How to Host a Successful Linky Party

How to Host a Successful Linky Party

Linky parties can drive new traffic to your blog and, even better, establish lasting relationships with fellow bloggers. If you want to know how to host a successful linky party, I’ve got some great tips.  I’ve listed some of our favorite linky parties to participate in (as well as define what linky parties are) here, but let’s say you want to host a linky party of your own.

 

6 Steps for Hosting a Successful Linky Party

1. Get a partner

Linky partners are so much better with some co-hosts. You can do more by having two people join forces to make the linky party happen, each actively involved in spreading its reach. Twice the power! The party will also be better defined as a group-share, all-are-welcome party when there is more than one person encouraging contributions and commenting on blogs (see below).

2. Be consistent with when your party is and what it is about

If you are doing a regular link-up, be consistent! Ensure people know when they can expect to see the link share go live.

Also, to this end, make it clear what sort of content and blog posts are appropriate to be linked up. You don’t want something to be too narrowly defined; you might not get the reach you are hoping for but do have a theme. If you let people know it’s coming (see below), you can even provide writing prompts, questions to answer, or more. Make sure it is easy for bloggers to understand what makes your party unique and what they can add.

3. Let people know it’s coming

If you are doing a one-time link-up extravaganza, this is critical. Tell people it is coming not once, not twice, not seven, but twenty times. Help them keep your linky party at the front of their mind by cutting through all the social media traffic.

If you are doing a weekly or regularly-scheduled link-up, you still have to remind people.  Remember: people are busy! And planning ahead helps everyone. Make your linky party successful by helping other bloggers prepare and be ready.

4. Make it easy to enter the link-up

Too many hoops, too many requirements, too hard. People won’t do it. Think hard about this fact before you decide to make “commenting or sharing at least x number of posts” a prerequisite for participating. Bloggers will share if they enter, trust us, but a lot of bloggers will be scared of the commitment required and may be scared off if you ask for too much.

5. Prepare an easy-to-grab button

Let people have something that is easy to share that links back to YOU, the hosting site. First, design that button using PicMonkey or Canva. Second, make it into a badge anyone can grab and display. Amy Lynn Andrews has a nice tutorial post on how to make a blog button here. The NC Blogger Network has used the “Grab My Button” code generator to create HTML code easily.

6. Comment on the blog posts entered

This is key not only to motivate people to come back but also to create that sense of community. You would be surprised how many linky hosts don’t do this, though. Bloggers took time to link up to you. And, yes, they may have many motivations for doing so, but reward them – especially if you want them to repeat the behavior. You should always thank participants for honoring your space and making your linky party successful.

So thank people for participating in your online party by visiting what they submitted and commenting. Oh, and, of course, if people leave a comment on your blog post, reply!

4 bonus tips to Help Host a Successful Linky Party

There are other top-notch things you can do outside the six listed above, like:

1. Start a Facebook group around your linky party,
2. Highlight some of your favorite posts (lines, sentences, images) in a blog post about the linky party,
3. Create a Twitter list of frequent participants,
4. And share, share, share!

But always remember that a linky party is about building a community. It isn’t just about driving traffic for yourself and getting social shares on your content. The reason to host a party is that you want to encourage bloggers to learn from each other. Much like that cocktail party, you want all your friends to meet each other and then maybe you can meet new friends while you’re at it.

Your ultimate goal for hosting a party is to allow bloggers to read new content, meet new bloggers, and be introduced to new writing! Make a community around your link-up.

Now get out there and party!

If you enjoyed this article, you’ll enjoy all the other blogging tips on this site! 

About Allison

Allison Barrett Carter is a writer who shares how to live a traditional life and still have great family adventures on her website – The Family Trip Online.