How I Use Twitter to Promote My Blog

How Can Twitter be used to promote a blog?
Twitter is a lot of things to a lot of people. For some, it’s a virtual water cooler. For others, it’s a great way to get answers to questions. Since I started using Twitter, I have more than doubled my blog traffic over the last several months, and I can tell you how.

Some people just dump their blog posts into Twitter automatically, with a simple “New Blog Post: Money is Better Than Dirt” and away you go. I’ve found a way of using Twitter to encourage participation , and it’s better than easy; it’s tasteful.

Ask a Question
Instead of telling your Twitter audience that you’ve published a new post, ask them their opinion on the core topic you’ve covered. “Do you think banner ads are dead?” followed by a link to your site is much more appealing than posting to Twitter, “Banner Ads Are Not Dead.” Asking a question engages your Twitter followers and solicits their experience.

If Comments Flow, Remark on It
I genuinely believe that the comments section of my blog is better than anything I write on my own. To that end, when a topic seems to take off, I send a note to Twitter alerting people to the quality of the conversation in the comments. It’s not pitchy in nature. I’m simply sharing that the best stuff came after the initial post.

Sometimes, I Even Dare to Ask for a Stumble
My number two referrer to my site on most slow-medium traffic days is StumbleUpon. Because I seem to get “better” response from people who visit from that site than from other traffic sources, I sometimes will send a third post to Twitter, asking if someone thinks X post is worth a Stumble. Because I do a lot of sharing and promoting and helping others, I usually get a lot of willing people to Stumble something for me from time to time.
I don’t over-do it, and I know that not every day is a “killer blog post” day. With that in mind, when I do ask, it makes a huge difference.

Those Three Touches Help Lots
So in the end, I ask my following in Twitter for love three times: once when I post the blog, again if it takes off well in the comments section, and sometimes a third time if I want to really amp the traffic via StumbleUpon. I mix these requests in liberally with all the various ways I help others using Twitter, and so it doesn’t come off like I’m perpetually pitching my own stuff. My current monthly rate of pitching others vs. promoting my own site is 75 / 25 in other people’s favor. That sounds fair, right?

Have you experimented with Twitter in this way? How did it work for you? What other tips did I miss?

StumbleUpon To Launch su.pr ShortUrl Service

is preparing to launch a shortURL service (a web service that provides short aliases for redirection of long URLs, like TinyURL or Bit.ly) in the next couple of weeks called su.pr.

Founder Garrett Camp announced the new service on Twitter without any description of what it might be on March 3. In an email exchange he says it will be a shortURL service to share StumbleUpon links on sites like Twitter and Facebook and that it will be launched in a week or two. The site currently redirects to StumbleUpon.

Digg is planning its own similar service, which we covered late last month.

Digg’s service will show additional information, like total traffic to the link, in a Digg “toolbar” wrapper, and users can easily create links by simply adding digg.com/ before any URL (the short URL will then be created and shown. I don’t have any information on exactly what StumbleUpon is planning, but it’s a safe guess it’ll have similar features, and it may actually launch before Digg.

The benefit to StumbleUpon and Digg to these services is traffic when people click on the short URLs. People add a lot on links on Twitter posts but space constraints (140 characters per post) require short URLs.

Get traffic to StumbleUpon Your Website

Of all the Web 2.0 driven websites that have opened up the internet for marketers, StumbleUpon is quickly gaining a reputation as one of the best, free marketing opportunities on the internet.

StumbleUpon was founded by three Canadians: Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, and Justin LaFrance. With almost two million users, the marketing potential on StumbleUpon is excellent. Its basic premise is that people join and, when they find a website that interests them (they "stumble upon" it), they bookmark and rate it for others to see.

What makes StumbleUpon unique is that content (i.e. websites) are categorized according to topic. Instead of using automated software, the site allows humans to determine what's important, or not. Most search engines use complex algorithms to determine importance.

So how exactly does StumbleUpon work? Users install a toolbar on their browser that lets them stumble upon random websites, giving them a positive or negative rating. The more positive ratings a site gets, the more traffic is driven to it.

The more friends you have on StumbleUpon, the more successful you will be. You will stake your reputation on your ability to supply expertise without overly promoting yourself. This is what makes Web 2.0 marketing, with its inherently social structure, so hard to penetrate with marketing messages.

With StumbleUpon users rate your website and its content. The better it is, the more likely you are to be successful. What should go without saying is that you need good content.

As you might imagine, simply providing content, audio or video, that blatantly promotes your product or service won't get you very far. Like any other social media, patience is the key to getting your word out.

You need to entertain people to get high rankings. Try to be original, funny, or both. One of the chief advantages of StumbleUpon is that visitors have a stated an interest in your particular niche. This creates an opportunity to design your content to match your market's likes, and get rid of what they don't like.

You can also join communities that are related to your business. These communities, or groups, fall under many categories, including Commerce, Computers, Health, Hobbies and more.

StumbleUpon is one of many socially organized sites that give you an opportunity to engage your market. You must think like a marketer but you must also be aware that social marketing is innately anti-marketing. Before you can market, you have to prove yourself. If you can stay committed to the social framework, you stand a better chance of beating out your competition simply because you didn't give up.

Some Social Marketing Experiences

1.Don't think of this account specifically to do Spam.
2.Select effective social network
Spam Socila Network Mashable,stumbleupon-related things more effective than Facebook,myspace and
others.
3.Go to "feed" a good account
Cultivation account is more important than the registered account.Using a good account Spam more
effective than one account with the new Spam 10 times.
4.Not just spectators, positive to comment
5.Note your title, tag or classification
6.Choice a great head
7.Maintain your own PROFILE
8.Social Network of Profile's SEO
Social Network but their internal search engine is still very effective as far as possible to increase their own SOCIAL NETWORK's PROFILE foreign chains.