Learning So Much….

over at BlogFrog about the blog-iverse.  I had no idea a site like this existed until I came across it on another blog that I was “hopping” to (hence the BlogFROG – for my readers who aren’t as blog savvy.  BlogFrog is away for you to connect on a site of message boards [communities] to publicize your blog, gain followers and friends!  I have already seen huge growth in my blog in just the two weeks that I have been a member! 

I want to share the lessons I’ve learned to promote my blog, with any of you who may be trying to do the same thing…

1. Be ACTIVE (participate) in lots of message boards within BlogFrog.  I’m currently a member of 20 different communities, and I try to reply to at least one post in each community a day to keep my name out there.
   
2. Reply to comments.  Apparently, if you reply to comments that people leave, they are more likely to come back!  So I have blogger set-up to email me when someone posts a new comment and that includes the person’s email address so I can instantly reply to it.  Unfortunately, Blogger doesn’t really allow “reply” to comment options.
   
3. Comment on other blogs you visit.  When I say comment, I don’t mean writing “hey, I stopped by your blog, please do the same to mine”, I mean really reading their blog post and then posting a real comment about what they wrote.  Show the writer that you really liked their post/picture/comments, etc. 
   
4. Use Twitter.  I have really starting sending out Tweets.  Prior to BlogFrog, I would send out maybe 1 tweet a day from my phone just about what I was doing.  Well apparently Twitter is one of the #1 ways of promoting your blog.  I tweet after each blog post in hopes of my followers to see it and check it out!
   
   Twitter can be very overwhelming, which is why I never really used it.  But after participating in Follow Friday on A Belle, A Bean, & A Chicago Dog’s community, I learned about TweetDeck, which is a great site to simplify and organize all your friends & followers tweets.  Makes it so much more manageable.  Plus I was able to set it to specifically pull out tweets from certain people (mostly my In Real Life Friends), so I can see what they are doing and not have those posts get lost in the jumble of others!  If you are interested in following me on Twitter, I’m at @cori_shelley.  I love getting new friends!

When I first signed-up they offered me my own community [message board], Cori’s Big Mouth,  so I went ahead and set it up.  Thought I had to, quickly learned I didn’t and they are really hard to get up and running!  Myself and a small group of ladies joined together to help each other build our communities, and I am proud to say my little community now has 50 members!  Now if only everyone would post – ha!  Below is a reel-time feed of my community – come join if you want too!

Each day I have been posting a QOTD (Question of the Day) for people to answer on my community.  In order to get more people to know about my community, I’ve been tweeting about the QOTD and linking it back to my community, I've also been adding the QOTD to the end of my last couple of blog posts.  Today’s QOTD is:

QOTD 6/14: What is your favorite television show on TV right now?   What was your favorite television show growing up?  What is your ALL-TIME favorite television show (can be new or old!).

                                            

You also may have noticed that yesterday I participated in my first MEME (according to Wikipedia, the term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads swiftly via the Internet).  This is where a host blog posts a challenge, questions, or something else and then you can link-up to their blog and appear on a list of blogs who participated! 

On the meme I particpated in this weeks Word Up, Yo! from A Belle, A Bean, & A Chicago Dog’s blog.  So far 17 people, including myself, have particpated.  Check out the entries!  Fun! 

There are many different memes to particpate it, and I find them kind of fun  Another plus is I’ve gotten a lot of traffic coming through my blog, that I want to try more out! 

So there you go, a quick blurb on how much I’ve learned on BlogFrog.  I challenge you to check out the site and maybe join in, especially if you have a blog you want to promote!  Sooooo worth it!