Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Blog Publicity

So here it is.. I will pen (keyboard) down whatever turned up at Kiruba's talk on Blog Publicity at FOSSMeet '08 held in NITC..

We were made into groups, and it was a sort of group activity to come up with ideas.. here are some that turned up..


1. Blog regularly. This point's importance can never be stressed enough. It was told to us by Kiran Jace too at last years FOSSMeet. People will only visit your blog if they know theyll have something new to read.

2. Make maximum use of blog-linking through another's blog. This is particularly useful in finding readers that you havent met in any other way or have no contact with.

3. Write on really controversial topics, you just might end up a hit in a search.

4. Similar to the above, upload videos, pics or audio that u know people are searching for.

5. Add your blog link as your signature when you mail or sms so that people know. Many of my friends have now started off this one.

6. Make your own domain name, say, www.harivishnu.com. Kiruba has been stressing this point over and over again from last year's FOSS also, though i dont completely agree with him. Getting a personal domain is pretty cheap, though, as Vatsil explored.

7. Specify interests, books, location etc in Blogger.. people who use blogger search to find people from similar interests etc will find you.

8. Publicise! Publicise! Publicise! Use word of mouth, mailing or any other brute force method if you're so desperate for readership! :-)

9. Comment on other blogs. Especially on blogs of popular bloggers >-))) (evil grin creeps onto face)

10. You can upload or comment stuff on other sites(not necessarily blogs) and link them to your blog.

There were more, I just dont remember them all. Anybody want to add some suggestions?.. I can edit this post to include more suggestions..

Kiruba's talk was also about the power of blogging. How blogging changed the fate of a whole company.. or a product.. or that of the actress Trisha.. (lol), and how he and his company would use online web publicity tools like blogging to help companies. A really interesting talk that was I must say. Audio will be uploaded on FOSSMeet site soon, hopefully.

7 comments:

-=A.R.N.=- said...

Hmmm interesting read.

Two things:
1. If you plan to write on issues such as religion or politics, it makes sense to have it a separate blog so that your mainstream visitors (who may not agree with your religious or politicial orientation) don't get involved in a mess with your other posts.

2. The power of a self-hosted domain cannot be stressed enough. The first advantage it brings is the reach - quite simply because you're now visible on major search engines. The second is that you'll be looked upon as a more serious blogger.

Hari Vishnu said...

hmm.. i completely agree with ur first point..lol, it looks like something i missed to write.. thats y i maintain another blog scienceinreligion.blogspot.com

yea thanx for the info on the 2d point.. hmm i must think of it if im going professional.. i never thought of blogging as anything other than a timepass till now..

Drunken Mind.. said...

good info dude...nice read

Wetfingers said...

I won't leave comments or register in your web hits. I look it up in my reader, so just know i am following your blog everyday. readers and feeds are way better.

Arun Sundar said...

Commeting is the best method to spread - one would say.

Hari Vishnu said...

yep, thats wat i feel too.. from exp thats wat i see.. and the poll comes out like that apparently ;-)..

Neethu said...

hey thnx ll try to apply em(though i already do many of them ;)