I think I'm covering most of these bases with my blog, but I need to give some more thought to additional ways to promote my podcasts.
I think it's partly because I read a lot of blogs (and try and apply the lessons I see others using, or ways that I find blogs myself) but I don't listen to or go looking for podcasts, so am a bit out of the loop on that one.
Definitely one to start focusing on so I get more from the resource I put into creating them.
Joanna
Derrick Kwa
· 1 year ago
Great list.
Maybe I'll add one thought. I dunno about how well this would work for others, but one thing I did when I started my blog is email other well-read bloggers (such as yourself) and get advice and all from them. It really helped to add value to my blog. More than that, it alerted them to what I had to offer, and if they liked what they read, they helped to promote it by linking/referencing it, etc.
So that would be my tip, to get in touch with the leaders of your field. Hope it makes sense.
Oh, and also, you mention about comments. Linking to other people's media helps. Especially with trackbacks, links can work in a similar way to comments. Even without trackbacks, links tend to help alert the author to your media (because more people are starting to track their name and their own media).
Christopher S. Penn
· 1 year ago
A certain person I know once told me that you live or die on your database. Your house list is everything. Do outreach and make it easy to build up your house list.
Jeff O'Hara
· 1 year ago
You forgot mybloglog. I have found great people and blogs through the mybloglog widget.
Jack Lail
· 1 year ago
Well, I spotted your post on Twitter and I've noticed it is a significant referrer to my site. Twitterfeed.com makes it dead simple to add an RSS feed to your Twitter account.
I'd also say having friends who will point your way when you deliver "the value" is a great way of developing audience (friends of friends).
Great post, Chris.
Paul Short
· 1 year ago
If it's a videoblog, set up channels at all the most popular video services and upload each episode to those.
There's also itunes which makes the videos available for download on ipods and iphones.
Think of these services as distribution channels or syndication points, like in offline TV when a show gets syndicated.
One thing to remember when uploading the videos and setting up your channels is to describe the subject matter of each one in ehough detail to allow for easy discovery of your content on the networks.
jted
· 1 year ago
Slower self-promomotion ideas involve putting your URL in every profile you have online: including LinkedIn, Plaxo, Ning, Spock, Pownce, Twitter, Jaiku, Flikr, Orkut, MyBlogLog, etc etc.
Cross-pollinate by using Jaiku or Twitter to re-publish your posts as RSS feeds or Tweets on other apps and platforms.
Kyle Flaherty
· 1 year ago
Chris, great list and reminders, particularly around the auto-sig in emails...lately I've seen them getting very long.
StumbleUpon has quickly become the #2 referring site for my blog, so I'm a big fan :)
But I've also found that people posting the entries into their Facebook profile has a tremendous impact on not only traffic, but driving engaged readers who reach out to me either through the blog or through the social network.
/kff
Chris Hambly
· 1 year ago
OPT_IN email lists, with profiling.
Infinite responder with multiple messages creating a course>
How about a list of ways to promote your projects to the offline 0.0 world? Probably a whole 'nother article. I should probably should go write that.
Ted Demopoulos, Effective Inte
· 1 year ago
I came via Twitter, but it just made me come faster -- i would have come here eventually.
I always add new blogs to blog directories to get some links to them quickly, so the search engines find them and are happy.
Don't think anyone gets more than negligible traffic from blog directories -- do you use them to look up blog? I may have once or twice.
Dom Vonarburg
· 1 year ago
I am Dom, co-founder of AddThis. Thanks for the kind words, Chris.
-Dom
Colin Walker
· 1 year ago
Chris,
Great post. Some very useful tips there.
At the end of 2007 I decided that I was going to be a lot more focused with my blog and devote some real effort to driving traffic toward it and ensuring that there was enough decent content to warrant coming back.
Then a few days ago I came up with my new strategy which does include a number of the objects you have listed here.
I host my own blog within SharePoint so a lot of the community tools aren't designed to work with it. As such, I have to do things like generate my own links to sites such as Digg, reddit etc.
Rather shamelessly I am currently submitting my own posts to Digg, reddit and StumbleUpon (I may add some more over the next few days) and, considering that mine is a low volume blog, the results have been encouraging: 59 referrals from Digg in 4 days, 26 from reddit. If even a small percentage decide they like what they read and subscribe then I'll consider it a success.
I use Twitter to converse with some people I already know and hopefully start conversations with new people (Twitter was how I came across yourself). Like many, I am also using Twitter to post the links to posts.
I don't think that a lot of blog directories are worth joining as you can just get lost in the noise but one place I have joined is Zimbio due to the way it is divided up in to subject specific "wikizines" that are created by the users. This has also prompted some referrals and they all help.
One thing I always make sure of is that (where possible) any link within my site (even if it's pointing to one of my own pages) opens in a new window or tab. It's hard enough getting people there without clicking away and possibly not finish what they were reading!
It's interesting to read both your and Kyle's (in the comments) thoughts on Facebook. I'm on there but don't use it as I think it's grossly over-rated, has had it's day and that it's hard to get past a lot of the noise in order to get to the signal. I may have to rethink things but it all depends how much of the clutter I can filter out and prevent from appearing on my page.
I've often toyed with the idea of a pod or vidcast but suffer from that fundamentral problem - what to say? I'm just managing to sort out a decent signal to noise ration on my blog so maybe I could just replicate to a degree to offer choice as to how to consume my material. Just thinking aloud.
Anyway, love the blog and will no doubt be tweeting at you from time to time.
chrisbrogan
· 1 year ago
Some great adds in here. I forgot mentioning MyBlogLog, which I like for a community tool. Thanks, Jeff and Jason for mentioning it.
Jason also mentioned using Facebook and some of those other apps as a place to remind people of your links. I do that all the time. Great pointer.
Colin- lots to think about there. I think it's good that you're thinking about what to add to the conversation. There's lots out there, so I'm sure you'll find your passion, and discover whether it's got legs as a topic.
Thanks everyone!
Preston
· 1 year ago
great information in this article.
have you tried to set up a facebook group for your media properties? just curious about the effectiveness of that ...
also, I don't want to bag on digg, but I tend to agree. If you get the right eyeballs and some of those people stay, it's good ... but every time I get a digg wave, my page views flatten out to approach unique visitors, my google cpm lowers, and comment quality drops. Conversely, the stumbleupon waves I've received have been the complete opposite.
chrisbrogan
· 1 year ago
I shouldn't say I don't like Digg. It just doesn't do much for me overall.
Keren Dagan
· 1 year ago
Chris,
Great, I was looking for the AddThis button. What's your take on tags? And where (tagging as an option seems to be everywhere)?
Thanks, Keren
mike1630
· 1 year ago
Great post :) I didn't know about the facebook app - that's very handy.
Connie Bensen
· 1 year ago
I met you over at Facebook.. And I started following you on Twitter because of your tweets in Facebook.
Joseph Allan Andersen
· 1 year ago
Hi Chris,
Nice post. I'm just getting started with my blogging, and I'm going to follow your advice.
Joe
Hamlet Sweeney
· 1 year ago
Thanks for that, my blogging is in its infancy and you gave some great tips there :-)
All Comments
I think I'm covering most of these bases with my blog, but I need to give some more thought to additional ways to promote my podcasts.
I think it's partly because I read a lot of blogs (and try and apply the lessons I see others using, or ways that I find blogs myself) but I don't listen to or go looking for podcasts, so am a bit out of the loop on that one.
Definitely one to start focusing on so I get more from the resource I put into creating them.
Joanna
Maybe I'll add one thought. I dunno about how well this would work for others, but one thing I did when I started my blog is email other well-read bloggers (such as yourself) and get advice and all from them. It really helped to add value to my blog. More than that, it alerted them to what I had to offer, and if they liked what they read, they helped to promote it by linking/referencing it, etc.
So that would be my tip, to get in touch with the leaders of your field. Hope it makes sense.
Oh, and also, you mention about comments. Linking to other people's media helps. Especially with trackbacks, links can work in a similar way to comments. Even without trackbacks, links tend to help alert the author to your media (because more people are starting to track their name and their own media).
I'd also say having friends who will point your way when you deliver "the value" is a great way of developing audience (friends of friends).
Great post, Chris.
There's also itunes which makes the videos available for download on ipods and iphones.
Think of these services as distribution channels or syndication points, like in offline TV when a show gets syndicated.
One thing to remember when uploading the videos and setting up your channels is to describe the subject matter of each one in ehough detail to allow for easy discovery of your content on the networks.
Cross-pollinate by using Jaiku or Twitter to re-publish your posts as RSS feeds or Tweets on other apps and platforms.
StumbleUpon has quickly become the #2 referring site for my blog, so I'm a big fan :)
But I've also found that people posting the entries into their Facebook profile has a tremendous impact on not only traffic, but driving engaged readers who reach out to me either through the blog or through the social network.
/kff
Infinite responder with multiple messages creating a course>
http://www.chrishambly.com/2006/01/infinite-res...
I always add new blogs to blog directories to get some links to them quickly, so the search engines find them and are happy.
Don't think anyone gets more than negligible traffic from blog directories -- do you use them to look up blog? I may have once or twice.
-Dom
Great post. Some very useful tips there.
At the end of 2007 I decided that I was going to be a lot more focused with my blog and devote some real effort to driving traffic toward it and ensuring that there was enough decent content to warrant coming back.
Then a few days ago I came up with my new strategy which does include a number of the objects you have listed here.
I host my own blog within SharePoint so a lot of the community tools aren't designed to work with it. As such, I have to do things like generate my own links to sites such as Digg, reddit etc.
Rather shamelessly I am currently submitting my own posts to Digg, reddit and StumbleUpon (I may add some more over the next few days) and, considering that mine is a low volume blog, the results have been encouraging: 59 referrals from Digg in 4 days, 26 from reddit. If even a small percentage decide they like what they read and subscribe then I'll consider it a success.
I use Twitter to converse with some people I already know and hopefully start conversations with new people (Twitter was how I came across yourself). Like many, I am also using Twitter to post the links to posts.
I don't think that a lot of blog directories are worth joining as you can just get lost in the noise but one place I have joined is Zimbio due to the way it is divided up in to subject specific "wikizines" that are created by the users. This has also prompted some referrals and they all help.
One thing I always make sure of is that (where possible) any link within my site (even if it's pointing to one of my own pages) opens in a new window or tab. It's hard enough getting people there without clicking away and possibly not finish what they were reading!
It's interesting to read both your and Kyle's (in the comments) thoughts on Facebook. I'm on there but don't use it as I think it's grossly over-rated, has had it's day and that it's hard to get past a lot of the noise in order to get to the signal. I may have to rethink things but it all depends how much of the clutter I can filter out and prevent from appearing on my page.
I've often toyed with the idea of a pod or vidcast but suffer from that fundamentral problem - what to say? I'm just managing to sort out a decent signal to noise ration on my blog so maybe I could just replicate to a degree to offer choice as to how to consume my material. Just thinking aloud.
Anyway, love the blog and will no doubt be tweeting at you from time to time.
Jason also mentioned using Facebook and some of those other apps as a place to remind people of your links. I do that all the time. Great pointer.
Colin- lots to think about there. I think it's good that you're thinking about what to add to the conversation. There's lots out there, so I'm sure you'll find your passion, and discover whether it's got legs as a topic.
Thanks everyone!
have you tried to set up a facebook group for your media properties? just curious about the effectiveness of that ...
also, I don't want to bag on digg, but I tend to agree. If you get the right eyeballs and some of those people stay, it's good ... but every time I get a digg wave, my page views flatten out to approach unique visitors, my google cpm lowers, and comment quality drops. Conversely, the stumbleupon waves I've received have been the complete opposite.
Great, I was looking for the AddThis button.
What's your take on tags? And where (tagging as an option seems to be everywhere)?
Thanks,
Keren
Nice post. I'm just getting started with my blogging, and I'm going to follow your advice.
Joe