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When I started writing frequently for this blog, I thought most posts would be pretty much the same: Concise, concrete tips about how to do inbound marketing.

I was wrong.

While that may be a consistent theme of posts on this blog, there is no single type of post that succeeds. Like most business blogs, this blog thrives on a healthy mix of content.

You can see the importance of varied content on large news sites like NYTimes.com or WSJ.com. They thrive on their mix. Their homepages are grab-bags of news, features, videos, pictures, graphics and who-knows-what-else.

You can also see this by looking at the posts that succeed on this blog. Below I’ve listed our top articles over the past three months, sorted by inbound links and page views. (I pulled this data from HubSpot’s blog analytics tool.)

Top Posts by Page Views (Last 3 Months)

Top Posts by Inbound Links (Last 3 Months)

 Looking at this data, three things jump out:

(1) Lots of different types of articles. There are cartoons, a big report, a viral video, how-to stories and some bigger thought pieces.

(2) Little overlap between the two lists. You’d expect the articles that got the most traffic to also get the most inbound links. But that’s only true in one case. Both metrics are important, so you need to create different types of content.

(3) Lots of surprises. The report, the video and the cartoons are not surprising, but the others are. It’s hard to tell how these posts are any different from the dozens of others like them that we ran over the past three months.

The takeaway here is clear: Just like a venture capitalist or a movie studio executive, bloggers don’t know which projects will be most successful. The only way to deal with such uncertainty is to create a portfolio of different posts — you gotta mix it up!

Webinar: Blogging for Business

Want to learn more about publishing a blog on your business website? Download the free webinar to learn how to create a thriving inbound marketing blog.

Photo: Eric Hamilton

If I can stay on one server long enough, I will continue this thing. But I have had issues with that lately. And after doing all the tech stuff, writing becomes harder. But back on track. You have chosen a few products to promote on your blog and written some content. Promotion must start from day one, although some tactics and method will only work after your blog has more of a presence.

I think you should have a custom promotional strategy for every blog. If one blog’s plan looks the same as another’s, you have a problem unless they are on the same topic. When it comes to your specific topic, you should hunt down at least a few ways of promoting it that is unique to your blog’s niche. If that fails, just check out my list. Help me add to it in the comments. I think I will be editing this list for a while and then I will start categorizing. But for now, just from off the top of my head.

1. Optimize your blog on site.
2. Submit your blog to feed directories.
3. Make sure you ping wherever you can.
4. Post new content as frequently as you can.
5. Use a feedburner chicklet count when the number gets big.
6. Submit your blog to standard directories.
7. Be active in social networks and pay attention to dofollow.
8. Write articles and submit them elsewhere.
9. Join places like Squidoo and HubPages and create related pages.
10. Write and submit press releases.
11. Submit your articles to online news sites.
12. Comment on blogs and pay attention to dofollow.
13. Comment on an .edu blog if you get a chance for a real comment.
14. Be active in forums and use a link to your blog in the signature.
15. Use free hosting and free blog hosting to create other related sites.
16. Interlink all of these pages from various free websites and networks.
17. Write software and submit it to shareware sites.
18. Give away a free ebook.
19. Get a professional design and submit it to css directories.
20. Write flagship articles frequently and put your heart in them.
21. Try using numbers in blog post titles.
22. Create huge lists of things like this one.
23. Create a list of other blogs in your niche.
24. Write frequent articles that do nothing but link to other bloggers in your niche.
25. Guest posts on your site.
26. Write guest posts on other sites.
27. Have a contest.
28. Put your blog url in the signature of emails.
29. Put your blog url on printed materials like business cards and letterheads.
30. Get a bumper sticker with your blog’s url.
31. Post flyers on community billboards.
32. Mention your blog at conferences and give your business cards away.
33. Reference other bloggers as much as you can, especially if they show trackbacks.
34. Give away a free theme with a link to your blog in the footer.
35. Write about up and coming people and products in the niche. Sometimes they link to stories.
36. Bookmark and promote as many other bloggers in the niche as you can. They sometimes reciprocate.
37. Tag similar sites on delicious and other sites so that you get known for finding worthwhile sites.
38. Get friends to promote your posts at various networks.
39. Pay attention to memes so you are ready to pounce on one that could help you get traffic.
40. Trade blogroll links with related blogs.
41. Capture emails and start a newsletter to make sure potential customers are coming back.
42. Use Google Adwords to promote product landing pages that I know are already profitable.
43. Link to other blogs whenever I can. When I forget about link juice going out, it always seems to pay off.
44. Add dofollow to encourage more comments and hence more content.
45. Deep link to other posts in the blog with each new post.
46. Use memes tracker and find hot related conversations you can jump in to.
47. Create a simple product and launch an affiliate program.
48. Start your own viral idea.
49. Start one of those fun tagging things but don’t go overboard.
50. Answer questions on Yahoo Answers and other answer sites.
51. Contribute to Google Groups and other new groups.
52. Write product reviews of related products on Amazon and other ecommerce sites.
53. Create related wish lists at Amazon.
54. Create a related Ebay blog.
55. Create a widget and give it away.
56. Create a Facebook app and give it away.
57. Write a plugin for Wordpress and give it away.
58. Be off the wall and stupid every once and a while.
59. Pay for links.
60. Sign guestbooks.
61. Write testimonials.
62. Review other blogs.
63. Install a page translation plugin.
64. Review sites on Alexa.
65. Review products on Epinions and other similar sites.
66. Get a keyword based Twitter account and use it well.
67. Build one or more on site tools.
68. Interview other people in your niche.
69. Write a Firefox extension.
70. Write a free php script and submit it to script directories.
71. Use MyBlogLog and other blog networks to their fullest potential.
72. Create video posts and tutorials and submit them to as many video sites as you can.
73. Use pictures in your posts and store them online with good names, descriptions and tags on a public site like Flickr.
74. Give away free things.
75. Write in a beginner’s voice.
76. Comment and be part of the community on online newspapers.
77. Attend local blogger’s meetups.
78. Create surveys.
79. Help people, collect your testimonials and put them on a testimonial page.
80. Write about celebrities.
81. Create backgrounds, templates and themes for social sites like MySpace.
82. Hire blog writers to write for you.
83. Hire bloggers to write about you.
84. Donate to a charity that links back.
85. Beg on the street corners for links.
86. Use Fast Blog Finder
87. Submit to blog carnivals.
88. Host blog carnivals.
89. Build lists on list sites. Yes, there are some left like listable.
90. Comment on Flickr images.
91. Submit your blog to “cool site” contests.
92. Give away a screensaver.
93. Give away a toolbar.
94. Submit your ebook to ebook directories.
95. Write tutorials and submit them to tutorial sites.
96. Write for content sites like Gather, Helium and Associated Content.
97. Contribute to wiki’s.
98. Get a Google sitemap plugin and use it.
99. Submit to blog specific directories and networks.
100. Join BlogCatalog and be active.
101. Join Entrecard and use it as a tool to comment on other blogs and bring traffic.
102. Use featured post and popular post widgets to keep new visitors on the site longer.
103. Run newspaper classifieds.
104. Run ads on free classified sites.
105. Start a controversy but be careful.
106. Get software like RankSense to help you with SEO on your blog.
107. Introduce yourself to other bloggers in your niche and keep in contact.
108. Use Odiogo to convert your feeds into podcasts and submit these to podcast sites.
109. Use a similar posts type plugin and add this to your feeds also.
110. Allow anything to scrape your site just remember to constantly deep link your site.
111. Constantly improve your content.

That’s where I am drawing the line for now. Please feel free to add to it.

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Building and designing a successful social media campaign can be a lot like designing and building a skyscraper. You need to research the materials, lay a strong foundation, and continue regular maintenance to ensure your building, or social media promotion, doesn’t collapse.

In Understanding the Complex Social Media Marketing Playing Field, moderator Joe Laratro led a panel of social media marketing architects who shared their social media design tips.

Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz, gave an overview of some of the various materials an online marketer can use when constructing a social media plan. Michael Gray, president of Atlas Web Service, created a strategic design plan for building successful social promotions. Cameron Olthuis, CEO of Factive Media, outlined best practices for interacting with social communities in ten steps. Neil Patel, CTO of Advantage Consulting Services, Inc., ended the session with a controversial look at “the dark side” of social media marketing.

Building Blocks

The strongest social media plan involves a mix of the below materials.

• Democratized Social News sites These tools allow online marketers to interact with a community by voting on content and submitting their own content to be voted on by others. Examples include Digg, Reddit, Mixx, and Newsline.
• Editor-Controlled News Sites Sites like Yahoo! Buzz accept and display user-submitted content that fits in with their editorial guidelines. These sites generally have a high profile and can generate huge results.
• Social Sites These sites are a great opportunity to build and interact with a network as well as publish original content in a variety of forms including links, news, photos, videos, and more. Examples include Facebook, Myspace, and LinkedIn.
• Micro-Blogging Sites On Twitter, Plurk, and Friendfeed, you can submit interesting content in 140 characters or less. This can act as an instant megaphone, allowing you to broadcast strong points of interest to a large audience.
• Social Bookmarking Sites Marketers can submit interesting URLs to sites like StumbleUpon, Delicious and Blinklist to drive traffic to specific pages. These sites are also good for research in terms of finding out what type of content interests your audience.
• Social Content Sharing Sites Youtube, Flickr, Yelp and DeviantArt all allow you to post specific types of content, from video to photos to reviews. These sites can help marketers build brand messaging and reach new, relevant audiences, and can also show up in universal search results.
• Wiki Sites Wikis are another good way to dominate the search results, as they often rank highly. Use wikis to post original content and edit existing content while reaching a new audience. Wikipedia is the penultimate example of a wiki site.
• Social Question & Answer Sites Marketers can both post questions to other users and answer existing questions on sites such as Yahoo! Answers and Wiki Answers. This can grow brand reputation and authority and is also a good way to conduct audience research.
• Niche Sites Social sites that target a very specific niche, such as Corked for wine enthusiasts, allow marketers to reach a highly relevant audience.

Blueprints

Creating a successful social media campaign requires a well-thought out and detailed plan. Take the proper steps to ensure your social promotions are sturdy and effective.

• Background Research Find out where your audience is online. Look at the content they themselves are submitting on these sites for ideas of what interests them. Also, identify thought leaders to target in order to spread your message to a broad audience.
• Brainstorming Generate as many ideas for promotions as possible. Look at what has worked previously and build upon that without copycatting. Filter your ideas wisely in order to find something that will feasibly work for you.
• Idea Research Follow up on your ideas to see if they will work based upon what is already happening in the social media you are targeting. Be flexible and adapt your ideas if something won’t work. Don’t force a bad idea.
• Story Production and Formatting Ensure you’re writing in a viral writing style. Avoid marketing speak and obvious sales-oriented messaging. Use videos and photos to enrich your stories.
• Schedule and Launch Know the times in the day, week, etc. your audience interacts on social sites. Tie promotions in to holidays and major events to generate timely interest.

Building a Foundation

Interacting with a social community is the key to building a strong foundation for your social media marketing campaign. “It’s called social for a reason,” Cameron Olthuis points out. Be sure you are socializing within a community and following its guidelines.

• Network & Be Social Make new friends, join groups and generally participate in the community. This should be a continual process.
• Be Genuine, Authentic and On Target Stick with what your audience wants.
• Provide Value Give users something they can use, in the form of advice, expert tips, inside information or something entertaining.
• Let People Act Naturally Allow users to play with your content and have fun. Don’t force a specific interaction.
• Listen and Respond Look for both positive and negative reactions by monitoring content once it’s live. Respond to users and improve content accordingly.

The Fake Façade
Neil Patel outlined what he calls “The Dark Side” of social media marketing with some less-than-wholesome tips and tricks marketers can use to generate social media results

• Screwing People Impacting a competitors reputation by submitting useless content from a competitor’s site to social news or bookmarking.
• Social Media Rings Creating a ring of people to vote up your content. This quickly becomes a “dark” practice when abused through overuse.
• Social Media Applications Tube Increaser and Twitter Friend Adder allow marketers to automate adding large quantities of friends to their accounts.
• Forced Actions Patel mentioned iframes code, which is useful for ‘forcing’ people to automatically subscribe to content such as your YouTube channel just by visiting.
• Blog Links Certain blog formats, such as WordPress, can be hacked, allowing marketers to insert their links.

Patel also advised visiting several “light” reading resources, including SEOmoz.org, Techipedia.com and our very own TopRank Online Marketing Blog.

Create a holistic social media campaign by ensuring you’ve put time and effort into the three major stages outlined in this session: the proper building blocks, a strategic blueprint and a solid foundation. Continue routine maintenance by building your profile and interacting regularly within social communities. Conduct regular inspections of your progress by searching for your content on Technorati, Google Blogsearch, search.twitter.com and other monitoring resources. And while going to “The Dark Side” may have its appeal, following social media marketing best practices should generate solid results.

Check back with the TopRank Marketing Blog for more on Pubcon, and don’t miss photos from the conference at TopRank on Flickr.

Sponsored By: DMA Workshop on Social Media Marketing Build a business case, strategy & tactics - Dec 4-5 NYC

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If I can stay on one server long enough, I will continue this thing. But I have had issues with that lately. And after doing all the tech stuff, writing becomes harder. But back on track. You have chosen a few products to promote on your blog and written some content. Promotion must start from day one, although some tactics and method will only work after your blog has more of a presence.

I think you should have a custom promotional strategy for every blog. If one blog’s plan looks the same as another’s, you have a problem unless they are on the same topic. When it comes to your specific topic, you should hunt down at least a few ways of promoting it that is unique to your blog’s niche. If that fails, just check out my list. Help me add to it in the comments. I think I will be editing this list for a while and then I will start categorizing. But for now, just from off the top of my head.

1. Optimize your blog on site.
2. Submit your blog to feed directories.
3. Make sure you ping wherever you can.
4. Post new content as frequently as you can.
5. Use a feedburner chicklet count when the number gets big.
6. Submit your blog to standard directories.
7. Be active in social networks and pay attention to dofollow.
8. Write articles and submit them elsewhere.
9. Join places like Squidoo and HubPages and create related pages.
10. Write and submit press releases.
11. Submit your articles to online news sites.
12. Comment on blogs and pay attention to dofollow.
13. Comment on an .edu blog if you get a chance for a real comment.
14. Be active in forums and use a link to your blog in the signature.
15. Use free hosting and free blog hosting to create other related sites.
16. Interlink all of these pages from various free websites and networks.
17. Write software and submit it to shareware sites.
18. Give away a free ebook.
19. Get a professional design and submit it to css directories.
20. Write flagship articles frequently and put your heart in them.
21. Try using numbers in blog post titles.
22. Create huge lists of things like this one.
23. Create a list of other blogs in your niche.
24. Write frequent articles that do nothing but link to other bloggers in your niche.
25. Guest posts on your site.
26. Write guest posts on other sites.
27. Have a contest.
28. Put your blog url in the signature of emails.
29. Put your blog url on printed materials like business cards and letterheads.
30. Get a bumper sticker with your blog’s url.
31. Post flyers on community billboards.
32. Mention your blog at conferences and give your business cards away.
33. Reference other bloggers as much as you can, especially if they show trackbacks.
34. Give away a free theme with a link to your blog in the footer.
35. Write about up and coming people and products in the niche. Sometimes they link to stories.
36. Bookmark and promote as many other bloggers in the niche as you can. They sometimes reciprocate.
37. Tag similar sites on delicious and other sites so that you get known for finding worthwhile sites.
38. Get friends to promote your posts at various networks.
39. Pay attention to memes so you are ready to pounce on one that could help you get traffic.
40. Trade blogroll links with related blogs.
41. Capture emails and start a newsletter to make sure potential customers are coming back.
42. Use Google Adwords to promote product landing pages that I know are already profitable.
43. Link to other blogs whenever I can. When I forget about link juice going out, it always seems to pay off.
44. Add dofollow to encourage more comments and hence more content.
45. Deep link to other posts in the blog with each new post.
46. Use memes tracker and find hot related conversations you can jump in to.
47. Create a simple product and launch an affiliate program.
48. Start your own viral idea.
49. Start one of those fun tagging things but don’t go overboard.
50. Answer questions on Yahoo Answers and other answer sites.
51. Contribute to Google Groups and other new groups.
52. Write product reviews of related products on Amazon and other ecommerce sites.
53. Create related wish lists at Amazon.
54. Create a related Ebay blog.
55. Create a widget and give it away.
56. Create a Facebook app and give it away.
57. Write a plugin for Wordpress and give it away.
58. Be off the wall and stupid every once and a while.
59. Pay for links.
60. Sign guestbooks.
61. Write testimonials.
62. Review other blogs.
63. Install a page translation plugin.
64. Review sites on Alexa.
65. Review products on Epinions and other similar sites.
66. Get a keyword based Twitter account and use it well.
67. Build one or more on site tools.
68. Interview other people in your niche.
69. Write a Firefox extension.
70. Write a free php script and submit it to script directories.
71. Use MyBlogLog and other blog networks to their fullest potential.
72. Create video posts and tutorials and submit them to as many video sites as you can.
73. Use pictures in your posts and store them online with good names, descriptions and tags on a public site like Flickr.
74. Give away free things.
75. Write in a beginner’s voice.
76. Comment and be part of the community on online newspapers.
77. Attend local blogger’s meetups.
78. Create surveys.
79. Help people, collect your testimonials and put them on a testimonial page.
80. Write about celebrities.
81. Create backgrounds, templates and themes for social sites like MySpace.
82. Hire blog writers to write for you.
83. Hire bloggers to write about you.
84. Donate to a charity that links back.
85. Beg on the street corners for links.
86. Use Fast Blog Finder
87. Submit to blog carnivals.
88. Host blog carnivals.
89. Build lists on list sites. Yes, there are some left like listable.
90. Comment on Flickr images.
91. Submit your blog to “cool site” contests.
92. Give away a screensaver.
93. Give away a toolbar.
94. Submit your ebook to ebook directories.
95. Write tutorials and submit them to tutorial sites.
96. Write for content sites like Gather, Helium and Associated Content.
97. Contribute to wiki’s.
98. Get a Google sitemap plugin and use it.
99. Submit to blog specific directories and networks.
100. Join BlogCatalog and be active.
101. Join Entrecard and use it as a tool to comment on other blogs and bring traffic.
102. Use featured post and popular post widgets to keep new visitors on the site longer.
103. Run newspaper classifieds.
104. Run ads on free classified sites.
105. Start a controversy but be careful.
106. Get software like RankSense to help you with SEO on your blog.
107. Introduce yourself to other bloggers in your niche and keep in contact.
108. Use Odiogo to convert your feeds into podcasts and submit these to podcast sites.
109. Use a similar posts type plugin and add this to your feeds also.
110. Allow anything to scrape your site just remember to constantly deep link your site.
111. Constantly improve your content.

That’s where I am drawing the line for now. Please feel free to add to it.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Social Media SEO
• Netbytes: Jack Schofield reviews HubPages
• How To Publish Your Content Online Without A Web Site - Video Interview With Ryan Hupfer Of Hubpages.com
• The Affiliate Niche Blog Plan
• My FireFox Addons