Additional thoughts on Alex’s post yesterday about billboard advertising for blogs.  Of course, putting up a billboard is going to drive some traffic to your blog.  Certainly boost awareness.  Just like the earlier post about TV advertising having an impact — it ‘works’, but not nearly as well as it used to, and not even close to the kind of cost and attention returns gained by more targeted online means.  It’s not a question of if DallasBlogs should run a board to announce their new alternative media project to the general audience it’s designed for.  (Scott’s already said that that is how he is getting the majority of his new visitors.)  Also, this is an outlier example because the very nature of blogging & DIY media projects is in the bootstrapping, grassroots outreach approach.  Media buys are simply contra to this type of project, not that there can’t be some integration, though that’s a whole other post. 

Rather, I’m trying to hone in the most effective means of introducing new blogging projects and organically attracting the right types of readers.  When the Slidell Hurricane Damage blog was in full operation during the month after the storm, it generated pretty good data about how people discover content and where readers come from.  While all sorts of media outlets covered the blog (I think there were three days of CNN blog segments that mentioned the URL and talked about what we were doing), I never saw traffic and activity increase as a result.  Much more powerful, actually, was when someone would post a link in a hurricane forum, reblog it on their own site, or choose to syndicate our information as part of a running round up of storm reports. I just think offline requires too much of an action step for them to remember your URL and visit when they are finally back at the machine.  You’re after the one-click pitch, I think. 

So, if I had to make a working list of the best blog promotion modes right now, I’d list:

• Posting often, generating a trail of organic search terms that will attract the right readers.
• Linking, linking, linking to relevant blogs and adding value to those conversations.
• Using a smart tagging strategy that observes how people are using Technorati and other services to search for content like yours.
• Using comments/trackbacks to properly mesh yourself into appropriate networks of conversation.
• Providing links to great posts, interviews, podcasts, etc. in your own everyday communication.  You think it’s valuable, right?  Evangelize it.

The system tends to feed itself.  Other bloggers link to you, raising your profile, generating more search results for you, pulling you into more conversation, suggesting new posts, which create more links, etc.  It’s a constant process, one which repays close attention, sharing, and savvy.  It’s a great way to help a small brand generate a more powerful reach than it ever could via a clumsy, inefficient outlet like an outdoor board.