How to use Twitter to promote your blog?

After months of hesitation, after numerous requests from colleagues or friends requesting your expertise, that’s it, you’ve started! Your blog it’s there, in front of you, glittering. You spent some time there! Hours to install your theme, customize it, edit your CSS, fix your plugins, and work on your SEO. But it was worth it. Your first articles are written, you have a few pages where you present your project or who you are and you are there, in front of the computer, like a restaurateur waiting for his first customers.

Twitter to let you know

Google it will do its job over time, but in the meantime how can we attract visitors ? How to find people interested in your articles, how to identify those who could become loyal followers of your blog or website? Social networks are perfectly suited to increase the fame of your site and create the promotion of your content. Profiles, communities, groups are all resources from which you can draw your future readers.

The philosophy of using social media is radically different depending on whether you are a content creator or someone who comes looking for information for professional monitoring, for example. As a watcher, you will subscribe to people who are likely to produce content that meets your expectations. ON Twitter for example, you will not multiply your contacts excessively, as some do, otherwise you will soon find yourself submerged in a river of information, with the risk of losing the good ones. Likewise, you won’t expect the people you follow to follow you. That’s not the goal, you’re only interested in the content these people produce, not in creating friendly connections (if that happens to you, great!)

As a content creator, it’s different. You want the whole world to know that your blog exists, that you write quality contentyou want to create a stir and get people talking about you at social events! To do this you will have to start the car and maybe dust off that Twitter account you opened months (years?) ago and where you follow 13 people who don’t produce any content. Twitter is a great tool for promoting your blog because many people search for information there. First of all, familiarize yourself with the tool, understand its language, its way of communicating, learn small tips such as, for example, how to write a Better tweet.

Twitter to create a community

Then you will have to reverse your thinking! At first, you won’t try to get people who are more popular than you to follow you. This will happen quickly, because there is the possibility of making friends and exchanging links through blogs, but first look for those who might be interested in your content and who will certainly follow you.

For example, if you are reading this and you are coming from my Twitter account, there is a good chance that you are a communications student, a community manager, a librarian, a pastor, or even a journalist. And there is also a high probability that I was the one who followed you first! Do the same in your book, look for those who would like to read you but don’t know it yet. Twitter lets you search by person, by interest, and even by hashtag. I followed a large number of students in this way, who followed me and became potential readers (guys, I also read your tweets and retweet as much as possible, you are not just targets, don’t worry!)

At first glance this may seem opportunistic, but it is not. In any case, I don’t see it that way. I’m here to share something that I hope will be useful to these people. I come to share my experience with them. In exchange I acquire readers, it’s true, but not only that. It all depends on how you spin it. For my part, my desire is to be able to build relationships, exchange views and experiences through comments or my Twitter account. I love to thank people who promote an article of mine or retweet a link of mine, it’s so nice to know that we are read, that our help is useful and that our work is well received. Cultivate this state of mind and you will surely be able to create a small community that will be loyal to you and promote your work.

So I grow my Twitter community by following new people, week after week. I use a tool called Unfollowers.me which allows me, from my computer or via the dedicated application on my smartphone, to identify people who don’t follow me and unfollow them. From here I hear the indignant reactions! But remember: you are a content creator, you want to help people, you want to share your knowledge. The goal is not just to follow thousands of people, but to be followed in turn. The other reason is that after 2000 subscriptions, Twitter no longer allows you to follow anyone if your “subscriptions/subscribers” quota is too unbalanced. Pay attention to this. Yes, as a copywriter you want to advertise your articles or your brand and products for a company. For that, you need numbers, you need followers, go for it and don’t hesitate to cast a wide net sometimes.

Twitter to share

I noticed a significant difference between the period when I had 300 people following me and when I exceeded 1000. The interaction became spontaneous, your tweets have more impact and this was also felt in my visit curve (when I have enough time to tweet, that’s true!)

In addition to keyword research, another way to find people potentially interested in your content is to find another Twitter user, preferably an influential one, who posts the same type of content as you and follows their followers. This will allow you to grow your reader list faster.

I have never used paid solutions, you know those sites that offer to buy followers. On the one hand because I don’t believe it for a second. What will be the share of real tweeters and that of abandoned accounts? On the other hand, because I believe in human relationships, because I believe in the emulsion that they produce, and even if this will be less possible after a certain number, I want to get in touch with my readers, know their expectations and needs.

Remember this: You wrote a blog to be read, not to languish in the depths of the Internet. Don’t hide behind false modesty. If you write it and publish it it’s because you believe in yourself enough to be convinced that it might be of interest to someone. Don’t just rely on Google, take part in creating your own network too. Let people know that you exist: this is the very basis of communication. You can have the best content ever, but if no one knows about it, no one will use it.

One of my colleagues started a blog (www.mediaenlab.com) a week ago. It talks about creating video games with accessible and fun tools and digital mediation in a broad sense (if these sectors interest you I invite you to visit this site). Using these recipes, based on social media sprinkled with a few relationships, it now exceeds 100 visits a day, with peaks of over 150, even if it is not yet perfectly referenced by Google. This in a week! Surely his blog is aimed at a very specific niche and where there is an obvious lack of resources, but the result is still amazing! Some people do not achieve this result in three months of existence.

Your good use of Twitter to promote your blog will undoubtedly produce encouraging results, especially for beginner bloggers who don’t always expect immediate (relative) success. Don’t hesitate to share your experience or questions in the comments of this article!