31 Days to Build a Better Blog – Day Three

I am still playing catch up on the Spring Cleaning Challenge with Mariana over at Riding With No Hands.  Hey, nobody said they had to be consecutive days.  Today’s assignment was to promote a blog post. As in, promote a post that I wrote.  Eek! I could promote the heck out of someone else, but myself?  That is another story!  Since it’s part of the challenge, I will do it. First of all, let’s talk about where I like to promote most everything and that’s Twitter.  I love Twitter and all of the great people I have met and all that I have learned from many of them.  The trick with Twitter is to remember that all of your followers aren’t necessarily online and logged into to Twitter constantly throughout the day.  For this reason, I personally tweet links to my blog posts 3-4 times a day and try to spread it out in the hopes all followers see it at some point, and ultimately click on over here to read the post.  This is a fine balance, though. You don’t want to tick off any of your followers by tweeting too much, so you have to be careful.  In between promoting your own posts take a genuine interest in the tweets of others and engage. 
I do have a Facebook page as well, but I don’t give it the attention it really needs.  I realize I need to utilize it as a true tool in addition to being a way to socialize with family, friends, and possible business contacts.
The post I would really love to promote is one I wrote fairly recently titled He Isn’t Ignoring You: He Just Has Autism!  I am choosing this one because it isn’t so much about promoting me as it is about promoting awareness and attention. I do hope you will click(after you finish reading this post and leave a comment)on the link and gain a different perspective from the one you may have had already, or you may see it as just a reminder to be more aware of the uniqeness of others.
The next assignment was to visit at least 5 blogs and leave a comment.  The comment part is key.  Personally, I get giddy when I see even one comment.  It is so easy to feel rushed when reading through so many great blogs on the internet, but it really only takes an extra minute or two to leave a comment.  This was a personal resolution of mine when the new year started and I feel I have made huge progress.  I can always improve, though, and I will make a conscious effort to leave a comment whenever I read the post of  another blogger.  Here’s an idea….YOU can start here.  Well, not right here at this spot, but at the end of this post.  Don’t make me beg all pathetic and stuff.  That just wouldn’t be pretty!
The last part of the assignment was to create or update a Facebook page.  Well, in the middle of writing this post, I literally went over to Facebook and put a little work into my fan page, tweeted a link asking for followers(got a few, too) and “reminded” my friends on Facebook that I have a fan page.  I am pretty pleased with the progress I made in such a short amount of time today.
All in all I am having a great time giving so much attention to my blog and do some serious Spring Cleaning.  Thanks Mariana!