Participating in Book Blog Memes

by Donna Huber

Since I found this book blog meme directory a few weeks ago I've been trying a few out. Memes can be a great way to get inspiration for posts, increase traffic and comments to your blog, and expose your blog to new readers. Yet, memes can be time consuming, lead to lower quality posts, and cause a high bounce rate. Keeping the good and bad in mind I have worked on a strategy to enhance the positives and limit the negatives.

One, tried different memes

By looking over the list from the meme directory, I identified several I had not participated in before (or had not participated in for a while) and I could easily plan ahead to add into my scheduled posts. I used It's Monday! What are you reading?; First Chapter, First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros; WWW Wednesdays; Book Beginnings on Friday; and the Friday 56. By participating new to me memes I gained exposure to a new audience of bloggers. I recognized a few bloggers, but for the most part this was our first encounter with each other. I have gained new followers on Twitter and Google+.

Two, used different days and limited posts to one or two memes a week.

As I chose memes that were tied to a specific day of the week it helped to vary which memes I did each week. And limiting how many memes I did each week so that my readers wouldn't think "another meme" (said in that bored teenager voice). If you have ever participated in a blog meme you know one of the expectations is to visit other participating blogs and leaving comments. Again, if I did a meme each day of the week then I would be leaving a LOT of comments. I struggle to visit 10 blogs and leave comments a week, I wouldn't have time to do my own blogging (not to mention my other life commitments) if I did a meme every day and had to visit all those blogs. Even only doing 1 a week I don't always get to all the blogs participating, though I always shoot to visit the ones that visit my blog as well as 10 other participating bloggers.

Three, paired the meme with a review.

The Tuesday and Friday memes most lent themselves to being paired with a review. By pairing them with some of my regular content, the new visitors get a look at what my blog has to offer without having to sift through past posts. Yes, this means that my bounce rate may increase because they only have to visit the one post. But the time spent on the site might be a longer as they read through the review and not just the meme. It also increases the quality (presumably) of the post. It also looks good to the author/publisher that people are leaving comments on the post. I would like to branch out to pairing a meme with a guest post. Word of caution though, I don't want to stray too far from the spirit of the meme. I don't want to seem like I'm just using the meme to draw numbers to my blog or bringing visitors here under false pretenses. That is why I used the excerpt memes (book beginnings, The Friday 56) because added excerpts and teasers to a review enhances a review for those coming to the post for the review and it gives those coming for the post for the teasers a little more info on the book, which makes it easier to write a comment.

If you are interested in doing a meme/guest post pairing, let me know. I'm also looking for guest posts (Top 10 list, article, or interview) for a Halloween themed week. So any horror or supernatural/paranormal thriller authors interested should also send me an email.