It happens all the time.  I come upon a wonderful blog post and want to help the blogger out by spreading the link, only…the only way I can do that is to copy the link into Tiny Url, then head over to Twitter, Facebook, Bookblips, wherever.  What some bloggers don’t realize is that there is an untapped world of visitors out there in the viral world and they’re missing the opportunity for people to help them get visitors simply by making their visitors work too hard to get them.

You’ll see the high profile blogs make it easy for readers to spread their news but a lot of bloggers don’t realize how simple it is even if they are using a free blogging platform like Wordpress or Blogger.

While there are umpteen places to find gadgets to put on your blog for people to spread your news, the two I absolutely love is Tweetmeme and Add to Any.  Both have been terrific at letting me post to the social networks with less effort on my own blogs and have made it easier for others to help me spread my blog posts, too.

Tweetmeme

Starting with Tweetmeme, this handy gadget allows people to send your link to Twitter with one hit of the button.  All you have to do is sign up for an account, then scroll down to the bottom of the page to find “Retweet Button.” To save you some time, click here.

If you have a free blogging platform, hit “Web Button” and it will give you the code.  Because this is javascript, the free Wordpress blogging platform won’t allow you to use it, but if you’re self-hosted, you’re in luck.  Just add the code:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"></script>

at the top or bottom of each of your blog posts.  However, there is a plugin which will make it simpler and you can find out all about that here.  With the plugin, it comes up automatically without you having to add the code each time.

AddtoAny.com

If you don’t even want to bother with Tweetmeme (I use both), you can use this handy dandy bookmarketing gadget.  I’ve gone into my template at my old Blogger blogs and added the code for this button and it showed up nicely but you have to be familiar with messing around with your template or you might lose everything (back it up just in case).

It’s actually only a matter of adding the code to the appropriate place so you really need not worry.  If you’re on the new template Blogger came out with a couple of years ago, I think it’s a matter of drag and drop (correct me if I’m wrong) but if you’re stuck in your ways like me and have the old template at Blogger, then you need to go into your template and add a snippet of code near the bottom of your template.

If you’re too afraid to go into your template, you can click here and get the code to add to your individual blog posts in edit mode.

Unfortunately, if you’re on the free Wordpress blogging platform, you can’t use this one because of the javascript (correct me if you have found out a way to do that).  However if you are self-hosted, you can get the plugin here.

What I like about this button is that it doesn’t just go straight to Twitter.  There are loads of places you can send your link to – Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, Squidoo, Propeller,  Yahoo Buzz, Allvoices, and this barely touches the surface.  All with just one click of the button.

If you want a little color to your blog, you can use Let’s Get Social, but I found it doesn’t have as many book marking sites (that I use anyway) as AddtoAny.

ShareThis is also good.

And..one more thing.  I have to give credit where credit is due especially since she’s a wonderful person and very helpful, but Book Marketing Buzz’s new look is thanks to Tracee Gleichner.  You can email Tracee at novelnoise (at) live.com if you are like me – no time nor brain cells to figure out how to go from free to self-hosted.  She whipped this up in a matter of  hours and she works very inexpensively!

If any of you decide to add these wonderful gadgets to help you promote your blog, leave a comment below so we can go over and promote you, too.  And if you want to find out how great these buttons work, click my Tweetmeme button at the top and/or my AddtoAny button at the bottom of this post!

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