I don't have a lot of time for social networking...any suggestions?

[littlehousevalley]

I have been blogging about my personal finance for about a month now and realize that the best way to build an audience is through networking. I leave comments on a few of my favorite blogs, and that seems to build up some traffic.

My conundrum is that I am pressed for time. Does anyone have some great networking advice that won't take up more that a couple of hours a week?

thanks-
Little House
http://www.littlehouseinthevalley.com

[hermione]

I'm afraid networking takes time. You get as much out of it as you put in, so the more you network, the more results you'll see. The best advice I have is:

• Post regularly on your blog to keep traffic and rankings up.
• Sign up for twitter and follow people in your niche. Reply to people's tweets.
• Facebook is also a great networking tool.

Reading blogs and commenting is useful but can be very time consuming. If you're anything like me, you spend a lot of time making sure your comments are 1000% coherent (no typos, spelling and grammar errors, make sense, and most important of all, are relevant) so it takes some time and effort to represent your blog well. If your time is limited, I'd recommend spending at least 1/2 of your networking time on twitter.

I've also had very little time for my blog lately and I have seen a significant traffic drop as a result of not having posted in 2-3 weeks (I've had a lot going on with my businesses). But twitter and facebook are a must if you want to network.

Participating in this forum has also been great for my blog.

[dallaskid]

i hear ya I just started college and barely have time to update my site anymore. traffic usually stays consistent for 3 or so days and then plummets if i don't update.

heres some stuff i've tried

• buying ad space
• joining more forums
• allowing users to submit stuff (in my case freebies)
• hire someone for specific tasks
• hold contests for people that frequent your site (ie random drawing from people that digg your site)

[mbhunter]

Try to make every last piece of writing you make online count. If a site won't let you put in a link somewhere, forget them.

Signature blocks in e-mails. Signature blocks in forums. Link to your site in your twitter account.

Guest posts are good.

I noticed you haven't submitted your site to pfblogs.org. Do that. Consider getting a "friends of pfblogs" membership for extra exposure. Write catchy post titles (and good posts!) and you may hit the popular list. This triggers mentions a few places: the twitter feed, the popular posts page, and MoneyScribes.com (possibly other places, too!)

Blog carnivals are good to submit to.

Otherwise, every little bit helps. I would advise strongly against hiring anyone to do this for you. Too many bad SEO companies out there that just get you labeled as a spammer.

[littlehousevalley]

Thanks for all the advice. I've joined blog catalog for some networking, but a lot of the traffic I get from that isn't necessarily relevant to my topic: personal finance. I'll try the pfblogs.

As for twitter, I consider myself fairly computer and internet savvy, but haven't done much research on using this. On twitter, do I invite friends like on facebook?

thanks again for the comments, I'll be using some of these to help my traffic-
Little House

[littlehousevalley]

Originally Posted by mbhunter

Try to make every last piece of writing you make online count. If a site won't let you put in a link somewhere, forget them.

Signature blocks in e-mails. Signature blocks in forums. Link to your site in your twitter account.

Guest posts are good.

I noticed you haven't submitted your site to pfblogs.org. Do that. Consider getting a "friends of pfblogs" membership for extra exposure. Write catchy post titles (and good posts!) and you may hit the popular list. This triggers mentions a few places: the twitter feed, the popular posts page, and MoneyScribes.com (possibly other places, too!)

Blog carnivals are good to submit to.

Otherwise, every little bit helps. I would advise strongly against hiring anyone to do this for you. Too many bad SEO companies out there that just get you labeled as a spammer.

Can you believe that I just commented on one of your posts and I have a typo! (and should be an) I hate when my fingers move too quickly!

[hermione]

Originally Posted by littlehousevalley

As for twitter, I consider myself fairly computer and internet savvy, but haven't done much research on using this. On twitter, do I invite friends like on facebook?

On Twitter, you follow people and they may or may not follow you back. If they have email notification set up to alert them of new followers, they may check out your profile and follow you back more quickly.

I think most twitterers ... tweeters ... (I've been on twitter for over a year now and still am not sure which it is) go through their list of followers every once in a while and follow back those that are legit. There is a good number of spammers on twitter and you don't want to encourage them by following them back.

Just make sure your tweets are things that people will find interesting, useful, helpful, professional (if that's your aim) and non-offensive and chances are people will want to follow you. It takes time to develop a following and quite a bit of work. I find that whenever I'm active, I get new followers.

I suggest setting up a twitterfeed for your blog's rss feed. When you publish a new post, it'll feed it'll tweet it. Just make sure your twitter account isn't only another blog feed.

[littlehousevalley]

I signed up for Twitter yesterday and put a feed on my blog. I think I'm kind of getting the Twitter thing. I just have to figure out what is best to Tweet about.

thanks again for your help-
Little House

[moneymatters]

I suggest having a dual pronged approach, and spending good amounts of time on both.

1. Content: i spend 60-70% of my time on this - writing 5 posts a week, at least.
2. Promotion: The rest of the time I spend on promoting the blog through twitter, facebook, friendfeed, and a couple of other social media. On twitter I've now got 5000 followers, who all receive a tweet when I publish a new post, or when I share content. Also use twitter to network with others in your niche. If you need a list of personal finance users, you can check out my list of 125 good ones to follow here:

125 PF twitter users

networking with other PF users on twitter is invaluable because they'll often link to you, help you promote or retweet your blog posts, and give you new opportunities for your blog. The main thing you need to do is to be a valuable resource, and add value that makes people glad that they're following you.

[littlehousevalley]

Thanks for the tip. I will check out your 125 pf twitters, that looks very useful. I noticed you're following me on twitter, I added you to my follow list as well.

Thanks again for the helpful tips!
Little House