Wednesday, February 2, 2011

What I Learned Wednesday: Networking

OK, this post took longer to write because I got so caught up in the new websites I found.  Beware, they can be addicting. 

What I learned last week was that bloggers use a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" philosophy when it comes to comments.  Comment more on others posts and they will return the favor to you.  More comments = more readers, i.e. more website traffic.

This week I explored the reciprocal relationship a little further by finding some blog networking sites.

And let me tell you

There.
Are.
A.
LOT!!

Basically you register your blog on the networking site, join communities of similar bloggers within the site, and get your name out there! 

Once again the blogging reciprocal relationship applies - you visit their blog and follow it, they will visit your blog and follow it.  More followers means more chances for advertisers and companies giving out free products to notice your little site.  Then, hopefully, your little site becomes your growing bigger site.  And that's always good :).

Several of the networking sites also provide a bridge to those companies looking for places to advertise or for people to review their products.

How do you find a good networking site (or two, or ten)?  The method I used was to visit the blogs that you admire, or that have similar content to yours and look on their sidebar.  Most authors post buttons from their networking sites somewhere on their blog.  Then comes the time-consuming part.  Start visiting the sites.  Poke around at all the tabs and buttons and find out if it seems like a good fit for you.  If it is, sign up. 

Once you do, it will take a while to figure everything out, but just allow yourself lots of time and start playing.

Here are just a few of the sites I really liked:

BlogFrog

Social Moms - all about connecting your blog using Facebook and Twitter

Mom Bloggers Club

BlogHer - HUGE networking site.  I haven't done much exploring on this one, but I know lots of bloggers are members here and attend BlogHer conferences.

One2One Network

Feel free to explore these networking sites or find some of your own.  The most important thing is to get your name out there!

How about you?  Do you have a favorite networking site that I didn't mention?  I'd love to find some new ones.

1 comment:

  1. I think you covered everything very well indeed! Great to see you on Blog Frog. I am quite new to twitter and have enjoyed meeting new people that way. Thanks for suggesting the other sites I will look them up.

    Best wishes,
    Natasha.

    ReplyDelete