Promote Your Blog and Increase Traffic with Twitter Chat

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="770"] Follow These Easy Steps to Build Your Blog Audience with a Twitter Chat[/caption]

A Twitter chat (also called a Tweet chat) is a great social media marketing tactic that you can use to promote your blog and increase traffic to it. Twitter chats give you an opportunity to strengthen your relationships with existing readers and start building relationships with new people. The broad reach of Twitter can put your blog in front of a global audience, and a Tweet chat is a great way to launch an organized effort to attract targeted members of that audience. Follow the steps below to use a Twitter chat for blog promotion.

1. Set Your Goals

Don't hold a Twitter chat unless you have clear and specific goals or the effort could very well be a waste of time.

2. Pick a Topic

If you're using a Twitter chat to promote your blog, then the topic of your Twitter chat needs to be related to the topic of your blog. If it's not, then your current audience might not want to participate. Furthermore, if the Twitter chat topic isn't relevant to your blog, then the new people who participate will be disappointed if and when they visit your blog.

3. Select a Hashtag

Your Twitter chat needs a unique hashtag so people can easily find it and participate in it. Fortunately, there are a number of free tools to find hashtags, so you can find the right one to use for your Twitter chat.

4. Choose a Format

Will you respond to tweets during the Twitter chat alone or with a co-tweeter? Will your Twitter chat be focused on a single topic? Will that topic be extremely specific or broad? Or will your Twitter chat have an anything goes format like the popular "Ask Me Anything" Twitter chat format? You need to decide how your Twitter chat will be formatted before you can go any further in planning and launching it.

5. Schedule Your Twitter Chat

You need to choose a date as well as a start and end time. Be sure to include the time zone when you spread the word about your Twitter chat (see "Spread the Word" below for more tips about promoting your Twitter chat). Also, be sure to let people know if the end time is a hard stop (i.e., it will end at that time no matter what) and how questions that have not been answered at the end time will be handled after the Twitter chat.

6. Develop the Rules

Rules are very important and you need them to keep order during your Twitter chat. Include the start and end time as well as your chosen hashtag in the rules. Also, instruct participants about how they should submit questions and respond to tweets during the chat. Be sure to include information about what is and is not considered acceptable content (e.g., no inflammatory comments, no inappropriate language, etc). Once the rules have been developed, publish them on your blog and be sure to include a link to the rules in all communications related to your Twitter chat.

7. Get Your Tools Ready

Following and participating in a Twitter chat using Twitter is actually challenging. It's much easier and less stressful to hold a Twitter chat when you use a tool like TweetDeck, HootSuite, or Tweetchat to follow the conversation and respond to tweets.

8. Spread the Word

Once you've done all of the pre-work, it's time to promote your Twitter chat. Announce the Twitter chat and share the hashtag and rules on your blog,Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and any other social media profiles you have. Send an email to invite people to attend. Be sure to send reminders, so people don't forget to attend! It's also a good idea to ask people to submit questions to you in advance so you can get the Twitter chat rolling quickly when it begins

9. Get Help

A Twitter chat that has a lot of active participants can be very overwhelming to the host, so it's a good idea to have some help. For example, while you answer questions, someone else can help you scan incoming questions and point out the best ones for you to answer next.

10. Repurpose that Content!

Once your Twitter chat is over, don't let the valuable content you created during the chat disappear. Be sure to repurpose your content to derive the maximum value from it by using the content elsewhere after the chat. For example, you can use the content from your Twitter chat in a blog post, a SlideShare presentation,Pinterest quotes, YouTube videos, and more.