Here are 15 Concrete Ways to Increase Blog Traffic with Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is one of the best ways to increase blog traffic and grow your audience of blog readers. The tools of social media like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and more give you a broader reach to get your content in front of more people. The best part is that most social media marketing can be done for free. Following are 15 easy ways that you can increase blog traffic with social media marketing.

1. Feed Your Blog Content to Your Social Media Profiles

Use a tool like Twitterfeed to automatically publish links to your blog posts on your Twitter and Facebook profiles. Also, take the time to set up your blog posts to automatically publish on your LinkedIn, Google+, and other social media profiles that allow it. This configuration can usually be done within your social media profile settings.

2. Add 'Follow Me' Social Media Icons to Your Blog

Add social media icons to your blog's sidebar inviting people to connect with you on Twitter, Facebook, and your other social media profiles. If your blog content is fed to those accounts (see #1 above), then you've created another way for people access your content when they're not actually visiting your blog!

3. Link to Your Blog from Your Social Media Profiles

Make sure your blog URL is included in all of your social media profiles. For example, include it in your Twitter bio, your Facebook profile, your LinkedIn profile, your YouTube channel description, and so on. Your goal is to always make sure your blog is just a click away.

4. Include the URL to Your Blog in Forum Post Signatures

If you actively publish posts in online forums, make sure a link to your blog is included in your post signature.

5. Automate Cross-Profile Publishing

Use a tool like TweetDeck, HootSuite, SproutSocial, or another scheduling tool to automatically publish links to your blog posts on multiple social media profiles at the same time.

6. Syndicate Your Blog Content

Syndicate your blog content through free and licensed syndication companies to increase exposure to your content.

7. Use Widgets and Social Tools Offered by Social Media Sites.

Most social media sites offer free widgets and tools to help you promote your profiles and ultimately, give all of your content more exposure. For example, Twitter and Facebook each offer a variety of widgets that you can add to your blog or other websites quickly and easily.

8. Publish Comments on Other Blogs with Your Blog URL

Find blogs related to your blog topic and publish comments to join the conversation and get on the blogger's radar screen as well as the radar screens of people who read that blog. Be sure to include your URL in the appropriate field in the comment form, so people can click through to read more of your content.

9. Hold a Blog Contest and Promote It Through Your Social Media Profiles

Hold a blog contest to generate short-term traffic to your blog and promote the blog contest to increase awareness and entries.

10. Include Sharing Links on Your Blog Posts

Make it as easy as possible for people to share your blog posts on their Twitter profiles, Facebook profiles, LinkedIn profiles, Google+ profiles, social bookmarking profiles, and so on by including share buttons. For example, the Retweet Button from Tweetmeme and the Sociable WordPress plugin provide easy ways to make your blog posts shareable.

11. Write Guest Blog Posts for Other Blogs in Your Niche

Find blogs in your niche and reach out to the owner of each blog to find out if the blog publishes guest posts. If so, write a great guest blog post and be sure to include a link to your blog in your bio that accompanies the post.