This is a guest post from Knead to Dough – Lauren helps other blogs and businesses (especially foodies!) transform their social media and blogging strategies to get the traffic, engagement, and leads they want. You can find a FREE Resource Library on her site, Knead to Dough, with a pinch of delicious recipes thrown in for good measure!

Twitter was the first social media account I turned to after creating my blog. It’s a great one to start with because you can grow your followers relatively quickly and create a highly engaged community. A little over 7 months since Knead to Dough first joined Twitter, I now have 1100+ followers and virtually every tweet garners likes, retweets, and replies.

The thing is, when I first got Twitter I had no idea how to use it to market my blog and brand, let alone how to engage my followers! If I’d have put these 5 strategies into action 7 months ago, my following could have reached the 1000 mark much sooner. If you want more actionable blogging guides, sign up to receive them by email in the top right corner of this page.

So, what should you and every blogger be doing on Twitter?

1.  Twitter Chats

Even if your ideal audience doesn’t always hang out on Twitter, you know they’ll be there during the relevant Twitter chat. If you’re looking to connect with bakers (and often baking bloggers!), #BakersHour every Wednesday from 9-10pm is not to be missed.

If you’re ideal reader is a lifestyle blogger, small business owner, entrepreneur, there are chats for those too. In fact, a quick Google search will bring you up a list of all the Twitter chats available.There are so many, your ideal reader is bound to be active on Twitter during one of them.

This makes them a brilliant place to chat with your ideal reader, forming genuine relationships and building trust.

Get to know them. Find out what they care about or need help with. Begin to answer those questions directly in the chat, but then take it further and address the same issues in blog posts or even paid products.

You’ll be forming trust based relationships with your ideal reader AND creating the opportunity for more readers to visit your site and buy your paid product or service

 

2.  Your Own Content

Chances are this isn’t the first social media for bloggers post you’ve ever read, so you’ve probably heard people talking about 50/50, 70/30, 80/20 approaches to what they Tweet.

There is merit in all of them for different reasons, but personally I find the 70/30 option to work best for Knead to Dough.This means that only 30% of your Tweets should be self-promotion. This includes promoting your blog posts, special offers, content upgrades, and products.

Why would you spend so little time on your own work, though? I’ll explain in the next point.

 

3.  Other Content

If your Tweets are 70% focussed on other people’s content or replying to other people and Tweets, then you can become the go-to resource for people wanting to find information relevant to your niche. I first learned to curate other’s content from Melyssa Griffin of The Nectar Collective.

Tweet links to content that will help your ideal reader, and in collecting and curating all that valuable content you will share that authority. Make yourself known as the person who shares all there is to know about baking blogging, or food photography, or running a small business, or content marketing… You get the picture.

Your tweets will constantly be providing value to your followers.This is an easy and proven way to build brand authority. If people see you as the go-to source of knowledge in your niche, they are much more likely to then click through to your own blog posts, content upgrades, and paid products.

 

4.  Engage with your ideal reader

Twitter chats are one way to engage with your ideal reader, but as you Tweet about relevant and valuable content, your readers are more likely to respond directly to you, without a special Twitter chat to prompt them. You can increase engagement by including a simple call to action in your Tweet. Decide what would be more relevant for each one. Do you want people to retweet it? Reply with an answer or idea? Share a thought or a photo? Click the link? Tell them! The more you ask for people to respond, the more people will respond.

 

5.  Engage with brands

Some bloggers pursue sponsored posts and content as a means of monetising their blogs. One way you can make this process easier and be more likely to secure the deal is to form a relationship with the desired brand beforehand.

Seek them out on Twitter, participate in their Twitter competitions, answer their questions – get involved! Show them that you are an active online presence in your shared niche.If they already know you, and you then pitch them an idea, their already favourable opinion of you based on your prior relationship will help.

You don’t have to wait for them to come to you. Yes, you still need a good idea and appealing stats and/or engagement, but the prior relationship might seal the deal and earn you your first blogging paycheck.

 

Put these 5 simple and actionable Twitter strategies to work and become the authority in your blogging field!

 

Which of these 5 strategies have you found the most useful? What results have you seen since trialing one or all of them?

Bio: Lauren helps other blogs and businesses (especially foodies!) transform their social media and blogging strategies to get the traffic, engagement, and leads they want. You can find a FREE Resource Library on her site, Knead to Dough, with a pinch of delicious recipes thrown in for good measure!

Link to: http://www.kneadtodough.net/

Link resource library to: http://eepurl.com/bTGIuv

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*stock photography provided by the Haute Chocolate Stock Image Library – learn more about Rachel’s Feminine Stock Photography here*