How to Jump Start Your Social Media Presence Using Your Blog and Other Tricks

Social media is really important… you have to do it… blah, blah, blah. We all know that. I know that and even though I was included in some Twitter power user lists I still struggle with accounts that aren’t related to my Online Income Star blog.

The rules are always the same, but it just isn’t that easy to implement them all in the same way across different platforms for different target audience.

It is easy to build a strong Twitter account when you are in the blogging niche because all bloggers use Twitter. But try doing that as an owner of a coffee blog! That is much harder.

The thing is, a lot of people from non-blogging world (which is the majority of world) don’t use Twitter as much, use it only with friends and family, prefer celebrities over small business blogs and so on.

Same goes for other social sites so here are a few tips to get you started.

Friends and family

OK, your mom may not be interested in internet marketing but that doesn’t mean she can’t help you grow your Facebook page. When you just start your page, ask your friends and family to like it (gives you the numbers) and then like a status update or a photo on it from time to time. This will keep the items from your page in their friends’ tickers and increases your chances of getting new followers that are interested in your business.

Blogging friends

Ask your fellow bloggers for a shout out.

If you started using Youtube now (even though everyone was telling you to do it for months), it would be pretty easy to ask your blogging friends to share the URL of your channel with their followers. Most won’t mind.

A simple tweet like “Hey, my friend NAME just created a Youtube channel on blogging tips. I know it will rock so hop over and subscribe” can make a lot of difference.

Association with big names

This is a great strategy for Twitter and Facebook, although it can be used on other media as well. The success will actually depend on who are you targeting.

For example, Danny Brown always replies to tweets sent to him, as well as Facebook mentions. So just go to Twitter and send him a few tweets here and there. He will reply to you, people will think you are important and you are on a roll

I make it sound funny, but this actually works, you just have to make sure the person you are trying to associate yourself with is active on the network and a nice person (like Danny). 

Comments

There are always blogs you comment on that are nofollow and bring you hardly any traffic. So instead of (kinda) wasting that link by linking to your blog’s URL, link to the profile on the social network you are trying to get more followers on.

Or pick the URL target based on what the post is about. If the post is about Twitter, link to your Twitter profile. If it is about Facebook, send people to your Facebook page.

Note: don’t add the link to the comment itself, you will most likely be marked as spam.

Guest posting

This should be an “extra” and I would not guest post just for the link to my social profiles. Guest posts are a lot of work for some people and doing them just for a Twitter link may not be worth it (unless you are guest posting on a Twitter related blog).

However, most people will let you link to your blog and a social media profile of your choice from your bio. So just don’t forget to include the link to the profile you are trying to promote.

WiseStamp

WiseStamp is a tool that lets you add customized professional signatures to your emails. I love it and been using it forever. You can automatically add your social media links ot the profile and every time you send an email you will send your links with it. Here is one of my signatures:

You can see the two red arrows pointing to my social profiles. My focus is on Facebook at the moment (go and like my page, come on) so I put a bigger button there to stress it out.

Build up on existing presence

If you have one social media started, for example Facebook, don’t hop over to a few others until you build it up. Once you do, start a Twitter account (if it fits your business) and post about it on Facebook, inviting your fans to follow you and making sure you offer them something unique on the other network (why else would they follow on both).

Starting a social media profile by building up on what you already have is a big step you can take so you don’t have to start from scratch. And it will work on any network, not just the two I mentioned.

So what do you think? Which one would work the fastest and do you have any suggestions? Do you use these?