Social media and blogging go hand in hand. Blogging has opened up a new medium of communication online and it’s allowed publishers and people to communicate. When you add social media into the mix, you can create an influx of traffic to your blog and increase your standing in your niche market.
Fortunately, there are some simple ways to integrate social media into your blog. If you use WordPress, there are several different plug-ins available (mostly for free) that will help encourage visitors to Tweet, Comment or otherwise promote your content to their friends and followers. Encouraging social media usage on your blog will help increase your overall traffic and make your website an essential niche resource.
Here are the top social media plugins you should consider adding to your blog:
Twitter ReTweet
This plugin places a ReTweet link right next to your posts so that readers can easily share the post with their Twitter followers. This can increase the readership of your blog and get some new traffic to your site.
WP-Twittip-ID Plugin
This plugin allows people who comment on your blog create a greater sense of community. It’s often said that in order to build a successful blog, you need to build a community. This plugin will put a Twitter field in your comment form so that your visitors can add their Twitter ID. You and other visitors can easily follow them by clicking on the link.
Add to Facebook
Let your readers virally spread your blog posts to their Facebook friends easily. With the Add to Facebook plugin there will be a “Share on Facebook” link right after each post. By clicking on the link, your readers will automatically share your post with their friends.
Facebook Comments
If you post your blog posts on Facebook as well as on your main blog, you’ll really enjoy this plugin. When you post in both places, you’ll have people that will comment on the blog and those that will post comments on Facebook. This plugin pulls the Facebook comments to your blog so the entire conversation is taking place in one spot.
WPBuzzer
Google Buzz may not be used by as many people as Twitter or Facebook, but it’s still worth it to offer Buzz integration on your website. This plugin adds a button to your blog posts so readers can easily Buzz away.
Google Buzz ER
You can encourage people to follow your Google Buzz updates by adding your feed to your blog. This plugin will add a sidebar widget where you can display your Google Buzz feed and build your following on this growing social media site.
Share This
Share This is a general purpose plugin that allows readers to select from several different sites to share your post. It integrates with WordPress and users can select from social bookmarking and social networking sites.
Sociable
Sociable is another multipurpose plugin that helps users share important pages and posts with the general online community. Sociable posts to Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and several other sites.
Thanks for the reminder about the importance of integrating your social media activities with your blog. You mentioned several plugins that I didn't know about and will put one or two of them to the test.
Social media plug ins are great for viral traffic generation and for spreading your message!