As a blogger,  your main responsibility is to create stellar content for your specific niche, regardless whether you joined the blogosphere in search of a casual hobby or to establish a serious business. Before your market and publicize your content, if you really want to hit it big with traffic or revenue, you have to view your blog and more importantly yourself as your brand.

Here are some tips and practices you can utilize in branding and promoting your blog:

• Set Google and Twitter alerts for your blog’s name and keywords related to your blog and then join conversations as they happen.
• Send direct messages to people who follow you on Twitter to strengthen your conversations and relationships with them.
• Start a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram page or anything related to your niche

Examples:

• Start guest posting. If you’re looking for an effective way to promote your blog, one of the best things you can do is start guest posting. Guest posting, or writing a blog post that will be featured on a different blog, is one of the best ways to expand your audience and begin to develop authority in an industry like here at The Buzz.
• Create the top 10 list. Create “The Top Ten list” of brands or blogs that you want to model yourself or blog after. Either because they are a competitor, you share a space with them, or they are in your niche. Make sure that they are successful at what they are doing and someone you want to emulate. Refer back to this list whenever you need inspiration, have to make a decision or want to see how others have done it.
• Put a link in your e-mail signature.

• Creating your own business card is a quick way to add to and strengthen your blog brand. Putting your logo and your colors on print materials will help when you travel, share, connect, and dream. Make sure that when you create your cards that you are comfortable with the information you put on them and keep them connected with you overall brand.
• Use Pinterest. Believe it or not, I highly recommend using Pinterest because it has endless visuals that are surely going to spark some creativity or inspiration in you and there’s endless content on Pinterest for you to read, use, or emulate.
• Attend networking events and/or conferences. There are many social media marketing events and blogging conferences available for you to attend where you can hear from influencers, meet other bloggers, and exchange business cards.

Hopefully you’ve found these tips helpful and took some notes. The next post will feature why I started blogging for The Buzz/Openlab.

Do you have any tips or tricks about how to promote a blog?