2009 Recap on Tonight’s #gno Twitter Party!
December 29, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 16 Comments
Can you believe 2010 is only 2 days away! Let’s give 2009 an amazing goodbye by sharing the #bestof2009 during tonight’s last #gno Twitter party of the year from 9-11 ET (8 CT, 7 MT, 6 PT)! Click here to party with us!
And, don’t forget to click here to enter this week’s giveaway for a $250 Visa cash card. Deadline: Thursday, January 31 at midnight PT.
- What: Girls’ Night Out (#gno) Twitter party (Click here to learn about #gno!)
- When: Tuesday, December 29, 9-11 p.m. EST (8CT, 7 MT, & 6 PT)
- Where: Party with us here on our custom Tweetgrid. (Use hashtags #gno and #bestof2009.)
- Topic: Best of 2009
- Party Favors: Click here to enter for a chance to win this week’s giveaway from State Farm. Deadline: Thursday, December 31 at midnight PT.
- RSVP: Please leave your Twitter ID in the comments to follow and be followed (on Twitter, of course!) by other #gno gals. The best format is as follows: http://twitter.com/jylmomIF.
2010 Women and Mom Blogger Conferences to Attend
December 23, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 29 Comments
Looking to take your blog or social media practices up a notch in 2010 and have a little fun while doing it (check out our smiles from BlogHer 2009)?
Here’s some awesome opportunities for girls’ weekends out, errrr, I mean amazing blogging and social media conferences 
, that are perfect for women looking to grow their blogging and social media knowledge as well as their brand connections.
See the list below to compare conference focus, dates, location, audience, number of attendees, and cost.
January
Chicks Who Click—Colorado
A one-day Social Media Conference for Women incorporating networking, education and empowerment with like-minded women, achieving great heights in the area of Social Media.
Website: http://www.chickswhoclick.net/chickswhoclick.html
Location: Denver, Colorado
Date: Saturday, January 23
Audience: Women in social media
Number of People: Approximately 100
Cost: $225
Alt Conference
Where design-minded folks—bloggers, lifestyle sites, and the companies that want to connect with them—get together to make connections, discuss theory and love on all things design. The focus will be on growing communities, marketing, and monetizing.
Website: http://altitudesummit.com
Location: Salt Lake City, UT
Date: Thursday to Saturday, January 21-23
Audience: Bloggers and design enthusiasts
Number of People: Approximately 300
Cost: $350
February
BlissDom
Dedicated to making sure each of [its] attendees has a meaningful weekend learning, connecting and cultivating inspiration for her blog, her business, her family and her life. Special focus on writing and business tracks. Also, new this year is a one-day event with 12 different Wisdom Workshops on Thursday, Feb. 4.
Website: http://blissdomconference.com
Location: Nashville, Tennessee
Date: Thursday to Saturday, February 4-6
Audience: Women and mom bloggers, women entrepreneurs and social media enthusiasts
Number of People: Open to 500 attendees
Cost: $299
Mom 2.0 Summit
A place for marketers, mompreneurs and social media enthusiasts to get to know one another, connect, converse, and build relationships. This year’s Summit discussions will focus on three smart paths you can take to even more enlightenment in social media, marketing, networks, and brand building.
Website: http://mom2summit.com
Location: Houston, Texas
Date: Thursday to Saturday, February 18-20
Audience: Mompreneurs, mom bloggers, marketers, and social media enthusiasts
Number of People: Open to 350 attendees
Cost: Early bird pricing is $399. Rates increase December 31.
March
Chicks Who Click—Nebraska
A one-day Social Media Conference for Women incorporating networking, education and empowerment with like-minded women, achieving great heights in the area of Social Media.
Website: http://www.chickswhoclick.net/chickswhoclick.html
Location: Omaha, Nebraska
Date: Saturday, March 6
Audience: Women in social media
Number of People: Approximately 100
Cost: $225
SITS Bloggy Bootcamp
Whether you are a newbie or seasoned blogger, you’ll walk away with tons of new ideas and new connections. Networking and collaboration is what bloggy boot camp, hosted by SITS, is all about.
Website: http://www.starsandheartsmedia.com/?page_id=12
Location: Baltimore, Maryland
Date: Saturday, March 6
Audience: Geared to women bloggers
Number of People: Only 85
Cost: $89
South by Southwest
Five days of compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology, scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer.
Website: http://sxsw.com/interactive
Location: Austin, Texas
Date: Thursday to Tuesday, March 11-16
Audience: Those passionate about all things interactive
Cost: Current pricing is $475 for the Interactive Badge. Rates increase January 15.
FitBloggin’10
Website: http://fitbloggin.com
Location: Baltimore, Maryland
Date: Saturday, March 20
Audience: Those passionate using blogs and social media to spread a message of health and wellness.
Cost: $99.95 (Early bird special sold out. )
Social Media 4 Small Biz
A two-day interactive, family-friendly conference for small business owners featuring some of the best social media experts, PR professionals, and small business consultants.
Website: http://sm4smallbiz.com
Location: Aliso Viejo (Orange County), California
Date: Thursday to Saturday, March 25-27
Audience: Small business owners with an online storefront who want to get smart on social media
Number of people: Approximately 150
Cost: TBA
April
Chicks Who Click—North Carolina
A one-day Social Media Conference for Women incorporating networking, education and empowerment with like-minded women, achieving great heights in the area of Social Media.
Website: http://www.chickswhoclick.net/chickswhoclick.html
Location: Raleigh, North Carolina
Date: Saturday, April 10
Audience: Women in social media
Number of People: Approximately 100
Cost: $225
June
Evo ‘10 Conference
At Evo’10, it’s all about interaction—interacting with other bloggers, business women, and brands while evolving your blogging and social media skill set through hands-on, interactive workshops.
Website: http://evoconference.com
Location: Park City, UT at The Canyons Resort
Date: Thursday to Saturday, June 24-26
Audience: Women and marketers looking to connect with each other and evolve their blogs, their businesses, and their brands.
Number of People: Full access passes available to 350 people. Opening keynote and party open to an additional 150.
Cost: Early bird pricing is $249. Rates increase March 1.
August
BlogHer
Offers innovative ideas and [the opportunity to] interact with a mix of social media experts, business bloggers, and brand marketers who have experience building campaigns and working in social media environments.
Website: http://www.blogher.com/blogher_conference/conf
Location: New York, New York
Date: Thursday to Saturday, August 5-7
Audience: Bloggers and businesses
Number of People: Open to 1800 people
Cost: Early bird pricing is $198. Rates increase March 1.
October
Blogalicious 2010
For three days, black, white, Latina, Caribbean, Asian-Pacific, and Native-American bloggers, among other nationalities, will enjoy a weekend of entertaining discussions and extraordinary events, all experienced in the company of exceptional women.
Note: All conference information, including description paragraphs, was taken directly from the conference websites. Please refer to individual websites for additional information, rate increases, or other conference information revisions.Website: http://www.blogaliciousweekend.com
Location: Miami, Florida
Date: Thursday to Saturday, October 8-10
Audience: Women bloggers
Cost: TBA
RSVP: Marketing to Women & Moms Using Social Media Part II—The Brand’s Perspective
May 25, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 24 Comments
Ever wonder what it would be like to be a brand representive—a “Wal-Mart 11 mom,” a “Hanes mom,” or a “Fishful Thinking Faculty Member or Ambassador”? Curious about what mom-involved campaigns include, how these moms are selected, and why businesses are finding it so advantageous to involve them not only up front in focus groups, but as representatives for an extended period of time. 
What are the results businesses are getting from these campaigns, how does the mixture of moms and social media help them get the word out faster, better than traditional advertising?
You can learn the answer to these and many more questions by joining us here this Tuesday night.
- What: Girl’s Night Out (What’s GNO? Click here to find out!)
- When: Tuesday, May 26, 9-11 p.m. EDT
- Where: Tweet Grid (use #gno hashtag)
- Topic: Marketing to Women and Moms Using Social Media (from the Brand’s perspective)
- Who: @barbarajones (from One2One Network), @johnflandrews (formerly of Wal-Mart and now of MARS Advertising, @levitanl (from Mr. Youth), @lindsaylebresco (from Graco), @mattyb123 (from Mr. Youth)
- RSVP: Use Mr. Linky below (enter the twitter URL and your twitter ID (e.g., http://twitter.com/jyl_momIF). If you would like to include your blog, please enter it next to your name. Make sure to include your twitter URL in the URL line. Please do not enter your blog URL there.
@ClassyMommy Shares Tips on Working With Brands: Know Yourself, Find a Niche
May 20, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 5 Comments
The chatter on last night’s #GNO made my head spin. I think I’m still recovering from the stimulating and informative discussions on how brands are tapping into Social Media Moms as we enter the “New Age of Brand Evangelists.” Clearly, there’s a lot to talk about when it comes to this hot topic. Tweeters asked how bloggers and brands connect in the first place and wondered what triggered the relationship. Is it traffic stats, influence, twitter followers, or something else entirely?
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I think all of the above are important, but venture to guess that the “something else entirely” is the essential ingredient that triggers the lasting or more formal relationship with a brand. (And I think it goes without saying that bloggers obviously need to work with brands they are passionate about and are a genuine fit for their lifestyle, tastes, beliefs, family, etc.)
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For me, vlogging has been the “something else entirely” factor which has created my more formal relationships with brands. Before I ever imagined companies would send bloggers free products I started Classy Mommy to write about all my favorite finds and the gazillion products on the market for Moms and babies. Back in 2006 the one thing I did that was different and a natural fit for my style was start doing “video reviews” of products.
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Circa 2006: My 10 month old daughter tests organic baby food for one of my first videos. At the time the word vlogging was not even in my vocab, but for those who know me in real life, you know I talk alot and enjoy the camera so “vlogging” was an instinct for me. 3 years later, I still don’t use any script and find being myself on the fly is my best strategy for a fun video.
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This month, since I’m a professed microwave chef, I’m working on a vlogging campaign for Healthy Choice to showcase their products. Clearly, I’m still being myself as I let viewers in on the dirty little secret that is my jam packed freezer. I mean really have you ever seen a freezer like mine? I’m a disaster and my crazy kids are a pretty good match for my crazy freezer!
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And vlogging was the reason Wal-Mart asked me to join their 11 Moms campaign last summer as they were looking for Moms willing to share money saving tips on YouTube. This video I created about saving money with rechargeable batteries, probably also caught the eye of Energizer as I’m now a brand advocate for Energizer Rechargeables. So for me, I definitely think vlogging was the “something else” factor to trigger my brand relationships.
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Just like a a blog post incorporating a brand needs to be genuine, so does a video. I’m still doing the same thing as when I started messing around with the camera 3 years ago, but I have learned that my best videos are super short – cause even I don’t want to watch myself chattering if I start going over 1 minute!
Know yourself, your blog, your niche, and how you are different from everyone else. Are you a heavy tweeter? Really funny? An expert in living green? Do you have a large family? Wild kids? Love to vlog? Take phenomenal photos? In my experience, I see companies reaching out to bloggers based on how they differentiate themselves and how that particular angle might be a fit for a specific campaign or brand.
Connect With Us Online!
April 27, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 1 Comment
Want to stay in the know about Mom It Forward events? Interested in viewing or sharing current pictures or videos from the Mom It Forward community? Here’s a few of the places you can connect with us online, besides on our website:
Chat anytime all day everyday in bite-sized comments (140 characters or less) on Twitter. You can follow Mom It Forward by clicking here.
Also, check out our new group over on Today’s Mama, where women and moms can tweet to their heart’s content!
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Girl’s Night Out (#GNO) Tuesdays on Tweetgrid
Chat with other Mom It Forward gals during our weekly #gno Twitter party every Tuesday from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. eastern time. Stay for as long as you’d like and enjoy our weekly themes and our virtual panelists. We create a custom TweetGrid each week with our panelists Twitter IDs, so click here to RSVP as well to learn the who and the where for each week’s party.
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Facebook Group and Page
Keep apprised of weekly and special Mom It Forward events on our Facebook Group. While there, feel free to upload photos, videos, or links and start or participate in discussions. While this is a spam-free zone, it is a great place to introduce community members to your blogs and/or online businesses.
Also, we love our Mom It Forward fans, so please click here to become part of the club.
LinkedIn Group
Share job-related information and opportunities and start or participate in Mom It Forward discussions on our LinkedIn group. This is a great place to share your resume, blog, websites, and on or offline businesses.
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Flickr Group
As Mom It Forward starts more and more chapters around the world, Flickr is a great way to see what other women in the community are doing to Mom It Forward. So far, our Flickr Group has pictures of us singing at an assisted living facility, preparing lunch at the Nashville Rescue Mission, enjoying an uplifting workshop luncheon at The Melting Pot, serving side by side with our children at a center for absued children, and partying while raising funds and awareness for Yehu Microfinance, Basa Body, and Coast Coconut Farms. Not able to attend an event, feel like you’re part of the action by viewing the pictures. Served in your community or with your family, please upload and share what you did or are doing to Mom It Forward.
YouTube Community
YouTube has been a great way to capture not only the heartfelt, but the fun side of our community. Where else can you see @JessicaKnows doing her famous “super star” right after singing a song created especially for #gno during the Blissdom party skit? Or, where can you see Larry Possum of the famous @soulpossum come out of his trailer twice, once to sing a ballad for the Blissdom Party, and a second time to sing for the New York City Tweet Up for Charity? Get in on the action by clicking to view one of these fun videos or by uploading your own.
Tweet With Women From Kenya During Daytime #GNO Thursday, April 30
April 27, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 3 Comments
How Is Twitter Connecting People for the Power of Good?
Twitter has become a buzz word, as of recently, but how can Twitter bridge the distance and connect people for the power of good? As part of a larger effort to raise $50,000 for Yehu Microfinance Bank to help empower moms in impoverished areas of Kenya, Mom It Forward will be hosting a Twitter party Thursday, April 30 from 12-2 p.m. (EDT) and two of the moms who will benefit from our efforts will actually be tweeting with us live from Africa on the popular Twitter application: Tweetgrid.
Thanks to new tools in social media like Twitter, groups like Mom it Forward don’t have to travel to Africa to offer humanitarian aid. The Twitter party will feature two women from Kenya, as well as the bank’s CEO, who will be tweeting live from the Kenyan Bank in Mumbasa with approximately 200 Mom it Forward members, talking about what the program and fundraising efforts mean to them and their families. We are excited to personally connect Yehu women entrepreneurs from rural Kenya with other women around the world on Twitter so that they may share together, learn from each other, and strengthen each other. We are grateful that there is technology today that can narrow the divide of distance and culture to allow us to discover the common bonds that connect us all together.
What Is Yehu Microfinance Bank?
Yehu Microfinance Bank is an organization designed to bring impoverished communities in the rural coastal areas of Kenya out of poverty and into a better, fuller life. The organization works to provide communities with a series of loans, which villagers can use to start their own small businesses and build economic strength in their communities.
How Can You Join the Party?
1. Get on Twitter from 12-2 p.m. EDT (11 CDT, 10 MDT, and 9 PDT).
2. Follow our international hosts: @yehu_adet, @yehu_rose, @bernice98.
3. Follow our domestic hosts: @yehu_troy, @basabody, @momitforward.
4. Click here to tweet from our custom Tweetgrid.
Please invite your friends for this awesome opportunity to virtually travel to Africa and meet some amazing Kenyans right from the comforts of your home or computer.
Reminder! 100% of donations go to Africa. And, when you donate $20 or more to Yehu or make any Basa Body or Coast Coconut Farms product purchase, you’re automatically entered to win one of three amazing gift cards, including a $250 Disney Gift Card.
10 Ways to Donate to Charity Without Spending a Cent
April 15, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 2 Comments
Do you have a desire to make a meaningful contribution, but aren’t in the financial situation to do so? Donations to charity don’t have to be financial. So many of us are experiencing the fallout from this global economic crisis, and at the same time we feel a push to give back—a desire to reach out to others. Those of us who want to serve, who want to make a difference, can do so using our passion, our drive, our connections, our voices, our hearts, and, if we happen to be in a position to do so, our pocket books.
Make a Meaningful Difference Without Reaching Into Your Pocket Book
Here are 10 ways you can make a difference for Yehu Microfinance between now and May 12:
- Promote the fundraiser in your social media circles: on twitter, on facebook, to your friends through e-mail, on the ning networks you frequent, etc.
- Write a blog post about the fundraiser or the charity to raise awareness.
- Place this Chip In widget code on your blog:<embed allowScriptAccess=”always” src=”http://widget.chipin.com/widget/id/2d59742089239480″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” wmode=”transparent” width=”250″ height=”250″></embed>
- Advertise the fundraiser on your site using this button:<a href=”http://momitforward.com” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://i668.photobucket.com/albums/vv43/momitforward/MIF_FightPoverty2_125×125.jpg” alt=”Africa, Poverty, Women, Mom It Forward, Moms Helping Moms” border=”0″ /></a>
- Promote and/or attend our live events. See the calendar of events post for details, including invitation and press release links.
Start using products with coconut oil, especially those sold at Basa Body and Coast Coconut Farms. You can sample the products at all of our live events.- Put on a fundraising “Tweet Up” or event in your area. This doesn’t have to be a huge, formal event or something that raises a lot of money. Meeting up with friends and family at your home, at a coffee shop, or another informal gathering place and spreading the news about this initiative goes a long way in raising awareness.
- Familiarize yourself with the charity’s mission by visiting and reading information on these three sites: http://yehu.org, http://basabody.com, http://coastcoconutfarms.co.ke, and http://coastcoconutfarms.com.
- After visiting the sites, promote them in your social media circles with the goal of raising awareness.
- Determine what you will do today to Mom It Forward to your family, your friends, and/or people in your online networks, etc. Go out and Mom It Forward and help change the world one mom at a time. This applies to moms as well as anyone that has a mom!
When You Make a Purchase, Choose Products With a Proceeds Going to Charity
If you happen to have the means and desire to contribute financially, here’s several ways to make a difference that way:
- Make a cash donation to Yehu Microfinance through our Chip In widget.
- Purchase one of the Basa Body Kiss Me Packs (made using the coconut oil extracted by the women in Kenya) for your Mother’s Day Gift (a portion of the proceeds goes to charity).
- Purchase any of the Basa Body products (a portion of the proceeds goes to charity).
- Purchase a limited edition #gno t-shirt (a portion of the proceeds goes to charity).
- Purchase coconut cooking oil. This is perfect for cooking and food storage and has a longer shelf life than other oils. Proceeds from this purchase also go to charity.
RSVP—Guy Kawasaki Joins #GNO This Week at Our Virtual Pajama Party Sponsored by My Mommy Manual
April 11, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 7 Comments
What’s a Pajama Party Without a GUY?
The fabulous Ria and Suzanne from My Mommy Manual and in partnership with Mom It Forward and the 12 for 12K team, are throwing the pajama party of all pajama parties and you’re invited. In support of our 6-week focus on charity, service, and giving, they are raffling off a wide array of prizes with the proceeds going to Yehu Microfinance, Basa Body, and Coast Coconut Farms. Click here to enter to win!
What’s more? Guy Kawasaki is joining in on the fun! After all, what’s a pajama party without a GUY? Join us Tuesday, April 14 from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. eastern (8 CDT, 7 MDT, & 6 PDT) to chit and chat about tips for entrepreneurs—starting and running your own business and using social media to do it.
Guy Kawasaki is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. Guy is the author of nine books including Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.
- When: Tues., Apr.14 from 9 pm to 1 a.m. EDT (8 CDT, 7 CDT, and 6 PDT)
- What: Girl’s Night Out (What’s GNO? Click here to find out!)
- Topic: Tips to Starting & Running Your Own Business—in conjunction with our charity to fight poverty in Kenya (Yehu, BasaBody, Coast Coconut Farms)
- Where: Tweet Grid (use the #gno hashtag)and on UStream
- Who: @guykawasaki, @riasharon, and @zenmommy
- RSVP: Use Mr. Linky below (enter the twitter URL and your twitter ID (e.g., http://twitter.com/jyl_momIF). If you would like to include your blog, please enter it next to your name. Make sure to include your twitter URL in the URL line. Please do not enter your blog URL there.
How Do You Enter to Win the Giveaways?
My Mommy Manual has rounded up nearly $5,000 in prizes. Check out this short video below to see how to enter!
Twitter for Charities and Non-Profits: 3 Case Studies
April 1, 2009 by Brian Carter · Leave a Comment
What Are the Results of Using Twitter for Charities and Non-Profits?
Over the last six months, I’ve seen some pretty cool results for charities and non-profits using twitter.
Tweetsgiving
This was a very clever, well planned, successful viral fundraiser. The goal was to raise $10,000 to build a classroom for children in Tanzania.
Tactics:
- Asked twitterers to tweet their gratitude along with website address and the hashtag #tweetsgiving
- Enlisted influential twitterers (via direct messaging) as seed evangelists
- Chip-in for donations
Results:
- People tweeted 3,000 gratitude messages
- They gained 1,337 twitter followers
- Tweetsgiving was a top trending term on Twitter for 48 hours
- Tweetsgiving.org received 15,830 page views from 7563 visitors in 101 countries
- More than 100 press and blog mentions, and here’s one more
One Day For Human Rights—Anca Foster
This campaign was focused on the Dec 10, 2008 Human Rights Day, and modeled after Blog Action Day. The goal was to get signatures for a petition to get the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into people’s passports.
Tactics:
- Twitter avatar mod/logo
- Tweets
- Badges for blogs
- Got commitments to blog about it on the actual day
Results:
- 1,849 signatures
- 1,535 Twitter followers
- 387 members of Facebook group
- 2,349 inbound links
12 for 12K Organization—Danny Brown
This is a fairly new, ongoing year-long effort for 12 different charities. Each month, a new charity.
Tactics are fluid, but they include:
- Avatar mod, tweeting, badges
- Chip-in for donations
- Raffle contests
And they just did a tweet-a-thon… March 19 2009 to Raise $12,000 for the Share Our Strength charity.
Results:
- Website traffic: 3,117 unique visitors with 6,239 page hits
- Twitter: 100+ pages of search results for the #12for12k hashtag
- Twitter: 300 users of the #12for12k hashtag between 11.00am and 1.00pm EST
- Twitter: Topping numerous Twitter trend sites (above March Madness hashtag)
- Donors: 459 contributors, raising a total of $14,847.69
- Amount: Target of $12,000 was raised in just 6 hours. On average, more than $1,000 was being donated per hour.
Real World Results
- Connect 546,840 families to programs that provide free meals to their children during the summer.
- Provide 14,112 preschool children with a nutritious lunch.
- Give 352,800 schoolchildren a glass of milk
- Feed 420 children three meals a day for a month
Um wow.
So What Works For Charities and Non Profits on Twitter?
Tips for Getting Action and Participation
- Widgets and logos for people’s blogs
- Logo that’s avatar-sized for Twitter pic modification
- Hashtags
- Reason for people to constantly tweet about it
- Chip In widget
- Get commitments to blog or tweet
Brian Carter is the director of Search Engine Optimization for Fuel Interactive. See Brian’s lifestreams at FriendFeed, Profilactic, and MyBlogLog. And check out his social network, Brian Carter’s Amazing Friends and the Brian Carter Social Media Blog.
What’s The Trick? How Can I Grow My Blog?
March 25, 2009 by jyl johnson pattee · 4 Comments
Marie LeBaron is a 30 something stay at home mom to 3 silly kids. Before life as a mother, she graduated with a teaching degree in Early Childhood & Elementary Education, after which she taught four years of Kindergarten. After her first child was born, she decided to read books and sing silly songs at home. She misses the classroom, but she now gets to bring the fun and learning into her home and ours. You can follow more of her projects at her parenting blog Make and Takes.
Here’s a few tips and tricks to help increase traffic to your blog.
As I’ve been blogging for 2 years and currently have just over 4,100 daily subscribers, I know most of these tips have helped my own readership grow.
Niche Blogging – Find your passion and blog about it. It’s much easier and comes more naturally if you blog about something you love. It could be food, parenting, photography, knitting, design etc. If you’re genuine and real in your posts, people respond to that and want to read more.
Submitting Posts – There are some great sites that take submissions for related posts and can bring you new readers. Here’s a few to check out:
- Stumble Upon – here you must submit other sites as well as your own.
- Kirtsy, Digg, Delightful
- Craftzine, Get Crafty, The Craft Crow, Tip Junkie
- Tastespotting, Foodgawker, FoodPhotoBlog
How-To Type Posts – A post with a recipe or directions to make something are very popular with sites like Stumble Upon or Kirsty. They tend to bring a lot of traffic, as people love to see how to make things for themselves.
Use Twitter as a Business Card – Twitter is great for building relationships with people, but it can also be great for sharing your site with others. Try to follow people who are in your area of interest. Chances are they will see your profile and click on your blog link, seeing who you are and maybe staying a while.
Responding to Comments – When someone leaves a comment on your blog, try to comment back or even email back to readers who may be new to your blog. It helps them feel welcome and you can say thanks for sharing their comment. Chances are they’ll find you took the time to say hi and they’ll come back to read more.
Leaving Comments – Visit other people’s blogs and share a comment. Who doesn’t love to get comments? Read their posts and comment with something relevant to add, letting them know you’re genuine!
I hope these tips and tricks help. What else have you found to help increase traffic to your site?
Photo by flickr.
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