Guerrilla Blog Marketing
I’ve been doing some guerrilla blog marketing lately.
Nothing underhanded or even sneaky, but I’ve been doing some different things to promote my blog.
For one thing, I’ve been leaving comments on other people’s blogs with links back to mine. Not the usual suspects, mind you, but new blogs that I haven’t really read before or read on a regular basis. And, to find those places, those blogging “undiscovered countries”, so to speak, I’ve been following links in comments on blogs that I do read on a regular basis. But, beyond that, you may have noticed the BlogRush widget on my sidebar. I’ve been looking at blogs from there, too, in part because I’ve never read them, but also because they’ve probably never read me. So, I go and, if they seem interesting or cool or whatever, I leave a comment with a link back to my blog, hoping that folks will find my comment interesting and come take a look. No idea, yet, how BlogRush is affecting my overall traffic, though. I like the idea in theory, but in practice… Well, who knows. If it brings me even one more reader, that’s good enough.
The other thing I’ve been doing is leaving stuff with my blog’s name and address on it in physical locations.
So, in the past couple of weeks, I’ve had to go to the clinic a couple of times for various reasons and I thought it would be a good idea to leave business cards on tables with my blog information. Again, if it brings even one more reader, why not, right? Oh, and for those of you who are new, the “clinic” isn’t the free clinic to find out if I have a sexually transmitted disease, but the lymphoma clinic at M. D. Anderson. Nothing to worry about, just blood work.
Yesterday, I left magazines with stickers on them that said “This magazine donated by: Diary of a Network Geek” and, again, gave the web address. I left old copies of Men’s Health and 2600, The Hacker’s Quarterly in a couple of spots in the clinic waiting room. Next time, I’ll have both Men’s Health and Wired magazines. In fact, today I was sorting a couple of old Wired magazines and stickering them in preparation of the next visit to a waiting room.
Honestly, I don’t know that any of that will be very effective in driving my readership up at all, but, I have the old magazines and stickers and business cards, so, I figure, what can it hurt.
Have any of my readers done anything similar? If so, what were your results?
No, of course none of my readers have done anything similar because none of them are slightly daft geeks with degrees in Marketing. I have to admit, sometimes, it’s only days after I’ve written a question like that that it occurs to me how batty that must seem to the casual observer.
I wonder if anyone, anywhere thinks about marketing their blog like I do.
Probably not.
Comment by the Network Geek — 11/12/2007 @ 11:38 am
I see a lot of blogs that advertise quite heavily. It can be annoying, but they have to pay for the extra bandwidth that comes with 500-1000 hits a day and groupies that post comments several times to each of the five posts written each day. I honestly don’t know how those bloggers keep up with it all and still keep their daytime jobs and home lives.
You are right about leaving comments on every blog out there that interests you. The new girl who regularly visits my blog also visits and comments on dozens of other blogs as well. Not only do I get her visits, I get visits from her regular readers now too, and she has a lot already. They don’t hang around too much, my blog is to personal and too diverse. Besides, I don’t really want or need a lot of readers.
Good luck out there! I know how much you need that camera! 😉
Comment by Cheri — 11/13/2007 @ 9:45 pm
Well, I get a lot of “hits” per day, but far fewer unique visitors.
Regardless, I’m looking at redoing the ads on this site so that they’re even less intrusive, but still as effective as possible. It’s a real hit-or-miss thing. Some days, I may make as much at $5-$6, but others, I may only make a few pennies. It’s hard to tell, too, which subjects generate the better ads.
Right now, I’m experimenting with ways to increase readership. I’m doing my best to get my blog in front of as many new eyeballs as possible through the end of the year. After I get the Super Secret Creative Project of Doom up and running, most of my marketing efforts will go toward getting readership there, without stealing it from any of my other sites, or linking them together.
I think it will be an interesting challenge.
Comment by the Network Geek — 11/15/2007 @ 8:52 am
My blogrush widget is always effed up–the bottom part (WITH THE REFERRAL LINK TO BLOGRUSH!!) is cut off. I’ve tried placing it in different positions, I’ve double checkedto make sure that I copied the entire code correctly…I don’t know what else to do. 🙁 I’ve noticed the same problem on a few other blogs I’ve run across, so maybe it really ISN’T just me.
AND.
WHAT a great idea for the magazines! I never thought of that. Plus I didn’t realize HOW many bloggers have had business cards made up until I started receiving them, enclosed in cards & cd exchanges & stuff.
I gotta get me some of that stuff. 😀
Comment by aka_monty — 11/15/2007 @ 5:30 pm
*Raising Hand* I do the same thing, but usually on the photoblog side. I have just in the last few weeks decided to rededicate myself to searching out new photoblogs and commenting on sites that are not in my news reader. I’m not sure if it has brought me new readers, but it has definitely brought me a few new visits that I would not have had without it. It really is something that you have to set your mind to. I also follow links to comments that I find interesting or as in this case, if I see a link somewhere to someone I haven’t checked on in a while, I’ll follow it to see what is going on.
I think you have to target who you want reading your blog and go from there. Making personal connections through meet ups on Flickr and Twitter has brought me new readers to my personal blog on Typepad and now I’m working on bringing the international photographers over to the photoblog.
Comment by laanba — 11/17/2007 @ 6:40 pm