When it comes to social media, there’s an awful lot of buzz surrounding topics like video, audio podcasts, Twitter, Facebook and so on. Yet the form of multi-way communication that started it all — yes, I’m talking about the blog — is getting a bit of a short shrift nowadays.

Frankly, I’m not sure why. In my recommendations for a sound social-media strategy, I always evangelize about blogging. Why? It’s pretty simple. You almost always have to point people to something when you’re using most of these other technologies. If you tweet on Twitter, you should be pushing your readers to a blog post. You should also be posting your audio and video material to your blog … even if you distribute via channels like YouTube and iTunes.

So … let’s say you’re just starting a blog, and your head is swimming over all of the things you think you should do to make it successful. What if I were to tell you there’s just 10 things you need to do to make your blog successful?

These 10 things aren’t exactly the easiest things to do, but they’re not overly difficult, either. It’s just like an old supervisor of mine used to say, “You asked for work when you came here, right?”

That’s why I’m referring you to this article, with the list of 10 things you should do — and I’d say must do — to build an audience for your blog. Why should you perform these steps? Because you don’t want to write to an audience of one — namely, yourself — do you?

If I were writing this one myself, I would have come up with most of them. The one point that I think is pretty brilliant, though, is this one:

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com.

This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it’s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have – your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to EzineArticles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your “Resource Box.” You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

One of my upcoming articles is going to be on article publishing, and how it can help you really build your brand so that you’re thought of as “the expert” in whatever field you’re in. The one thing I didn’t think of, though, is publishing your pillar articles (explained in the list) in the article-publishing sites. Pretty good idea, and it’s now in my own repertoire.

There’s several different article-submission sites out there. EzineArticles, the one that’s mentioned above, is a free site. There are others, though, that are pay sites (meaning that you pay to be in them). I’ve found that EzineArticles’ free basic membership is more than fine for me at the stage I’m at.

By the way, here’s examples of what your articles may look like at EzineArticles, based on what I’ve submitted to them:

Follow Up for Success
When a Call or Voicemail Just Won’t Do

I’d also suggest that you read these for their content, as they’re good business-building suggestions.

Do you have other suggestions for beginning bloggers? Have you used free and/or pay article-submission pay sites, and have thoughts about them? Please share, share alike in the Comments section below.

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.