Top 10 Networking Tips For Established Bloggers (300+) – B2S/B2B Week 3

I welcome discussion and feedback on this because maybe my model doesn’t work for everyone, but it seems to be the best allocation of my time and energy.

 If you took a peek at the other posts for new and growing bloggers, you saw that I did a picture model of how they should spend their time to get the best bang for their buck. I broke it down into 3 categories: blog networks, commenting, and social media.

What I do for networking now is almost the opposite of what I was doing as a new blogger. The picture below represents how I allocate my time – from least amount of time to largest.

As I grow, I just don’t have time to do all the things I *could* be doing on my blog with the same level of focus or energy that I did when my blog was smaller.  Now, I spend very little time on blog networks, and the majority of my time on social media (Twitter, primarily). Commenting on other blogs is sort of a constant, isn’t it?

Less time on blog networks, more on social media!

So here are my tips on networking as an established blogger. If you’re one too, I would love to hear yours.

1. Focus networking on one-to-many.  Since time is short, I’m trying to come up with ways to network with groups of people at a time and engage them on my blog. This challenge is a perfect example of that. I’m interacting with dozens of people at once. This provides a value to them, and it actually makes my life a little easier!

2. Spend less time on blog networks. I find now that I have almost NO time to spend on blog networks. I still read all of the posts by SITS and Lady Bloggers, and follow several other networks on Twitter, but I’m not active in their forums like I once was.  At this time, the return I get is not worth the effort it requires.

3. Encourage your followers to help you network.  I’m finding that my loyal followers are more than happy to help me retweet posts, spread the word about a giveaway, or participate in events. Their referrals are my best source of new traffic. This is the beauty of blogging: it’s okay to reap the rewards of all the hard work we put in as newer bloggers!

4. Be a leader. I think one of the best ways to be perceived as an established blogger is to act like one. Established bloggers don’t participate in every event that comes along. They create their own events. Whether it’s a challenge like this, sharing information, a collaborative contest, or coming up with your own awesome meme, leadership in blogging helps garner respect.

5. For every follower, read .5 blogs or less. I know, you can’t really read half a blog! But you also can’t read the blogs of every person who follows you. It’s just.too.much, right? Recently, I spent an hour paring my list down to 100 blogs. It’s much more manageable now. Yes, I may lose readers. But after a certain point, it becomes impossible to visit every blog.

6.  Pay it forward. There are bloggers “ahead” of us who helped us along the way. Whether it was allowing us to guest post, giving a shout out, or helping with a technical issue..other people have had a hand in our success. I believe one of the best ways to network at this stage is to pay it forward. Help a less experienced blogger in some way. They will repay you forever with retweets and support .

7. Continue to guest post. While I think guest posting is great for everyone, it’s been particularly effective for me as I’ve become more established. It allows me to reach new audiences groups at a time instead of one person at a time. My blog is large enough now that when people visit me after guest posting, I appear to have some “street cred.” I’m starting to focus on larger guest post opportunities now.

8. Branch out to community-based blogging. I believe that BlogFrog and other tools that build a community around my site are going to play a bigger part of my blogging future.  Finding a niche that your site can fill from a community standpoint can only help make your site more “sticky.”

9. Twitter it up. Host a party! Consider hosting a Twitter party one evening. It can be on any topic – a current event, a holiday, or an idea you have from a blog post. Come up with a catchy hashtag for it, advertise it on Twitter and on your blog. People tend to “crash” Twitter parties and this can be great networking for you!

10. Focus on the critical few. A phrase from my career days. Nobody can do it all. Only focus on the things that you enjoy most or that will give you the most bang for your networking buck.

So, so, so anxious to hear from my other bloggy friends who are at this place and struggling with some of these same things!

Writing Task for This Week. You have 3 choices: Pick, Propose or Pay It Forward. Do one, two or all!

 In Pick, choose any topic out of the Idea Bank from last week and write about it.

 In Propose, blog your response to this post. Do you agree? Disagree? Is there a better way to use your  networking time? I want to hear your side.

In Pay It Forward, use your post this week to pay some love forward to one or more smaller bloggers (not your followers!). It’s totally up to you how you do it. Write a tutorial on something you know well. Feature a smaller blogger. Do a bunch of shout-outs. Get creative!

Now, don’t forget to read Empress’ guest post!

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Tagged as: B2SB2B Challenge, networking