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Blogging provides a platform that reaches out to over 400 million people poring over some 20 billion or so pages each month. To forge a successful blogging career, however, it takes the right topics, tools, and resources. Twitter itself uses the ethos of blogging in that it’s all about conveying information to online users. As a blogger, if you pair both content platforms this can lead to an exponential increase in traffic to your online channel and send its readership skyrocketing.
The Big Bang of Blogging
The primordial soup of sorts that the blog pulled itself up and out from began halfway through the 1990’s - when Chicago, Illinois native Justin Hall, a little know Swarthmore College student created a web-based diary called ‘Justin’s Links from the Underground’.
Fast forward around 10 years later, this seemingly trivial inception was - and still is - regarded as the almighty Big Bang of Blogging. Hall now goes by the titles, journalist, entrepreneur and perhaps more importantly “the founding father of personal blogging” as declared the New York Times Magazine.
Rewind back to 1998 - when the cacophony of 56k modems (remember them?) that rang around the world were facing mass extinction - and The Charlotte Observer saw fit to place a blog on its online news site.
This ushering of the blog into the mainstream media itself picked up the pace when it was noted that online users regarded the medium as a point to virtually congregate and ratify topics - with people, just like them, conversing on every day or jumping over the same hurdles it threw their way.
Hyperjump to the close of the 2010s and blogging is still as central to users today, but it’s so much more. Now it’s a fully fledged industry that’s upped its game - as evident with super-blogs like the HuffPost drawing in 110,000,000 visitors per month, which when doing the math, helps it achieve a monthly revenue of $14,000,000.
Blogs like this don’t get those figures from having their scribes simply tapping away at a keyboard day in and day out. They use cross-promotion techniques on channels like Twitter to grow their platform based followers and divert traffic straight to their blogs. As a blogger, even if you’re already using Twitter, you should be doing the very same to your utmost advantage.
Reward that Retweet
Another common ground that both blogs and Twitter share is social interaction. Bloggers to brands to not-for-profits to everyday people continually update posts on either medium and always with the motive of their content being read by other people. Therefore to foster this much sought social interaction, as a blogger, it’s always advised to award Twitter users that share and retweet articles and tweets you post. Using the Twitter search function you can look for your blog title posts, branded hashtags, and even your own name to see the Twitter activity taking place with regards to what you’re writing and those interacting with it.
Those people that are sharing or retweeting your blog linked tweets are effectively spreading the word about your blog, your posts and the content you want to be seen. And best of all they’re doing it absolutely free of charge. By sending kudos their way in a tweeted ‘thank you’ or with a direct mail, reply or retweet, this bolsters loyalty with these micro-advocates.
It also acts as evidence - for all concerned who view the two-way interaction on Twitter - that what you’re writing about in either blog or on the platform, has proven its worth to be engaged with. Through their activity, the engaging party will, of course, have their own followers who will be exposed to your content - and may well agree in unison and follow your account or blog off their own initiative.
If this is indeed the end game, you can also DM them or post to their own feed to thank them for following in a similar fashion.
No one person is an Island
In the pursuit of gaining more followers to go down the rabbit hole and end up at your blogs, it’s pertinent to be an avid follower yourself. Twitter users such as bootstrap demigod Pieter Levels (@Levelsio) and Detroit’s own Marshall Mathers (@Eminem) don’t follow anyone on the platform. This is because they are - arguably - at the zenith of their niche and as such Twitter is a one way street for them with regards to follower uptake.
As a blogger to do this would be detrimental because you want as many people as possible to see your content. On Twitter if you define a healthy number of people to follow each day - say no more than 30 - then this is a quick route to gaining traction with your follower count. And it doesn’t involve actually posting any content.
Through the act of following someone on Twitter, this puts your account, feed and in effect the route to your blog in their vision. And it’s always best to start from the top down on your adding follower campaigns - so if you’re a gadget/tech blogger you would follow Linus Tech Tips (@LinusTech) and then look to their own followers and do it all over again.
As an unwritten rule when following an account its best to check its follower count. If an account has a healthy 12,000 followers and it follows 2000 other accounts, then this is proof that Twitter audiences are gravitating towards the posts in said account, and subsequently, this can open up more genuine prospects to view your own profile.
A word of warning about aggressive following though. Twitter defines it as:
‘indiscriminately following hundreds of accounts just to garner attention.’
If you go down the path of following hundreds of accounts each day then it practically guarantees that your account will be locked and limited for a period to time by the platform.
Clickbait that content
Much the pariah across all social channels and web entities (Buzzfeed we’re looking at you) clickbait isn’t admired by the more cynical online audience. Although it can be one of a bloggers best tools, just as long as it’s done tactfully. Whether Twitter users like it or not they still navigate and follow through on clickbait tweets to see what’s actually on the other side.
Rather than tweeting onerous, untruthful claims in a clickbait tweet you can include content that will pique the reader’s interest and create an emotional connection. For example, as a beauty blogger, a simple tweet to entice a reader could go along the lines of…
‘Anna Wintour swears by it. Lagerfeld disagrees. What about you?’
Such a tweet would be ideal about your latest blog on the fashion cognoscenti’s take on the all-new 2019 trend of faux-leather earrings - providing that Wintour or Lagerfeld do actually have an opinion on it. Which undoubtedly they do. Either way, it gives Twitter audiences - whether following you or not - a clear and direct path to find out what the related topic featured in your blog is all about.
Top of the Tree
With the Twitter algorithms not always guaranteeing that your latest blog enticing tweets will show up in a person’s feed in the order they were posted, there is thankfully a workaround for this.
Using the networks Pinned Tweet function, a tweet about your newest blog posting (with clickable links, of course) can be housed at the top of your profile. No matter how many tweets follow, it’ll always be the pinned content that those looking at your profile will see first and foremost.
There’s a myriad of ways bloggers and brands from all different niches actively use Twitter to grow their platform followers and their blogs. Whilst those niches each have different systems in the way they conduct blogging, the principles can largely be used across any industry.
Picture Perfect
The earnest Fashion blogger readily can use the Twitter Collage function to let them post up to 4 photos in a single tweet. Not all fashion is to everyone’s taste so the fashion blogger can include a selection of distinct garments that are covered and can be read about in more detail in a related blog article. Naturally, this optimization of the space a tweet allows can be used by most image focused bloggers irrespective of the topic.
It goes without Question
Beauty bloggers divulge tips on makeup products, cosmetic brands and so forth. As bloggers, they thrive on giving advice and answering questions to their followers and blog readers. To foster product purchases and brand loyalty any blogger can follow suit by using Twitter to host Q and A sessions. A follower may ask ‘should I use an eyeliner pencil or liquid?‘ to which the blogger can retort, in real time, with a choice and their reason why.
With its 140 character limit, Twitter can be used to answer any queries and give advice quickly and concisely. Planting the seed in the mind of the followers that the blogger is giving honest and sage advice to, they can then be directed to find out more in related blog pieces.
Inspirations and Aspirations
Documenting on Twitter, Lifestyle and Travel bloggers may seem carefree in their countless posts of world travel and cleaner, simpler life habits. On the flip side, they are cleverly tapping into their followers wants and aspirations - which is a driving force to get people to use their blog as a focal point on which to base the lives they seek. Inserting image heavy tweets that embody the attitudes and interests of like-minded Twitter followers is and can be used as a vehicle to put eyes on any blog too.
A Live Stream straight to You
The latest Tech aficionados love to find out all that’s to know in regards to the newest gadgets on the market. Commonly with new Tech, there’s usually a high price tag and as such a barrier to rapid purchase uptake. With Twitter Live Streaming, product presentation giving gadget bloggers can move followers closer to making purchase decisions - as they see such streaming bloggers as points of authority they can trust and ones from which they’ll use blog postings as guidance in such matters in the future.
Incorporating Content that can be used
As with Food bloggers, it can always be useful to offer content that can be easily used in everyday life. ‘Foodies’ often share recipes that followers can use in their own kitchens. By offering content that has its use in the offline world this creates value and an exclamation that any related blog can be a resource point that followers flock to.
Conclusion
This article has highlighted the advantage of using Twitter to increase follower on both blogs and the network itself. With over 300 million daily active users its begs the question why wouldn’t you want to spread the word on the platform? While it’s impossible to reach each and every one of them, Twitter will remain steadfast to help bloggers corner the market in their own niches, by way of turning new followers into new readers and in rapid succession.