If you don't have a great deal of money to dedicate toward marketing your blog but you do have plenty of time, social networking is a great way to boost your traffic while also building a community with your blog.
In fact, one of the great things about social networking is that it can really help you build a solid reputation within the community of your target audience while also helping you build-up the popularity of your website.
There are many ways you can go about conducting social networking, but the basic premise behind this marketing method is to get out there and interact with others so they will want to come check out your blog.
One common method of social networking is visiting blogs that seem to be targeting the same audience as you.
Take some time to get to know the blog and its community, then start making your own comments and participating in the discussions.
Each time you leave a comment, you can also leave a link to your blog.
If the members of that blog community like what you have to say, they will likely click on your name in order to learn more about you.
You can use the same type of technique with forums.
With forums, you may be able to set up your account so your forum log-in name is linked to your blog.
If not, you can include a link to your blog in your signature.
That way, your link appears every time you leave a message on the forum and, once again, those whose interest you pique will click on the link and visit your blog.
Video websites such as YouTube also provide you with great opportunities for networking.
If you create humorous videos, instructional videos or informational videos that become popular on the website, you can potentially bring a great deal of traffic to your blog.
In fact, any time you create a video to post on your blog, you should also post it on sites such as YouTube in order to get even more use from your video and to increase your chances of reaching more readers.
Sites such as MySpace and Facebook also provide opportunities for social networking.
By interacting with those communities on a regular basis, you can build relationships with other people that might be interested in reading your blog.
The key to successful social networking is to leave comments that are meaningful to the blog or forum you are visiting.
Simply saying something such as "Great post!" is not going to be enough to draw in traffic.
Rather, take the time to build relationships with the communities you find at these sites and you will soon find them coming to your blog to interact with you there as well.