A blogger's best friend is food; the kind of food that fuels shares. Before you put together the right recipe, however, you need to understand which ingredients nurture the goals. Two recommended ingredients (tools) come to mind, and one ingredient is better left on the shelf. I’ll explain, but before we take a look at these three ingredients, let's first dissect what the heck I'm saying in the opening sentences: A blog is not a one-way street; it needs interaction from readers, commenters and subscribers. To grow a blog, there needs to be active sharing on all the social media channels.
Manual vs. Automated
Back in the day, when tools, plug-ins and blogger solutions were in infancy and beta sites were ubiquitous, a blogger manually shared and invited readers and commenters via Twitter, and then Facebook. It was a recession and folks had lots of time to banter in comment sections. Twitterwas a party every night at 10 p.m. Those were the days. Today, a blogger who wants to grow reach, brand, cred, influence, subscribers, readers, and reputation has to put a few basic, yet necessary, tools in place.
Bloggers Need Triberr
I've been a Triberradvocate since day one. As a blogger, there's no solution that's more valuable than Triberr. It bills itself as a blogging automation solution, and at the rate it is innovating and delivering new bells and whistles, Triberr is meeting its goal to become the de facto blog fuel. Simply, you join a tribe or form one of your own; invite other bloggers of like mind; share the tribes material automatically via a robust dashboard; comment from one platform; and, watch your blog and brand grow in a variety of ways. The best thing about Triberr is the accessibility of its founders. They are always online, on the Interwebz and speaking at conferences. In fact, I got a nifty t-shirt just because I am a Prime Member. If you're blogging without Triberr, think again; Triberr is protein.
Bloggers Need Feedblitz
This RSS thing has many a blogger confused. No one really knows how it works, but it's mighty critical as high-octane blogger fuel. The main point about RSS is the feed…see? (More cool beans that align with the headline of this post!) All blogs have a feed url, and mine is via Feedblitz. I used to be a Feedburner blogger, but when my blog went awry last fall, Feedblitz was there to help direct me to a better solution. The cool thing about Feedblitz as a mid-tier blogger, is the opportunity for growth. There are tools for email marketing and e-newsletters, plus the analytics and dashboard are top notch. I cannot tell a lie; without the tech support of this solution's team, I would still be crying. And, it gets better and better every day. Bloggers need a reliable subscription tool with a good customizable template to allow for blog posts to be emailed to subscribers. The RSS feed has to work all the time so it's shared on any site that wants to publish your content. Feedblitz really cares about its blogger customers so it’s another essential ingredient.
Networked Blogs
I mentioned a sharing ingredient that gets a big thumb down … When I added my RSS feed to Networked Blogs, it shared my posts automatically on two Facebook accounts and Twitter. Recently, it started to substitute the images on my blog posts for advertisements. When I went into the settings to turn that off, the ads still appeared. Upon looking in the chat forum and FAQ, no one was taking the time to answer the questions or address the frustrations of the users. Not a good sign. The moral to the story is this:
- Use a tool, and give it time to work out the kinks, especially if it's in beta, and especially if you get to use the tool free.
- If over time, you begin to see fishy business practice, and lack of accessibility, then delete your account and find another source.
- We're all learning, and that includes the developers of solutions, too. No one needs to get on a high horse and demand perfection at the outset.
With time and patience, good partnerships happen. Do you have advice on blogging, marketing, social media, writing or design that you’d like to share within a guest post? These posts are for FeedBlitz users, by FeedBlitz users so if you use Feedblitz, we’d love to have you. Just email Kate with your idea: katebefinley@gmail.com.
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