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50 Ways To Help Your Blog Go Viral

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Mortgage and Lending with Residential Home Loans NMLS/CA-DBO #1117018

Posted on 01. Feb, 2010 by Mickey O'Brien in Business Tips

Over the last year I’ve been doing research on how to make a blog, tweet or facebook post go viral. I asked my friend Alejandro Reyes of GetInternetFamous.com how he did it and how I could do it as well. The very first thing he told me to do is to listen for two weeks to what others are saying in and about my industry, that was where it started and here’s the my Top 50 Strategies I learned to get the attention of hundreds, thousands, and if you’re lucky millions!

Target Your Market
1. What are you blogging about? (your niche).
2. Determine who is your audience?
3. Determine what are your goals?
4. Determine what are your readers interested in?

Do Your Research.
5. Google has a good blog search, and there are others like IceRocket, BlogPulse and more.
6. Topics you want to focus on.
7. Who are the influential bloggers in your industry?
8. Who is successful at getting in front of the readers you want to get in front of?
9. What people are talking about in blogs, twitter, facebook, etc.
10. Make a note of any posts you like or think others would like

Use Your Website To Host Your Blog
11. You can use a Wordpress template but have it show (example: www.mysite.com) (not mysite.wordpress.com)
12. Using your site promotes you and is the best for search engine optimization

Schedule Everything
13. Determine a steady schedule for how you’ll post, I post twice a week
14. Allot time each week, if you plan to post on Monday’s and Wednesday’s, schedule it and put it on your calendar.
15. Determine what topics you’ll cover on those days. I write out my top 10 topics I want to cover each month
16. Be consistent or your readers will drift away.

Be Personal.
17. Post a photo of yourself, your team, where you work, you in action
18. Create a professional bio to enhance your credibility
19. Don’t blog about your personal life unless it relates somehow to your business or topics

Be First To Let The Cat Out Of The Bag
20. Post breaking news about your industry or business. You get use Google or MSNBC news feeds
21. Don’t just copy the feed, give your own thoughts and opinions on it

Give FREE Resources
22. Create how-to articles or lists of helpful sites like “40 Ways To Use Twitter”
23. Give insider tips and resources that average visitor do not know about
24. Make your blogs simple and content rich, give away only your best ideas

Stay In The Conversation
25. Give your opinion to what other top bloggers are saying
26. Take what others are saying and see if you can make it mean something different
27. Ask for interaction, whether they agree or disagree, it builds a community.
28. Be different, don’t repeat the same old rhetoric that others are saying

Look, Listen & Learn
29. Study the social sites to see what people like.
30. Pay attention to sites like Activerain, Mashable, Digg, StumbleUpon or del.icio.us, if you get featured it can generate thousands of visitors to your site.
31. Do searches on social networking websites for keywords to identify content that is relative

Watch Your Stats
32. Statistics from your blog are important to see what works and what doesn’t.
33. New blog postings have a “hot” shelf life of about 24 hours, so tweet it, put it on facebbook, Digg, etc.

Make It Easy
34. Use RSS feeds on your blog
35. Many visitors prefer to use RSS feeds to subscribe to your content on a regular basis
36. Use FeedBurner or Google Analytics, a free analytical tool that lets you see how many people subscribe to your blog.

Be Bold, Be The Expert
37. Have your own opinions and stand by them.
38. Don’t be a people pleaser, take a stand
39. Don’t be needy, “Needyness is Creepyness!”

Don’t Get Down
40. Never quit, never give in. It’s about trial and error
41. Building a readership and going viral takes time and experience.
42. Stay focused on your audience and in time they will hear you and tell others

Contribute, Don’t Spam.
43. Share with others, don’t push, it’s not polite
44. Communicate with your friends and network, don’t just start to shout out to everyone
45. Keep it relevant.
46. Give your best content and you will gain trust, sell and you will lose respect

Join Local Networks & Groups
47. Focus your network in the city you want to target
48. Influence an existing network of like-minded people and it will help expand yours. MySpace also has groups.

Finally, Create A Call To Action
49. Ask others to Re-tweet or put on Facebook you content or blog. This gives you more credibility.
50. Make sure to say please when asking for other to retweet/post, say “please RT”. You also ask to vote, help me, follow this person, or pose a question.

Remember, it’s about building relationships that last, the more you give the more you will receive. Create conversations that add value and most of all listen to what others have to say and make sure to follow upi with a response.

If you would like to connect with me, here’s my twitter and facebook info, twitter.com/mickeyobrien and facebook.com/coachmickeyobrien

What’s your thoughts on making a blog or post go viral?

Comments (5)

Aaron Silverman
SuccessfulRental.com, Bluewater Property Management, LLC and Lowcountry Turnkey Properties, LLC - Charleston, SC
Improving Real Estate Experience through Education

Thank you for the tips.  I will start to implement them to increase my number of readers.

Aaron

Jan 31, 2010 04:53 PM
Tim D. Wilson - The Horseman's Agent ™
HomeSalesLexington.com @ Rector-Hayden: Lexington, Kentucky - Lexington, KY

Hi Mickey,

  This has got to be the most concise, yet complete, list of tips on blogging that I have seen.

  Definitely some fresh ideas in there that I had either not thought of, or had forgotten.

  Thank you so much for sharing this!  

Search homes for sale in Lexington with equine horse farm and foreclosures at HomeSalesLex.com/barn in Kentucky

 

Jan 31, 2010 04:56 PM
Aaron Vaughn 830-358-0455
Conifer Builders LLC - Canyon Lake, TX

I like some of your ideas here and have chosen to bookmark this post. Thank you in advance of my implementation of these ideas! 

Jan 31, 2010 05:05 PM
John Phillips
Vision Construction Company - Ventura, CA

hey Mickey Thanks for re sharing this info..i am just getting in to this blogging thing and will bookmark this for future reference

Jan 31, 2010 05:10 PM
Norma J. Elkins
Elite Realty Group - Morristown, TN
Realtor - Elkins Home Selling Team

This is the very best list that I have ever seen also - thank you so much for sharing!

Jan 31, 2010 10:37 PM