This is guest post from Sid Savara and Srinivas Rao.
“Success always comes when preparation meets opportunity”
– Henry Hartman
How many blogs do you have? Just one? Multiple? Are you already planning on launching another this year?
Many of us will launch multiple blogs in our careers. There are many places you can look to get the buzz out about your new launch, but I want to focus on just one today. I’ve found Twitter traffic to be much higher quality than traffic from other social media sites, and for that reason focus on it when driving new readers to my blog.
Apart from building something worth talking about, here are a few strategies that helped us get lots of exposure on Twitter – before we’d even launched!
Build Anticipation
Before we launched BlogcastFM, we pre-launched it. We put up a static page with some brief information about what was coming, an introductory video – and asked readers to sign up for our newsletter. With nothing more than a countdown timer, Sid talking about our upcoming launch for 30 seconds and a submit button, people signed up to be the first in line to know when it launched.
And yes, our followers tweeted and retweeted that we were launching soon 
.
Flood The Timeline With A Network of Promoters
Anything worth launching has got to matter to somebody – and to their followers. Since we were launching a podcast for bloggers, we reached out to blog consultants such as Michael, and other people with similar interests and followers who would benefit from our new resource. As a result, some people saw our launch tweeted multiple times from different authorities within the span of a few minutes – and every additional person they saw talking about it increased their curiosity. If you’re looking for how to network with bloggers to help promote your new launch, Michael has previously discussed this in his article about forming a blog pack.
Give Away Quality Stuff
Free resources can be powerful because they spread very quickly on Twitter – but you’ve got to make sure they’re worth spreading. Ebooks are fairly easy to put together and have the potential to spread really quickly. We put together an ebook called Blogger Gems (discussed below) that we gave away – no sign up required. It was the most Tweeted page on launch day.
Showcase Others
You know what people love tweeting about, and what their followers followed them to hear about? Themselves. For that reason, in Blogger Gems we didn’t feature any of our writing – instead we showcased gems from every interview we had done. We made the book all about them – we linked to people’s websites, we linked to their Twitter account. We included their bio pictures and made sure they were the stars of the show. Who wouldn’t want to Tweet an ebook that dedicated a page to them, and showcased them in the best light possible?
Don’t Compete With Other High Profile Conversations
Originally we planned to launch BlogcastFM on Monday February 8. As we got closer to the date, we realized the Superbowl was on February 7 – so we’d be competing against all the armchair quarterbacks throwing in their opinions on Monday. We instead delayed a couple days, and launched BlogcastFM on Wednesday February 10 – when nothing was going on, and our supporters could help get the word out free from (most, heh) post-Superbowl noise.
Make It Easy
People are willing to help – but they’re lazy. Meet them halfway and make it easy for them to share your stuff! We put Tweet this links on every interview. We took it a step further – inside Blogger Gems, we included Tweet this links on every gem in the book! So if you were reading the ebook, and came across a quote that resonated with you, all it took was a single click to post that to Twitter. People love sharing great stuff they’ve read – make it easy for them to do so.
Sid Savara and Srinivas Rao are the co-founders of BlogcastFM, a podcast for bloggers that profiles a variety of bloggers ranging from up and coming bloggers to A-list bloggers. They are always interested in hearing the stories of bloggers, so drop them a note to be interviewed.
Great tips! These could also be very effective with a newsletter or an ebook launch.
For instance, I did something similar to your fourth point (showcase others) with a free ebook I put together to launch my newsletter. I included articles by other people that had been published with reprint rights (creative commons).
I figured it was polite to tell people I was using their work, so I contacted them and told them what I was doing.
They were so pleased that several of them sent the offer to their newsletter subscribers (without my asking). They got to talk about themselves, and I got more subscribers.
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The bit that I like the most about this post is linking to others peoples stuff in your launch. This could be very relevant for an ebook launch.
Love the other tips too. thanks.
My favorite tip was showcasing others. Absolutely, right on. Great stuff guys! I appreciate the tips!
@Michael: Thanks for the opportunity to guest post here.
@Jodi: Our business model for BlogcastFM is truly the byproduct of collaboration with other people. They agree to be interviewed by us, so we make a big point to try and promote them as much as possible.
@SimplySnowboard: That's definitely a key part of launching anything. I'd be curious to see how you utilize this.
@Dali: Thanks for the comments and hope you'll check out the podcast.
It's got to be even better when you do it on purpose. Give gifts and become closer.
Great tips. wish I read this before my book launch lol I did about 60% of this.
Hey John!
Thanks! Book launches have their own unique qualities (getting affiliates on board for example!) that complicate issues, but you're right – the fundamentals apply to launching other things besides blogs =)
I agree book launches are their own animal..
I especially like the idea of not launching your product or service on a date near another popular event. I realized this just now, and I agree that it makes perfect sense.
thanks for posting these really meaningful steps. I really like posts that give ideas, it makes my understanding about the culture of the internet clearer. Hope it will continue to be like so.
Thanks for posting such incredible points. It really makes my bowl of knowledge about internet culture great. Hope you continue to post more as the demands for these types of source change and evolve. and the for the benefit of those who are beginning to use the internet for living.
What a site, I'm looking to integrate blogs for our endusers without changing the website, so some really great tips. Kind of ease the admin on the website and introduce some flexibility for everyone that doesn't know Dreamweaver. Thanks.
Great Read and Information. Thanks
In Afghanistan, there were reports of wolves coming into villages to eat humans after a winter that was to severe.
Brutally direct, pragmatic and effective great advice without frills really helpful for all bloggers
Some posts are very dry and hard to read, yours has been very well written and informational!