Another way is to contact some fellow writers and agree to Tweet, Facebook, and comment. An ideal set up is with 4 of you who agree to place well-thought out comments (not the spammy kind) on each others posts and to help promote each other. This steps up your Google presence a little more and if done well can lower your Alexa ranking.

One note, try to stay within your niche. You don’t want to waste the time of others (or yours) who aren’t going to benefit from your content and from whom you won’t benefit:)

The last way is not to get discouraged…keep plugging away at social media networking. It’s like getting rejection letters, one day that’s all you get until you get your first acceptance and then your ball starts rolling!

Now, I wonder how people can get up with already-established hashtag communities, like the former #blogtaxi one you mentioned? I know from experience that getting them started can be tough. Do you have any experience with/suggestions for it?

You mentioned how social media helps you network, but I would like to take that one step further. When you do network, hook up with three or four other writers and establish a method of letting them know when you have posts on your blog. Some of us used #blogtaxi for a while and it worked well to get comments on the posts. You send out the hashtag on Twitter, along with a mention for the users you want to stop by and the link for the post. They stop by, read, comment, tweet and Fb it. This helps to get your info out there via their connections, too. One thing I want to mention, the point is to get your name out there AND build your tribe (the people that need your info and love to shout it for you), so when you network, try to make sure you are networking with people that can use what you have to offer.

Ok, sorry for the long post! Love, love your blog and your very helpful info! Thanks!

@ Trevor – I would recommend the blog and/or website (more sensibly, a combination of the two), but I wouldn’t recommend article distribution sites like Ezine and Hub – UNLESS the creative writer is teaching others about creative writing (in addition to writing his own stories). I’ll look more into this and dedicate a post to it. (I’ll update here when the post is up.)

I definitely love (and identify with) the asking for help one, too. When I first got into this business, I thought I could learn it ALL on my own. Fortunately (today even more so than back then – the Internet moves so faaaaaaaaaaaaast!), we CAN learn a lot on our own thanks to all the quality sites, blogs, books, etc. (and a lot of it’s free – bonus!). It didn’t take me long to realize, though, that in order to really sink my pen into freelance writing (haha, I’m so punny tonight), I needed to be able to do more than just write, and read the occasional blog post. These days, I have a collection of “experts” or “mentors” I turn to when I need something (or know someone who needs something) – whether it’s about writing, editing, creativity, or something even more specific (say, e-book publishing). Sometimes I ask for help directly; other times I scour their sites, classes, blogs, articles, etc. for help.