5 Best Social Networking Sites to Promote Your Blog

Most people are familiar with the big names in social networking, but there are actually many social networking sites that you can join too, directly and indirectly, promote your blog and drive traffic to it.

Some social networking sites are popular across a broad global audience, but others appeal to smaller niche audiences or specific regions of the world.

Read on to learn where you can join the conversation, build relationships, and promote your blog to grow your audience.

By integrating social media into your blog, we mean bridging the gap between popular social media sites and your content. People who visit your blog need an easy way to connect with your blog and share your blog content via social media elements that are integrated into your site.
These integrating elements could be in the form of social media buttons that help your readers engage with your blog (Facebook likes, Twitter follows), share buttons that help readers share your content, social media logins to that help readers comment on your blog, and so on.

1.Facebook

sproutsocial.com

With over 1.5 billion active monthly users worldwide, Facebook is by far the most popular social networking site. With it, you can not only connect with friends and family but also share links and information regarding your blog.

When it's all said and done, don't forget to add your blog to your Facebook profile!

Let’s start with the facts. 80% of all Internet users use Facebook. Even 65% of adults over the age of 65 use Facebook. It has over 1.85 billion users. Most users check their Facebook page multiple times per day. Regardless of who your customers are, they are using Facebook. And, they use it daily. Therefore, one of the most important benefits of Facebook advertising is that your customers use it daily.

A major benefit of Facebook advertising is its ability to reach your exact audience. Facebook is the most targeted form of advertising. You can advertise to people by age, interests, behavior, and location. If you really know your customers, you can use Facebook advertising to engage them.

2. LinkedIn

When we say internet advertising, most of you think of Facebook or Google ads first. We agree, in the field of digital marketing they stand for content marketing in modern marketing methods. The king of social networks, Facebook, at one time attributed as much as 90% of its profits exclusively to ads, while Google advertising is a gourmet delicacy that you can afford for your hungry company – if you have a good budget for catering of course, because we all know that receptions aren’t cheap if you want to impress everyone present on the internet… err… at the party.
If you still wish to prepare a little celebration for your company and to find the money for an effect similar to Google advertising, and you are selling something very specific which you are not sure that Google searches would easily show, maybe it’s time to start thinking outside the box. And outside the box, LinkedIn advertising is waiting for you!

LinkedIn are a serious bunch who care for a community that understands what they are doing and why, and will thus indicate their position within a particular company or organization. Also, just like Facebook ads, this platform is very useful when it comes to targeting by special interests, because this focused way of promoting gives better results. Why? Very simple: it shows ads only to those you pre-suppose are interested in your product or service, based on the information from their profile. So you can exclusively target the people who work in a particular company, have particular skills or work in a particular industry. Clever, isn’t it? Of course there are also the standard specializations of targeting such as age, gender and the like, which help you better specify to whom you will “serve” your campaign.

3. Google+

Your audience is bombarded with more content than they can consume (Mark Schaefer calls it content shock). That information overload is blocking your visibility and marketing efforts.
You may be creating compelling content with blog posts, infographics, images or videos, but that content is limited by the walls of social media channels and your existing readers.

The good news is that +Post ads are not within the Google+ stream (hooray!). Instead, they’re served through Google’s Display Network and you can handle them through your AdWords account.
If you’re not familiar with Google’s Display Network, it’s a paid ad service that shows your ads (e.g., your +Post ad) on relevant websites and to the audiences most likely to be interested in your product or service.

Of course, anyone can see your +Post ad content, but what’s special about these ads is that users who are logged into Google can reshare, +1 or comment on your content right in the ad, without going to Google+. And if your content includes a link to your site, users can click through. Each interaction is seamless for the user.

4. Instagram

With more than 1 billion active users, Instagram is a leading social media platform. Not convinced by this number? Well, just a little while ago, Instagram announced its 700 million users milestone. A growth of almost 30+% in a little time tells us more about this platform’s popularity and future potential than anything else.
In simple words, it has become a huge and diverse online community with unlimited marketing potential.
Of course, Facebook has more active users than Instagram. However, shear numbers may not be the first thing to consider when advertising a small business. If you want to successfully promote your small business, you should look first at the relevant data. The statistics are more than just simple numbers calculated in order to attract more users.

If you’re selling products, you can integrate Instagram Facebook and Shopify and instantly sell to your followers. Posting relevant images and videos and build your brand online, and attract more customers and followers.
Be aware that these images should be targeted, attractive and at the same time, of high quality. If you are not a skilled photographer, hire one that can deliver the best images to be successful.

5. Pinterest

According to Pinterest, advertisers receive 20% more clicks the month following a Promoted Pin launch due to sharing. Someone will save a (promoted) pin, their followers will see that pin in their feed, save it as well, their followers repeat, so on and so on…

The platform also offers Pinterest Propel, a month-long program where you receive personalized support, custom pins created by the Pinterest team and expert training within their Ads Manager. Your first campaign will be supported and directed by Pinterest so you learn early on how to advertise best for your brand.

Pinterest is an excellent tool to help increase links back to your website, which, in turn, drives more traffic.  It is more effective at steering traffic back to a website more than any other social media source.  (Thank you, rich pins!)
This uptick in traffic obviously relies on good content. If you’re creating and sharing content that your audience likes, they’re more likely to follow your links. Good content on Pinterest starts with creating quality visuals.

Why is this a good thing?  Because it enables users to automatically post new pins to their news feeds for others to see.  Although we’re not big fans of cross-platform posting, many people find it helpful. If you’re relying on automation, you might be trying to do too much. You might want to spend some time on a social media strategy first.

By Sujeet Kumar