Elbows Music Blog Community

earbuddy

How do you go about promoting your blog other than relying on Hypem or Elbo or Google searches?

Just wanted to see what methods other people are utilizing. I hate posting links on other people's blogs because it makes me feel like a spammer :/

SGTMT

I suppose it's about building a community of readers who like your music preferences / writing style and keep coming back. Social media allows a great way to build relationships and communities so I suggest use Twitter, Fbook, forums like this to connect with people. The thing is with social media you can't just expect it to be one way, if you want people to read your posts, comment and engage with what you do, then you have to engage with what they do!

tiana

Yah, for me social media is the best..but yes it can't be a one way thing. Never post/spam links on other people's blogs/fan page walls, I hate it when people do that. If you have a unique writing style and good taste in music you will have a following that will keep coming back as long as you keep being dedicated to your own voice.

MusicForMorons

I agree with above. My respect for bloggers posting/commenting links to their blog goes way down. It's all about your taste in music at the end of the day. People will come back if they like your taste in music and you offer them an artist they like and haven't heard of before, that's what I aim for at the end of the day. Use social media, facebook like buttons, tweet buttons which can help.

Also try and get some affiliations going, start a blogroll and get some blogs you like to support you and vice versa.

Tim

My thought have been pretty much covered by everyone else above.

Social media (especially Twitter for me, but maybe that's because I just use Facebook for real friends still) is great for making connections to other bloggers. It's much easier to get someone to follow you on Twitter than link to your blog, but if I see someone I follow talking interestingly about new music I might like - they do end up on the blogroll.

Other than that - linking out to the blogs you like always helps. Most blogger check their referrer data, so if they see traffic coming from your blog they'll check it out.

It is spammy to post links to your posts on other people's blogs, but linking abck to your blog through the username/url part of the form is perfectly acceptable. If you only comment with something useful to say, then commenting is a good thing for networking in general - it's what we all did before Twitter...

SGTMT

There was a time before Twitter? #confused

squashed

This one hasn't been covered yet.

Once you established your blog basic rhythm where daily post and schedule are set, consider pairing some sort of serial content with promoting campaign.

for eg. you have little writing about "history of your favorite metal rock scene", this is a slightly more involved post than daily blurb. So you design a campaign around this post. ( catalog all metal rock net social scene, chat room, event, etc.) then you start posting while linking out/promoting.

Start from most comfortable material and most frequent audience. (eg. if you are indie rock blog, you look for some interesting 2-3 serial indie stuff. Then you do your campaign. top ten anything, retrospective, small anecdote/history of band and scene are never fail favorite. link to usual target crowd hang out.)

another never fail is serial playlist. (eg. 3 lists of my favorite driving/date/beer drinking songs... or something)

This one is good if you have various non time sensitive materials piling up. basically it's extended serial post. somewhere between weekly column and big research article.

it's useful to keep track where people coming in from. then also learn from other blogs. (there are several "strange keywords, big music friendly social ntworking thread ..)

also, never underestimate odd ball idea and posts. they are crowd magnet.

apocketfullofseeds

One of our most successful posts was a ranty dismissal of 90% of remixes which got picked up by a few social medias and created a fair bit amount of discussion.

Having the tools to promote content is great but certain content engages better with casual traffic and doing things like encouraging some interaction or sticking your neck out a bit can make all the difference.

M

earbuddy

So if I link to you, Tim, you'll hook me up with one on your site? ;)

Great advice from everyone -- we do reviews on a daily basis and have a few recurring columns, but I think my site probably needs to explore more special one-off posts like many of you have mentioned. I'm on Twitter and we have a Facebook page, so I've got the site somewhat of a presence in the social media world.

LOOSELIPSmik

wait, what is Twitter?

squashed

Tim

@earbuddy Maybe, just maybe ;)

SFCritic

@squashed I hope you wear that costume on halloween.

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