The most valuable lesson I have learned is to utilize your social network. The biggest and most popular social network is no doubt the Facebook, founded by the legendary nerd Mark Zuckerberg.
There are a several very useful functions on Facebook, for example the Share button, Like button, and Fan page. The best of all, they're free of charge. For small-fry blogger like me, cost is most important factor I care in choosing the methods of promoting my page. So FOC is good.
Make sure you place Like and Share buttons for every single blog post you publish. So that people who find it interesting have higher tendencies to share it on Facebook. Convenience is playing a very important role here. Readers might be reluctant to share if they have to copy the page link and share it manually, it's too troublesome.
Second thing is the Like button. It serves more than just a tool for people to "like" your post, it's rating. When people see a high number of "like" for a particular post. They might stop to read your contents, to find out why so many people like it. Herd mentality is the key.
The third thing is Fan page. Create a fan page for your page. When people become fans, they indirectly follow you. To certain extents, fan page has the functionality of Twitter, RSS and bookmark. When you update your fan page, they will see it. It's better than Twitter because your fans can have a platform of discussion on Facebook. The downside is that people might not login to Facebook everyday or they might miss your update on. So, the best thing is to get your readers bookmark your page. That's it, my 2 cents of opinion.
