Blogging 101, Day Eighteen: Plug into Social Networks

There’s no doubt about it…particular sites may come and go, but social networking is here to stay, and it can be a very useful tool for accessing new readers. Appropriately, today’s assignment is if you’re active on a social network, set up Publicize to link the account to your blog or widget highlighting your profile. If you’re not, explore your social options to see whether one might be helpful.

Let’s face it: websites that allow us to interact with each other socially have become a huge part of life on the Internet. Chances are that almost everyone you know has a Facebook or Twitter account, if not both, Even work mates and employers have created an enormous network out of LinkedIn. In the world in which we live today, everyone wants to be connected to everyone else all the time.

So how does that help a blogger? Well, let’s look at it simply. Do you have a Facebook account? Yes? Okay, how many “friends” do you have on your account? Let’s modestly say 100? BAM! 100 potential readers. Every person attached to your social account is a potential reader if you allow your blog to be showcased on that account. All you have to do is share your blog posts the same way you would share anything else on your social feeds, and bada bing bada boom, you’ve made your blog accessible to tons of people who may otherwise never have come across it.

It’s as simple as that. If you connect your blog to previously established social accounts, you’ve opened yourself up to a whole other world of viewers who may see your post and decide to check it out. And WordPress makes this even easier with their Publicize options, which allows you to link all of your different social accounts to your WordPress one, thus allowing WordPress to automatically post status updates/tweets/etc for you whenever you publish a post. Awesome, right? So what are you waiting for? Get out there and publicize!