August 25, 2010 53 Comments

Distribution Points for Your Blog

My blog is one of my key tools in growing business. I use it to promote other people’s good work. I use it to share my way of thinking. I use it to equip you for success, knowing that should you need more than what’s offered on the blog, you’ll ask for a way to work with me. Here’s how I look at distribution and why I think it’s important.

Distribution Points for Your Blog

I currently share my blog in 3 main places: LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. In each case, they are shared differently.

In LinkedIn, I have the WordPress for LinkedIn connection, so that imports my blog in a simple, clean way into the regular fabric of LinkedIn. If I really need traction on a post, I might share it again in my network updates, but I try to use that very sparingly. LinkedIn doesn’t really like a lot of link promotion.

On Twitter, my automated account, @broganmedia shares out my blog post, but I don’t rely on just that. If I think the post is good, I tweet out a link to it, asking a customized question with that link. For instance, if I were tweeting out this story (and I will), I’d say something like, “how many distribution points do you have for your blog?” And then I’d put the link to this post. Make sense?

On Facebook, it’s shared via a note. I don’t do very much with that method, to be honest. Instead, I rely on shareability, as I’ve covered it before. But, lest you think I don’t value Facebook’s addition to my blog, I’ll tell you of the time that Steve Rubel accidentally kept me from quitting Facebook. You see, I was just about to hit the delete button, when I saw that a new message had come in. Steve said to me, “I don’t know why I never saw your blog before now, but it just came across my screen on Facebook.” I thought, “rats,” and kept my page alive.

Email – Sparingly

Now, let me be clear. I love it when you subscribe to my blog via email. If you haven’t, feel free to sign up here (I respect your privacy):

But I really rarely and sparingly send out emails pointing to my posts. For the most part, if I know how to reach you, you probably subscribe to my blog. Secondarily, it feels like a waste of an email touch. I’d rather use those for important things, like promoting Invisible People.

One last note about email: I think it’s great to put a generic link to your blog in your email signature, if that’s what you most want people to do after you email them.

Distribution Elsewhere

There are many more services through which you can distribute and/or promote your blog. I’ve only talked about the three major and one minor method through which I’m distributing [chrisbrogan.com]. By all means, feel free to add other points in the comments, and we can talk about those, as well.

What about you? Where else are you distributing your blog? How have you found the experience? Any questions on what I’ve put up above?

ChrisBrogan.com runs on the Genesis Framework

The Genesis Framework empowers you to quickly and easily build incredible websites with WordPress. Whether you're a novice or advanced developer, Genesis provides you with the secure and search-engine-optimized foundation that takes WordPress to places you never thought it could go.

With automatic theme updates and world-class support included, Genesis is the smart choice for your WordPress website or blog.

Find out more about the framework features
Check out the Genesis demo and the wide variety of child themes
See example designs in the Genesis design showcase

Become a StudioPress Affiliate

http://CopywritingSells.com Chad Kettner

Too many people spam their lists on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and email.

It’s nice to see a marketer who uses the connections correctly – maintaining a careful balance of promotion and respect.
http://twitter.com/goodwolve jacqueline wolven

I use BizSugar too – if I think a post is particularly good I’ll put it there.
http://www.socialmediaprism.com Farida

Great post, Chris. Like you, I use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to promote my blog posts. But because I’m not Chris Brogran :) and my blog is very new, I use additional tools such as Digg and StumbleUpon and I’ve found that I do get some traffic from these sites. Networked Blogs is also a good application to use on Facebook to automatically syndicate a new post to your Facebook profile.
http://www.hectorjcuevas.com/ Hector

Chris,

I completely agree that sending out email broadcasts just to let your people know about your new post is somewhat unnecessary, given that if they’re already on your list, they probably signed up thru your blog anyway.. and they might even visit regularly to see if you have new stuff..

However, I do feel that some posts just NEED to be share. Those that I call my Signature Posts (on the side of my blog) are so jam packed with value that you just want people to go see them.. creates credibility, trust and social proof (because of all the wonderful comments)

I found that in my experience, Emailing Sparingly, but also Emailing Intelligently works really well.. thanks for the value bro

talk soon
Hector..
http://yoursalesplaybook.com paulcastain

I really need to do more with Facebook and will be starting a fan page for my Sales Playbook community. With 500 million users I’m sure my blog would benefit with that as a distribution point.

I submitted my feed to various feed aggregators but haven’t really seen much traffic from that.

I submit my feed to various industry social networking communities like printjunkie etc.

I was surprise about Linkedin not liking the links especially since they now have enhanced that feature on the status updates and have combined news items with discussions.

Thanks Chris!

Respectfully,
Paul Castain

http://empoprise-bi.blogspot.com/ John E. Bredehoft (Empoprises)

I am already using Facebook pages, and have established separate Facebook pages for three of my four blogs. (For example, the Facebook page for my Empoprise-BI blog is here.) The posts from the appropriate blog appear on the wall of the relevant Facebook page, and the page also gives me the option (admittedly underutilized) to place other appropriate content on the page.

One disappointment, however, is the lag in time that it takes for blog posts to appear on the Facebook page. While blog posts appear on my FriendFeed account (and therefore on my Twitter account and personal Facebook account) in just minutes, sometimes it takes hours or days for a blog post to appear on the relevant Facebook page. I don’t know if the fault is on Facebook’s end or Feedburner’s end, but it’s maddening at times.

Is anyone else having a similar issue in importing blog posts into a Facebook page?
http://empoprise-bi.blogspot.com/ John E. Bredehoft (Empoprises)

I am already using Facebook pages, and have established separate Facebook pages for three of my four blogs. (For example, the Facebook page for my Empoprise-BI blog is here.) The posts from the appropriate blog appear on the wall of the relevant Facebook page, and the page also gives me the option (admittedly underutilized) to place other appropriate content on the page.

One disappointment, however, is the lag in time that it takes for blog posts to appear on the Facebook page. While blog posts appear on my FriendFeed account (and therefore on my Twitter account and personal Facebook account) in just minutes, sometimes it takes hours or days for a blog post to appear on the relevant Facebook page. I don’t know if the fault is on Facebook’s end or Feedburner’s end, but it’s maddening at times.

Is anyone else having a similar issue in importing blog posts into a Facebook page?

http://twitter.com/frankmireault François R. Mireault

I completely agree. Social medias allows you to connect with your readers, not to shout at them. “Maintaining a careful balance of promotion and respect” is very well said.
http://www.davidleeking.com davidleeking

So… are you thinking that RSS isn’t a way you share, per se, but more of a way I (and many others) subscribe? Like subscribing via email?

But as a distribution point – I’ll bet RSS is your blog’s main one (ie., 62,000 readers via Feedburner and all).
Anonymous

For those of us who participate regularly in industry email discussion lists and forum sites, distribution on those platforms works very nicely as well. New people join those platforms every day; distribution there gives me exposure to new people who might be interested in what I’ve got to say.
Angela

Wow !!! You or I must me Psychic Samantha (Lol). I just posted about Invisible people on your Fb page. I had no idea you knew about them. I was just checking this post out on Fb which led me here. Awesome !!! God Bless You.
http://creativefuelstudios.com/the-talent/jim-gray/ Jim Gray

I use Delicious for content archiving, Twitter for “hey, look at this!” and FB for read this.
http://yoursalesplaybook.com paulcastain

Jay:

Great suggestion!

Can you give me some examples of email discussion lists and forum sites? Where can I find a listing of these?

If I sound like a rookie at this, its simply because I am :)

Thanks!
Paul Castain
http://www.jasonyormark.com Jason Yormark

Great post. In addition to the WordPress for Linked In, I find sharing my posts in the Linked In groups I am a member of to be a huge area of traffic for me. As long as you associate yourself with groups that are relevant to your content, you will see a spike in traffic and often spark interesting conversation in the process.
Anonymous

I found forum sites in my niche through Google – I’m a bankruptcy lawyer, so personal finance forum sites are fairly common. For what appears to be B-2-B sales (looking at your blog) I’d think you would want to check out forums and discussion areas catering to industries you serve. Chris can probably speak more to the use of LinkedIn for your purposes; I’m weak on that platform.

The rules of engagement remain the same, regardless of the platform. Engage, converse, connect, and then – after you’re established – promote via distribution of content.
http://www.esimplestudios.com Gabriele Maidecchi

Love how your posts can offer very wide insights and at the same time they can be taken as very practical “howtos”. Regarding Facebook, I am still trying to put it in the right “business” place, apart from the classic business page I am skeptical about its _real_ value, I remember in one of your speeches you referring to it as a way for people you didn’t like back in college to get back at you, that made me laugh
http://tijuanabecky.livingproof.us Becky

I’ve found that sharing a few times a day on Twitter or Facebook is helpful. Helps people know it’s out there but also don’t want to do it too often. That’s what I use.
http://www.gucci1923.com/gucci-sukey-medium-tote-211944-aa61g-2535-p-84.html gucci-sukey-medium-tote

good
http://twitter.com/CoachDawnWrites Coach Dawn

I love this post! I use the same distro streams that you do and even though I’m an athletics coach and talk about motivating and building successful teams, I’ve found that lots of business folks like what I write. So I’ve been getting lots of looks from LinkedIn…but I’ve yet to dig my claws into my target audience: other sports coaches! If anyone’s got ideas, I’m all ears (well, not really, but you get the idea.)
Pingback: Small Business News: Selling Out
http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

Rss is a pipe. It’s the #1 way people subscribe, but it’s not the way to get new people. It’s who already subscribes. : )
http://blog.zvikico.com/ zvikico

I’ll add Reddit. Most of my post are technical so they go to Reddit/Tech or Reddit/Prog. It will get up to 5K views for an interesting post. I found that it works much better than Digg and SU. From the services you mentioned, FB works best for me.

For tech blogs, there are specific community sites like DZone. I get my good articles republished there. It’s less traffic to my blog, but I can still use links to my projects and blog.
Pingback: Small Business News: Selling Out | Free Web Design Tucson
http://twitter.com/jasonbereklewis Jason Berek-Lewis

Hi Chris, I get a lot of hits by promoting new posts in my LinkedIn status updates. I know there are differing opinions about using status updates in this way, but it works for my blog. I hope it works for my connections too. Twitter also drives traffic to my blog. Facebook, not so much. My friends on Facebook are much more about my links into pop culture than business, social media and PR.
http://twitter.com/therichbrooks therichbrooks

I find it’s always a delicate balancing act: you don’t want to over-promote, but at the same time you tend to develop different audiences in different places, and they don’t always overlap. I say, only my mom reads everything I write, and even she gave up after I joined Twitter.

Personally I like NetworkedBlogs for syndication to a page on Facebook, and if I think it’s a really good post–and not all make that cut–I put it up on Ping.fm that reaches most of the places where I’m active, and a few where I’m not especially active.

I also find that I put links to some of my favorite posts from the previous month in my email newsletter in the quick link section and they get a lot of click throughs, judging from the reports I get from Constant Contact.
Rajesh

Hi Chris, I started of sending emails to my friends about my blog and that helped me build steady traffic. But what got me new visitors is Facebook and partially through Linkedin…
@patgermelman

Couple of questions for you. Is it considered good form to add your blog link to a comment assuming your blog is related to the subject that elicits the comment? Also, what about reaching out to promoters/influencers? Example, if someone was starting a blog on eating well to lose weight and referencing a vendor or author with whom they engage to do the eating well part…is it considered good form to approach them and ask for a nod? Once you’re a world-known blogger like you, for example, reaching out would be easy. For the beginner, I guess the question would be whether or not you could get their attention. Is it a faux pas to try?
http://www.toddejones.net/ tejones

You can probably try to get some guest writing gigs with a well known sports website of some kind. Your material seems to not be specific to any one sport, so that should work well. In fact, . . . .
http://www.davidleeking.com davidleeking

Just makin me think … sticking with that line of reasoning, RSS, Twitter, Facebook, LInked In, and even email are all pipes, and at a very basic level, you are distributing to current subscribers in each of those venues. Not to new people.

The difference isn’t in your distribution point – it’s on your subscriber’s end. With RSS, your subscribers have to “do something” to further share, because the RSS feed stops at their end. For example, I might star or share this post in google reader (which can then hit Friendfeed or the people following my google shared items). Further sharing isn’t built into the RSS feed. Probably the same for email – though you can hit forward, and send it on.

But with Twitter, Facebook, etc, further sharing IS built in, and it’s dead simple to do. RTs in Twitter, Likes in Facebook. It’s easy, so people easily do it if the link/post moves them to further action.

So you’re doing the same thing – distributing. And perhaps molding the content slightly for different distribution points. But everyone else is doing the sharing, and some tools are made for sharing.
http://twitter.com/myFootpath myFootpath

Our blog is still pretty young, just over six months old, so we’ve been trying the mix of promotions you mentioned. We’ve also been submitting to several online article directories to help build backlinks and to drive traffic. That option seems to be working, but personally I like Facebook and Twitter slightly better because it seems to allow for more conversation with your readers.
http://bcox.me Brandon A. Cox

Nice art!

When I see clients draw what you’ve drawn, I always grab the pen and make the arrows from the blog to the networking sites point both ways. They usually get it.
http://www.thebrandiD.com/ RachelGogos

HEY Chris. Are you pretty happy with Disqus? Any pros/cons to using it on your blog?

Thanks,
Rachel Gogos
http://themoneycoach.com Nanci Murdock

I am really starting to love Tumblr and Posterous as well. Just like your friend Steve Rubel (who found you on Facebook), I am expecting that new users will stumble across my blog on these two platforms as well. With the “share” buttons, it is just one click to add my blog posts to these platforms. Not a lot of traffic yet, but I’m hoping it’s worth the effort.

xx
Nanci
Anonymous

Ok, I believe that a blog post results in a tweet via twitterfeed, which in turn gets retweeted via FriendFeed about an hour later at this point…which in turn gets posted to Fakebook in my case. Not sure as I may have changed that setting. What I don’t have is the button like yours that allows readers to connect by one of these three methods. I’m using Disqus by virtue of posting a comment on your blog, which in turn promotes you, so, win/win there :)

I’m not sure that Posterous and Tumblr and Typepad are anything other than variations on the blog theme, however, I have those as well, which I also send through Twitterfeed, I think. It’s not quite clear to me that any of this is working, however, I don’t know that it isn’t, either….
http://www.webhostinglogic.com/web-marketing/web-marketing-home.html Seo Guru

I had never used linkedin for promoting my blog but had use Twitter and Facebook extensively. I had also used a couple of bookmarking sites but that’s it. I am more adept with the first two social media sites.
Anonymous

Hey Chris – if you want to make the Facebook linkage as seamless as the LinkedIn integration you can. Install the Networked Blogs Facebook app on your page. Once installed it will auto-pull every new blog post. It drops it in 2 places on your Page – the Wall feed and a separate tab labeled “BLOG.” It’s a snap.
It will give you additional shareability, too. Once you’ve registered your blog w/ Networked Blogs, other Netw’d Blog users can auto-pull your blog posts to their Facebook Page as well.
http://twitter.com/pheffernanvt Pat Heffernan

Hi Chris, What appeals to me about your distribution process is that it’s not an automated process — you take the time to add a customized question or note before posting elsewhere. As a heavy RSS feed user and a follower active on several social networks, as most of us are these days, it’s annoying to see the exact same information duplicated everywhere. At the same time, those of us with another life often miss an interesting post, so multiple invitation opportunities customized for each venue is a welcome approach. Thank you.
http://www.socialjitney.com/ Iphone Application Developer

Well i think if we have a lot of friends on social bookmarking sites like digg and stumble upon so it also can be useful. Because on Stumble upon when you share something with your friends so the shared link go to their email address with Blog title.
http://www.melaniekissell.com melaniekissell

Chris, I believe posting (well thought-out, meaningful) comments on other people’s blogs is a great way to promote your blog. I’m also a firm believer that high quality back links are the ultimate SEO. :)

Since I’m a single mom with three offline jobs (you know, so I won’t get bored), I also utilize services like pingmyblog and pingomatic to get my blog posts out to as many blog directories as possible … as quickly as possible. But I’ll have to say that social media venues are at the top of my hit parade for distribution.

I’m currently participating in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge based on Darren Rowse’s book. I’m sure you’re familiar with it, so my next brave adventure is to ask another blog owner to link to one of my posts I’m most proud of and one that would resonate with that particular target audience.

Wish me luck!
Melanie
Pingback: Small Business News: Selling Out : Real-Time Finance
http://twitter.com/ClarabelaMedia Clara Mathews

I use Twitter and Facebook as my main distribution points. I participate in several forums, like the Third Tribe, Problogger and others. They have also been a very good source of traffic to my blogs.
http://elevenfourteen.com 1114organic

you need a plan to promote yourself and your site. Knowing the audience and medium is key.
Anonymous

Chris – Just read Social Media 101. Really helpful, concise explanations. Thanks for the tremendous well of ideas…..
Pingback: Social Media Buzz 9/27/2010 | 3Twenty5 Media, LLC
http://www.nfljerseyspub.com nfl jerseys

The World Wide Web is your arena, and your blog the soap box you stand upon.
http://www.nfljerseyspub.com nfl jerseys

The World Wide Web is your arena, and your blog the soap box you stand upon.
http://www.canadageneric.com/ Canadian Pharmacy

I am the track coach and a motivational interview, and the creation of successful teams, I noticed that many business people like what I write. So I always have a lot of looks from LinkedIn.
http://www.blackfridayplanet.com/ William Hushburn

I use my blog to release the tension and the stress that I receive from work.
Pingback: Are Your Social Media Profiles A Wasteland? | Van SEO Design
Coachtinabernal

just found my niche, starting a blog and glad I found this page from social media 101. Thank you.
http://www.betterhealthtoday.co Kay Wilson

This is tremendous advice to those of us searching for best ways to tell people what we want to tell people! I have a couple of blogs and ready to the word out so deeply appreciate your info, Chris.
Pingback: 6 Must-Read Social Media Articles | Weekend reading list – Week 34 – 2010 | Social Media Blog

Distribution Points for Your Blog