This month for #blogstorm I’m looking at the ways you can promote your blog posts and sharing some tips from the fantastic Debbie from My Random Musings.  This month, Debbie and My Random Musings, celebrate their first blogiversary and in just 12 short months Debbie has grown her blog so she is now receiving nearly 20,000 views per month; luckily for all of us, and for #blogstorm, today Debbie is sharing those tips on how to increase your page views.

6 Tried and Tested Ways To Promote Your Blog Posts

You’ve written the perfect blog post, added some beautiful shiny images, and hit publish. Now you just have to sit back and wait for the views to roll in, right? Wrong! If you want people to read your posts, you have to put them out there.

There are a million and one ways to do this, but if you attempt to do them all, you’ll end up with no time left to write posts, let alone eat or sleep! With that in mind, I am going to share with you the main 6 ways I promote my blog posts.

Bear in mind that not all of these ways will be ideal for every post – some posts do better on certain networks than others. With a bit of trial and error, you will soon work out which posts do best where.

If you aren’t on any of these networks, start with one or two and build up gradually. If you try to start from scratch on each one at once, you may be ready for tears (and lots of wine) after a day or two.

1. Twitter

Twitter is the mother ship of promoting your posts. If people are following you, then presumably they want to see your posts.

• Send out regular tweets (you can use a scheduler such as Tweetdeck so you’re not glued to the screen all day
• Include a brief explanation of what the post is about and the link to it.
• Add a few relevant #s.
• Don’t forget to include an image – Twitter is a busy place and an image is more likely to catch someone’s eye than text would be.
• You could also tag in a few re-tweeter accounts.

2. Instagram

If your post has a beautiful image, add it to Instagram. Instagram users love beautiful feeds full of perfectly lit images, so if photography is your thing, Instagram is your new BFF. Don’t worry if it’s not, my photography skills are pretty much non-existent but I get by!

• Make use of the captions to capture people’s imaginations and make them want to read your post.
• As you can only have one clickable link in Instagram, write “link in bio” or something similar in your caption (and make sure the link is actually in your bio!)
• Use photos that are clear, not blurry and not pixelated for best results
• Use relevant #s. You can use up to 30 per post. Make use of them, they are what gets your photos out there.

3. Pinterest

Although more bloggers are using Pinterest as a tool, it’s still massively under used. Think of it like you would a search engine – people go to Pinterest looking for inspiration.

• Ideally, you want a portrait style image
• Pins that do really well are recipes, crafts and how-to type guides
• Don’t use #s – they don’t work on Pinterest and they look really spammy
• Make use of the description box to give a little more detail – remember if you pin from your blog, the alt text is displayed here so make it count.
• Don’t use misleading images – if you think pinning a certain image will do well, write that post!

4. Facebook

There are two ways to use Facebook to promote your posts.

The first one is to set up a page relating to your blog and share your blog posts on it. This way is quite slow and a lot of bloggers more experienced at Facebook than me will tell you that the only way to reach a lot of people is to pay to boost your posts. I haven’t tried that so I don’t know how successful it will be. My page is only a fortnight old and it’s chugging along nicely but it’s not making massive waves.

The second way, which I highly recommend is to join a group such as Blogger Club UK (no more shameless plugs I promise!). There are threads to join in that allow you to promote your posts across a variety of social media sites, and they really do work.

5. Stumble Upon

Stumble Upon is something I’ve only been using for a few months, but since starting, my page views have shot up and it has become my top referrer.

• Add your blog post to Stumble Upon and choose one or more interests to add it to.
• When it asks if you want to close the page, say no and it will take you to the page you just added.
• Click “stumble” If you don’t do this, it could take a long time to get moving, as it needs to be stumbled to be shown to other people.
• It is recommended you stumble 50 pages for each one you add. I add three posts a day to it, and I stumble approximately 100 pages and get good results, so play with it. See what works for you.
• Stumble within the interests you add to for more engagement

6. Linkys

Joining linkys, or blog hops, are a fantastic way to get your posts in front of fellow bloggers. They do take a bit of work, but the results are worth it.

If you don’t know how linkys work, check out this fab guide from Becky over at Cuddle Fairy – it explains what they are and how they work brilliantly.

• Try to find out when the linky opens and join up as early as possible to maximize the chances of being seen by more people
• Make sure you follow the host’s rules
• Tweet your url to the host using their #, most will re-tweet it meaning eve more exposure

I appreciate this is all very time consuming, but the results are worth it. Once you develop a routine, it won’t take anywhere near as long as it does when you first start. And remember, you don’t have to use all of these methods. If you want to cut down the time spent when you promote your blog posts, choose your favourite networks and concentrate on those. Having said that, if you are new, I would recommend setting up a profile on each of the sites early (even if you don’t use it straightaway) just to ensure you get the name you want.

Did you have any tips to promote your blog posts on these networks? Are there any networks I haven’t mentioned that you swear by? Let me know in the comments 🙂

About me: Born in 1982 in North East England, I knew from an early age I wanted to be a writer. Life got in the way, and the dream was put on the back burner, although never forgotten. I now write my own blog, My Random Musings, write guest posts for other blogs and am planning on completing my first novel by the end of this year!

You can find me here: Blog Twitter Facebook Pinterest and Instagram Please do stop by and say hi!