How do you promote your blog? That’s one question that eats blogger’s minds. Right from day one when you came up with your own unique idea of working out a blog and serving ace articles every time you log in, blog promotion has been in your mind. Whether you have just started off on your blogging venture, trying to establish your foot on blogosphere or you are an experienced blogger who has been around for years, dealing with issues and providing solutions, blog promotion is one thing that you can not possibly do without. No matter which stage of your blogging lifecycle you belong to, if you take your foot off the accelerator, your vehicle would come to a stop as momentum gives way to inertia.

Blogging is not a system; it is a continuous process. A system is something that would take care of itself once established and tuned. The solar system, for instance, doesn’t require instructions on a daily basis for the earth to rotate and for the sun to shine. Blogging, on the other hand, is not a system. It is a process – and a continuous one in that. You can not rest assured of returns after blogging for a few months or years – you need to keep working at it. And you also need to be contemporary in your issues, stay up-to-date and keep your focus on what you do.

Network with Fellow Bloggers: To succeed in this continuous process that blogging is, you have to incorporate a few aspects along with just blogging to succeed in your venture. One important activity that you have to make a practice in your daily routine, apart from posting quality posts at regular intervals, is to network with people.

How to be successful in social networking? Networking with fellow bloggers is an art that you should master. The difference between art and science is that, science follows rigid rules and conditions – when the rules are followed and conditions exist, results should follow. However, in art, it is the ability to adjust inputs based on conditions that can seldom be predicted to perfection. Art is creative; and so is networking.

Successful social networking in blogging has to incorporate both these aspects – of being a continuous process and of being creative and artistic. You need to show as much care in networking as you would in drafting your blog post. And you have to be patient in waiting for results that you expect out of your social networking activities for your blog.

So, here are a few handy networking tips for blog promotion:

1.       Take your time – and be patient: Do not expect networks to be developed overnight. If you have created your blog last month, you can’t really hope for thousands of backlinks today, unless, you are the next blogging sensation. Networking among bloggers is a long term affair and you have to put the bricks together carefully as they form a pattern.

2.       Be Proactive: If you think you would have people following you just by posting good contents on a regular basis, you may not have done enough. You have to make your efforts to get in touch with people you know, people you read, people you think are writing good blogs and people who already have a good following. Take the initiative – to wait for others to come up to you and introduce themselves is to wait for eternity.

3.       Be Courteous: Granted, your objective is to get contacts and then, links to your blog. But, this is one area where you can not afford to be outright and blunt. For instance, you just can not walk into a blog and mail the blogger asking for a link to your blog or your article. I mean, you can do that if you want to spoil your relationship with the blogger.

4.       Do not send unsolicited mails: If you do that, congrats! You have just become a spammer! You know how it feels to get those unnecessary mails and comments that make no sense on your blog. Why would you want to join the club?

5.       Develop your Relationship: Be active in the blogosphere; acknowledge and appreciate the fact that you are not the only blogger in this universe. Read what others have to write and comment on them. And when you comment, do not ask them to link to you or read your blog. That is not going to develop your relationship any day.

6.       Be Genuine: That is the most important part. Read what the other person has said and be genuinely interested in the blog for what it deserves. Do not complement a blogger because you have to. If you have a point to make on the blog, be gentle and sensitive to his or her expectations. When you are genuine, you sound courteous and you develop relationships fast if you are proactive.

Blogging is a long term affair and it takes time to develop contacts with fellow bloggers. If you take care about the sensitivities and etiquette and if you stay sensible, with time, promoting your blog becomes a practice that you can never forget to remember.