If you’re just starting out with a blog, I know the scariest thing for me was wondering who in the world was going to find my blog, no less take the time to read it. If you’re passionate about a subject, market or cause, you may have more people than you think that would be interested in reading and sharing their thoughts. Ours is a passion to get to the Professional Tradesmen.
From a B-to-B perspective, here are some simple ways to get the ball rolling so you can become the super star blogger you always knew you could be. Don’t ignore the obvious. You already have a business network to tap into.
- Current customers
- Potential customers
- Suppliers
- Distributors
- Fellow employees
- Industry groups
- Associations
Here are some inexpensive ways to promote your blog:
- Add your URL to your email signature (have everyone in the company do it)
- Add your URL when printing letterhead, cards, invoices, etc.
- Make it very visible on your web site
- If you do trade ads, add to the signoff as one of the calls-to-action
- Promote through your social media pages
One of the best ways to identify readers is using LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Most of my new readers come from one of these sources. Weekly I go up on my LinkedIn page and post a topic on either the discussion page or the news page that directs them to my blog. The key here is to have groups to link to, but that’s another post. Facebook is the same way — at least once a week I post something. With Twitter, I use socialoomph (formerly Tweetlater) to put out posts hourly. I have over 100 tweets a week going out automatically. The point is it’s no good having these social media pages if you don’t use them. Remember, the power of social lies in it being viral. All it takes is a few readers who have a big following to like what you’re saying and Bingo, they will introduce you to a whole new audience.
Enough about how I find readers. I’d like to know how you do it. Please share.
Other posts that might be helpful:
Blogs: How to take advantage of them to reach Professional Tradesmen
John Sonnhalter
Welcome to my blog, Tradesmen Insights. I'm the master of one trade, founder of a B-to-B marketing communications firm to companies that target tradesmen in construction, industrial and MRO markets.
I have been running the blog http://www.CopTool.com for sometime and have had good success opening up conversations in forums or on other related blogs like this one. In the beginning I saw blogs with similar topic as competition but as things progressed, found these sites to be great sources of traffic and relevant sources to send my readers for more information on certain topics I may have posted already.
Jay,
I agree the more we can contribute to a like cause the better off we’ll all be.I see you’ve been reviewing one of our clients tools -the Ridgid micro explorer. Let mke know how I can help.
Blogs are the best source of information online right now. (not only now, but for a number of years)
Having been running my own blogs and also blogs for my clients I can say that good information leads to interest from the general audience. Once this is achieved ‘popularity’ starts taking place to get more links to your blog. In turn that leads to good ‘leads’ for your business.
But apart from a direct marketing tool, its a great way to keep in touch with the world.
Happy Blogging!
I start my day with LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, but FB is mostly for my friends and hobbyists. I announce a few blog changes with Twitter after discovering WordPress through LinkedIn. I am sulliclari on Twitter, and my url is http://trumpnetwork/ksullivan which is a huge development of Donald Trump’s interest in IdealHealth’s marketing for vitamins, nutrition, staples and diet. I think I’m on the right track with Trump and I am looking for others to join. Thank you for this insite!
good luck
Steve, our ultimate audience is the manufacturers who sell to the contractors not the contractors themselves. If our focus turns more towards the contractors I’ll let you know. If you’re looking for places to get in front of contractors one suggestion would be to go to HVAC Talk which is a forum for contractors.It’s put out by Contracting Business magazine out of Cleveland( Penton Publishing) They get 50,000 plus views a month and might be a place you would want to advertise.Hope this helps.
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