When you write a blog, one of your main goals is (or should be) to get people to read it. That’s how it is with my voice over blog. But how do you get people to read it? One super effective way is to get people to share it on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and everywhere else.
Why do you want other people to share it? Social proof. It’s dang powerful.
When someone shares your blog post, he or she is saying, “Hey, this article is worth reading because I read it and shared it.” Self-promotion is fine at times but can be very annoying and ineffective. However, when other people share your content, they are doing the work for you and are giving you their stamp of (social proof) approval. When others see that stamp of approval, they are more inclined to click on it to see what all the hubbub is about.
As my voice over blog continues to evolve and improve, I have come across some cool WordPress plugins that effectively encourage sharing on social media and have even caused one post to go semi-viral. I don’t like to give away all my secrets, but these are just too good not to share.
1. Digg Digg
If you are reading my voice over blog on a desktop computer right now, you probably see the Digg Digg plugin on the left hand side of the screen. If not, I have a screen shot of it below. It’s a box that floats alongside the blog post as you scroll down. It’s like I’m following you with social media sharing buttons. I don’t mean to be creepy… Within the box, there are customizable social media sharing buttons you can’t help but notice and click. Click the button of your favorite social media profile and share this post to see how easy this button makes sharing. When I added this button, I saw the number of Tweets and “Likes” explode. Plus, people were actually sharing it on LinkedIn which I hadn’t seen before.
2. jQuery Pin It Button For Images
When you get readers to your blog, you are ultimately driving traffic to your website. When you drive traffic to your website, you rank higher in Google and people (fellow voice actors, voice over prospects and clients, and anyone else interested in voice over, psychology or marketing in my case) can find you more easily. Apparently, Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined. (Source: http://www.usocialmedia.co.uk/social-marketing/2948/). This plugin allows every image in your blog post to be “Pin-able.” When someone floats the cursor over an image, there is a “Pin It” button. Hover over the blog title image below and pin the title image below to one of your favorite Pinterest boards. The “Pin It” button is quite the call to action for visitors to your blog. Since installing this plugin to my voice over blog, I have seen Pinterest sharing go up dramatically.
3. Shareaholic
Shareaholic is an oldie but a goodie. I’ve seen it all over the place, and I’m not surprised why. It works great. When you visit one of my voice over blog posts like the one about “10 Voice Over Twitter Feeds You’d Be Crazy Not To Follow,” you will see these shiny buttons at the bottom of the post. Plus, there are a few different calls-to-action available. I chose “Sharing is caring!” in my voice over blog. There are also tons of other social media buttons to choose from, but I picked a smaller amount so I wouldn’t overwhelm readers with options. After reading through all three of these plugins, scroll to the bottom of this post and share this post using one of the buttons below.
So yea, these plugins are pretty dang kick ass. I am still in the process of trying to optimize everything for mobile users and to find plugins that maximize those platforms, but I am getting there. I read a great quote recently about always improving.
