blogs is their headlines, rather like an eternal conversation conducted by voicemail. That doesn’t feel very satisfying to me. I do agree that an RT of an unread post is better than nothing if it’s a case of returning the favour and, if I were to get dozens of RTs that might be what I had to do, but I prefer to keep the numbers (fairly) manageable and that feels okay to me. But I do have a lot of content with about 3 posts a week, maybe I’d try something a bit closer to your methods.
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I’m not always sure I admire my own “rigorous approach,” Anne. It sometimes seems like an OCD masking as discipline. The shift from envisioning the electronic world in different spacial metaphors – from a “net” to a “web” and now a “stream” is interesting. The net and the web are both metaphors of entanglement, although we talk of “safety nets” in social services, and Charlotte had a lovely web. ;-) Supposedly you dip in and out of the stream, some days deeper than others, depending on what you are looking for and the time you have available. I don’t really worry that much about the content on my timeline. I try to have balance of original material, quotations, photographs, and retweeted posts – though I’ve fallen down on the middle two recently. But frankly I don’t think anyone is paying any attention. The only people who ever really examine my timeline are hashtag bloggers looking for something to retweet. Maybe celebrities have to worry about this, but yours truly? I’m blessedly unimportant.
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Reblogged this on Silver Threading and commented:
I am still learning how to use Twitter… keep reading! Great information here!
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Thank you!
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Thanks so much for all the information. Really useful. If I go to the bother of writing a new blog every week, I should go to the bother of promoting it more. I can see that now. Thanks! And I totally agree with you that I’d rather have a retweet than a “thank you.” Thank you’s are nice, but they don’t help very much. That’s why sometimes, I do both:)
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I used to thank everyone as a way of tracking who had retweeted me; then Terry gave me the idea of using pen and paper. If someone makes a particular comment recommending a post, I may thank them if I have time, but often I’m taking a break from another writing task and just trying to clear Tweetdeck (which I use as well as Hootsuite – AND Buffer, for different purposes; I’m such an app hog!) so it doesn’t get overloaded. Then there are the days when I’m ready to unplug everything and go off the grid entirely. So I can try to remember how to hear myself think.
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Off the grid is nice sometimes:)
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Thank you for following up on the survey results. I am trying to use the blogging hashtags more. They have been helpful for me, and they have been a useful way to discover other bloggers in the process.
I’m usually the type of person who reads first.
Thanks again for posting the results of your survey. :)
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You’re very welcome, Rebecca. They’ve been helpful to me too (obviously). And the truth is that the people I got to know first, when I had more time to read posts, are the folks I remain the most collegial with now.
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That’s the same way with me, too. I try to keep up and read lots of blogs, but there are always the several I read on a regular basis.
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Thanks a lot for such useful information. Social networking sites can be a good source of traffic when used effectively :-)
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Yes indeed. I appreciate you stopping by, whether it was through social media or some other source.
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This is a great post on increasing blog traffic. Yes, #MondayBlogs is definitely a phenomenon. I am always actively seeking out new hashtag groups to be a part of. As far as the controversial point #5 goes, I may not retweet everything without screening it first, but if I DO retweet, I try to make it a point to visit the blog AND comment. That’s a lovely way of helping and encouraging a blog author outside of a solid retweet.
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It is a lovely practice, to take the time to read and comment – either before or after the retweet. This week my own work schedule has been so tight I’ve barely had time to respond to my own blog comments, and I still have a few posts of others bookmarked to read. But it’s also time to get to work on the next post. Seems like a bit of a treadmill sometimes. All of us apparently have a great deal to say. ;-)
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do you schedule posts? I have no idea how you could tweet so much otherwise? and if so, what platform do you use to schedule them – the trouble I’m having is how to schedule a tweet for a post that isn’t live till monday but I want to schedule on sunday?! I have no post link to put in the tweet… :*(
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Sacha: Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to my own own comments. Yes, I schedule my posts. I use Hootsuite most of the time, but I also use Buffer. I believe that once you schedule your post to be published on WordPress, you can go to the button that says “View Shortlink” and copy and paste that into a scheduled post. It’s the same link the post will have when it goes live. Just make sure that when you schedule the link it is for after you scheduled the publication of the post. However, I just publish my post as soon as I’m finished writing it. Then I use Buffer to schedule it with different images and tag lines throughout the night. Unlike Hootsuite, Buffer allows you to share each image separately with the blog post, and each picture has a native Twitter links, unlike Hootsuite, which has its own image storage system. Seems a little complicated when I write it down, but it works pretty well. One all six versions of the post have been tweeted once, I copy them into an Excel spreadsheet to stagger the posts in a bulk upload over the course of the week. And then we start all over again.
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Thanks Paula. this is really helpful, I didn’t think to use the view shortlink button I will also have a look at the buffer site you have suggested and see if i can get on better with that. thanks again Paula :)
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“Though people complain about those who retweet without reading, if you have 800 followers and you retweet the post of a person who has 50,000 followers, would you prefer that person say “thank you” and let the link go dead because they have not had time to read the post, or retweet and expand that post’s potential reach by 49,200 people?”
It still feels so counter-intuitive to personal connections and one-on-one, which I value.
I suppose I’m just not going to be very good at this social media game.
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Yes, I get that. And I also value the personal connections and one-on-one. I just can’t have that all the time with each and every person who retweets one of my posts. So I do the best to rotate my attention among the individuals I come to know best by sampling blogs and commenting on them, as well as by reading their comments on mine, and responding to them. I see how it can feel like a game. But in another way it’s more like being at a big party, I suppose. You may exchange greetings with 80% of the people there, and chat with 60% of them, and end up having in depth discussions with two or three. Maybe one you go home with. ;-) At the next party, the ratios may be the same, but with different people. That doesn’t make you a hypocrite or inauthentic – it’s just the realities of social dynamics, which have been around long before social media, as Robin Dunbar has made clear. In truth, what’s going to drive me away from social media, if anything does, is not the ways in which it’s a game. It will be the exhaustion that comes from pretending you can give equal attention to everyone, all the time.
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Something to consider, I guess. For me, it’s that my introverted personality comes through even online– that a lot of the work to make social connections, even “virtual” ones, is still equally draining.
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As an INTJ I can relate to that too. if you’re not familiar with the Meyers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Foundation has the best information; avoid any site that tells you which historical – and fictional – characters fit each type. One of the things I am afraid of as an introvert is that I will focus so much on online connections, which are easier to control and give me more time for reflection, and neglect the face to face interactions that require more planning and capacity for spontaneity. A friend of mine says that balance is a matter of falling forward and catching oneself. Figuring out how to play to one’s strengths – in real- as well as cyber-space – while taking a few risks and having a few stretch goals is bound to result in a few bruised knees and elbows. To gloss my friend with Samuel Beckett, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” Thanks for visiting.
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INFP here, Paula, so of course you understand now that yes, I’m familiar with the MBTI. I will simply say that if you’re familiar with the underlying concepts of Jungian archetypes, you may be familiar with Moore and Gilette’s “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine”. It’s how I came to start reading Joseph Campbell and to start studying the Monomyth/Hero’s Journey, which is what my blog is currently about.
I get the temptation about preferring online connections– my introverted self does very much enjoy the degree of control they can provide. But, I seem to be an empath, or at least a highly sensitive individual, and I feel the missing nonverbal communication too much. I’d get it by degrees, usually by talking to trusted online friends on the phone, before meeting them face to face. It doesn’t always work perfectly, but works well enough to suit me.
Thanks again for your very thoughtful reply.
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Like me and surprisingly few others, you ‘get’ Twitter. I remember when I first got my sister to use it to promote her proofreading business – she tried to use it like you do Facebook at first. Then she said, “oh, now I get it. It’s a numbers game, isn’t it?”. I have done the writing down and crossing off thing for who RTs me since day one, but don’t do so with blog posts for hashtag days so much, as I can’t RT everyone who RTs me; I am sure it all evens out with who RTs who, over the weeks! I don’t read every post I RT (of course it’s not possible, do people think that’s all we have to do??!!), but I will say that I won’t RT any I have looked at and think are badly put together or of no value. It’s about your followers, as well as your fellow bloggers.
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For somebody in the 50,000’s, it is about the followers. I read Rayne Hall’s book – on your recommendation, if I didn’t tell you that already – and I suppose perhaps someday I may aspire to being an interesting Twitter personality with witty comments and conversation people enjoy following. At that point maybe I really will concern myself with the idea that my “followers” might want something more curated from me than a stream of retweeted blog posts on hashtag days. But for now I really am more focused on my fellow bloggers. They’re what makes Twitter worthwhile for me. I also hope that the time will come when I have enough SEO that I don’t have to work so hard to generate my own traffic. Cuz hey. I could be writing.
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Reblogged this on Barrow Blogs.
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Thanks, Judith!
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This is a very insightful article…but it also affirms the problem I have getting attention for my own blog.
I participate in hashtag days and social media to the extent I can (I found this article on #archiveday), and likewise return other bloggers’ kindness. Unfortunately, it seems promoting a blog requires a lot more time and effort than actually writing the blog itself. I see many blogs with a lot of posts and social media activity and I am just amazed: How in the world do these folks find the time to crank out all those posts and Tweets? Don’t they have jobs and families? It can’t be that I’m the only person on all of WordPress with a “real job.” What am I missing here?
It is discouraging at times because I think I have worthwhile content that barely gets noticed, but I’m doing the best I can with the time & resources I have. Thanks again for the positive ideas.
My blog is at http://www.twentyfirstsummer.com
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You’re definitely not the only blogger on Twitter with a real job, Chris. It takes time to develop an audience, and many of the people who tweet multiple posts have years of content to build on. We’re all doing the best we can with what we’ve got. Like Desiree in your last post, we should all be celebrated.
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This is very useful in helping me fine-tune something that’s helped me a lot. I do have my own blog on my web site. But I’ve been blogging for about five years on The Huffington Post where I have a much larger potential audience there than I will ever get via my own blog and I’m okay with that because people are still reading what I’ve written. I tweet many things, but once I discovered #ArchiveDay, #SundayBlogShare and #MondayBlogs I found that joining in bumped retweets of my HP blogs. I’ve definitely already been retweeting people who retweet me and am on the way to doubling my following on Twitter itself. I’ve tried different timing strategies and your strategy in #2 sounds like fun. I’ll try it! BTW, I’ve been blogging on HP more than once a week (sometimes 3-4 times) and it’s increased sales of my ebooks as well since there’s a sig line to my Amazon page, but I’m very much aware that I’ve had had more time after my 25th book came out. Once I get back to work on #26 I’ll have much less time to blog. :-(
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Glad I could be helpful, Lev. It must be wonderful to be so prolific. Do you see blogging as a marketing tool primarily, or a genre unto itself? Is there something particular you get out of blogging that writing books doesn’t provide? I probably should ask that of all my author/blogger friends, but for some reason your :( made me want to ask you.
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This is a post I will be coming back to when in need of social media advice. Such wonderful tips! Thanks for sharing!
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You are most welcome! Glad you’re finding it useful.
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[…] the survey results, are still available, as are the blog posts I wrote on using Twitter hashtags to grow audience and build […]
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