Networking: Using Facebook & Twitter

by Elizabeth, Delightfully Tacky

Facebook and Twitter are easy ways to stay connected to your readers. They are the two social networking sites that I really use pretty heavily. There are other networking sites that are available for specific demographics (like Lookbook or Chictopia for fashion bloggers), but Facebook and Twitter are universal networking sites that almost everyone has.

Twitter

Twitter a great way to share information with your followers and fellow bloggers in a quick and efficient way. Plus, with all the smart phones out there, a lot of people have access to that information wherever they go with their phones! For bloggers, Twitter has become a really great resource. You can let your readers know when you've put up a new post, quickly share something awesome you found on the internet, retweet great tweets from other people, and have conversations with people in a really easy way. Replying to people on twitter is just so quick and easy that it's one of my favorite ways to interact with fellow bloggers and readers.

I only follow Twitter feeds that I feel are important to me, or will tweet information that I'll want to check out. If you follow too many people, the sheer volume of tweets to sift through becomes totally unmanageable! There are also different platforms for organizing twitter like Tweetdeck which you can try out to see if they work for you.

Facebook

It took me a lot longer to join twitter than to make a page for Delightfully Tacky on Facebook. Since Facebook is such an invaluable networking site in general life, it only makes sense that it would be useful for meeting your readers where they already are. It makes it so easy to update your readers via Facebook because it posts right to their newsfeed! You can also use apps that link up your blog to your Facebook page so it automatically updates your page when you publish a new post. One cool thing about Facebook is the way that readers can interact too. I've had readers post cool photos on my Facebook page or share links with me. If you don't feel like updating both your Facebook and your Twitter, you can also link your Facebook page to your twitter account so that when you post a status update to Facebook, it automatically tweets that status update also!

Both Facebook and Twitter are always in my top ten referring sites. They're a great way to connect to your readers in an organic way. Since most people already use Facebook and/or Twitter, you're simply making it easier for them to connect to your blog! And that's what you want. You want it to be easy for your audience to access your blog and relevant information associated with it. Facebook and Twitter are perfect in this capacity!