Column: Three ways to raise blog traffic from social media

The one thing on every blogger”™s mind is getting more traffic. It doesn”™t matter how much blog traffic you get now. You want more of it.

To boost their traffic, many bloggers turn to social media. Over a billion people use social networks like Facebook and Twitter, so it makes a lot of sense to go where that many people are.

The rest of it goes like a jigsaw puzzle. What must happen next for your blog to get more traffic? Where should your time be allocated?

First off, social media does work for getting a lot of blog traffic. Last year, my blog got over 100,000 visitors from social media alone. The best part is that with the arsenal of social networks available, it is easy to expand on your current social media results.

The key to getting more blog traffic from social media is knowing what works and then putting in as much effort as possible. Sounds easier said than done. That”™s why I am going to share with you what works:

Focus on one social network

In 2014, I got 103,448 people to visit my blog from my social networks. Out of all of those visitors, 97,329 of those visitors came from Twitter. Ninety-four percent of my social media traffic came from one social network.

Is Twitter better than all of the other social networks put together?

Not quite. Twitter happened to be the first social network that I mastered. A big mistake I see is people trying to master all of the social networks at once. That”™s the same thing as trying to master Spanish, Italian, German, French and Portuguese at the same time. It just doesn”™t happen. Instead of trying to master all of those languages at the same time, you would learn one at a time to make it easier on yourself.

The same idea applies to social media. I focused all of my time on Twitter and was rewarded for it. Since 2014, I have diversified my social media traffic and included other social networks like Pinterest and Facebook, which regularly bring in more thank 1,000 visitors to my blog every month.

Promote your content more often

There is a myth that it”™s bad to promote yourself on social media too often. The myth states that you should promote your content 20 percent of the time and promote other people”™s content 80 percent of the time.

Since you spend so much time growing that social media audience, it only makes sense that the people within your audience see your content and know you for it.

Almost all of the social media posts I send promote one of my blog posts. I have been following this strategy for several years to discover that it works. People simply want content that will empower or entertain them. If your content does a good job of empowering or entertaining your audience, then the people in your audience will want more of it.

Giving your audience more of what they want means you provide them with more of your blog posts. Providing your audience with more of your blog posts will then result in more blog traffic.

Analyze your results

These two methods will allow you to get blog traffic. Some of your social media posts will be more successful than others. That”™s the nature of the game.

However, if you analyze the results from your social media posts, you can make decisions that lead to more blog traffic in the long term. Unsurprisingly, I discovered that my Twitter-related blog posts performed very well when I tweeted them. People on Twitter want to learn how to master Twitter. That makes sense.

After analyzing my results and coming to the conclusion that my Twitter-related content performs better than most of my content, I decided to write more blog posts about Twitter. Having more Twitter-related blog posts on my blog meant I could tweet more of my own Twitter-related blog posts. It was at this point where I started to get more traffic from Twitter and surpass 300 daily visitors from Twitter alone.

Anyone can get blog traffic from social media. It”™s not hard to send a tweet containing a link to one of your blog posts. Planning out your strategy and consistently putting in the work is what results in an abundance of blog traffic from your social media efforts.

Marc Guberti is a senior at Fordham Preparatory School and a social media and business blogger and author. He”™s on Twitter @MarcGuberti and can be reached by phone at 914-722-6005 or email at Marc@MarcGuberti.com.