One of the huge abilities you have as a blogger today which those of us who started blogging 4 or 5 years ago did not have is the power of social networking. When I talk about social networking and using it to build my own blog’s community, I am talking about services like twitter and Facebook. There are others, but for me, these two are indispensable. I would not want to start a blog today and try to do it without social media tools like twitter and Facebook.

First of all, there are other social networking tools. However, for day 24 of 31-Days to Kick Your Blog in the Butt, I am going to focus on those tools I use.

Today’s Lesson

Connecting with your readers no matter where you find them is extremely important in today’s competitive environment. We need readers on our blogs. And we have to be proactive in going to where they are spending their time. Those bloggers who only rely on SEO and content to kick their blog up a notch, just might find themselves disappointed. You have to do more.

Social networking gives you the ability to build a community so you can share and grow. Take for example how I refer to twitter. I like to describe twitter as a place where you can interact and learn from those you follow and who follow you. And one of those ways you can interact and give your followers a way to learn from you is giving them information. That information can be links to your own blog post and post of others.

But don’t stop there as a way to look at how social media can help you. I love how Chris Brogan describes what social media can be. And Darren Rowse also hits on this topic. Both describe your blog as the home base and social media as the outpost extending out from your blog. Think of the home base, your blog, as something you own. And if you own it, your blog is something you can grow. Here is how the structure looks with nothing specific labeled with a name or service.

Outposts on the other hand are places you have an online presence on in other parts of the internet. While you use these outposts to expand your own influence and connections. You don’t usually own your outposts. But, please remember this one thing. You don’t need to spend all your time talking on your outpost. Your outpost could actually be listening outpost. If you are going to where your potential clients/customers are, you need to be listening to what they are saying. Not just talking to them.

Michael Martine on the other hand equates blog marketing to the solar system.

Spinning around that central axis are other entry points for prospects: Social media, content-sharing sites, Pay-per-click advertising, content marketing, and even traditional off-line marketing. The goal of these other channels is to drive traffic to the blog.Maybe a better analogy is that your blog is the sun of your marketing solar system, and these other methods are the planets orbiting around it.

These content-sharing sites Michael is talking about is a site that lets you share content you’ve created. And share it with other people. They are a new “in door” to your blog. Another way to drive traffic to your “home base.”

However, keep in mind the key is content. Even the content we put on the outpost or on the content-sharing sites must be good, relevant and up-to-date content. Your goal is to have your content so good, these visitors will want more and will click through to your home base, your blog.

What can you do with these outpost or content-sharing sites?

Here are some of the things I try to do with my outposts:

• I add content to these outpost as often I can. With twitter, I add links and other comments. With Vimeo, my video service of choice, I add that type of content.
• Great place to build relationships. In fact, believe it or not, Michael Martine, my friend and business partner in a number of ventures and I met on twitter and then our blogs. (One suggestion, make sure you take these virtual relationships to the next level. Pick up the phone and call or use Skype).
• I have done numerous polls and asked many questions on twitter to test my own ideas.
• Spend time listening to your niche and potential audience to what they are talking about.

Homework for today

If you are not already using a couple of these “outpost” services, start using at least two of them this week. If I had to pick two for someone to start off using it would be twitter and Facebook. Move on from there. After you get comfortable with those two, pick a video “content-sharing site” and start doing videos for your audience or niche.

Finally, if any of you doubt the influence twitter and one simple tweet can have on your business, I want you to consider the video below. Let me explain what it is about. Back in July, we launched Headway Themes and one of the main vehicles we used to get the word out was twitter. We used it to drive traffic to our site and blog. I did one simple tweet and you will see from the video, there were a number of retweets. The numbers indicated on each retweet is the number of followers those individuals had at the time. And the final, big red number is an indication of the number of people who could have seen my original one tweet. Not scientific by any means, but a fair indication.

The effects of one tweet and some retweets from Grant Griffiths on Vimeo.

Don’t discount how “outpost” or “content-sharing sites” could kick your blog in the butt.