The Blog Tour

I have done all kinds of writing in my professional life, but one of the things that attracts me to creating copy for the web is the way that new mediums spring up and evolve.  I am constantly trying to keep up with progress and incorporate new ways of communication into my portfolio of services.   What started as just writing copy for web pages, now includes email newsletters,  blogs, article directory marketing, and social media promotion.  Now social communication seems have reached fever pitch with everyone Tweeting, updating their status bars on Facebook and Myspace and sharing their browsing habits through services such as Bebo, Digg and Sphinn.

Keep up with the times is challenging, but also exciting.

Ironically, as getting your message out there becomes easier, getting it noticed becomes more difficult.   Putting your company's website on page 1 on Google for your search term takes time, expertise, expense and if I am honest, a little luck.  One technique that I use to try to gain some exposure and traffic for my clients is through cross promotional blog posts.  Blog marketing is becoming a hot way to reach potential customers, and with good reason:  it is free, friendly and doesn't really require any kind of technical expertise.

Only recently, Women on Writing brought a specific form of this kind of marketing to my attention:  the blog tour.

In essence, a blog tour is where an author/company representative/ business owner posts on a list of third party blogs on scheduled days.   These 'appearances' create exposure for the guest blogger,  and some interesting content for the hosting blog.  The tour is promoted via both parties,  therefor doubling the advertising and hopefully attracting more traffic to both sites.

So how can a blog tour help your writing?

A blog tour is a great way to promote your book, skills or services to your target audience.  Have you written a cookery book?  Find cooking, family or women's blogs and offer to post your top recipes to their readers.  Need morecopywriting clients?  Look for business blogs with active communities and high readership and post your secrets to effective sales copy.

Here are some ideas on how to organize a blog tour for yourself or a client:

1. Identify the type of blog with readers that are your target audience.
2. Decide on an angle for the tour.  What can you offer blog readers?  A success story?  A relevant interview?  Some top tips?  A 'behind the scenes' look at something?  You should always be offering something in exchange for the promotion you will receive.
3. Advertise your blog tour.  Create a page on your website, include the dates and locations of your appearances as well as a short blurb about the blog you will be appearing on.  Schedule newsletters or reminders for your subscribers to make sure they don't miss a date.
4. Encourage interactivity with readers by offering to answer questions,  scheduling live chats, or directing them to the comments area on a blog.

As long as the information that you are offering is on topic and of interest to a blog's readers, editors and owners are usually happy to be included in a blog tour,  and the 'appearance' may be the beginning of a long and mutually beneficial partnership.