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 your a successful linky party of your own, we’ve got some great tips.  We’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 your own linky party.

6 Steps for Hosting a Successful Linky Party

1. Get a partner.

Linky partners are so much better with some co-hosts. By having two people join forces to make the linky party happen, each actively involved in spreading its reach, you can do more. 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! Make sure people know when they can expect to see the link share go live.

Also to this end, make it really 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 special, 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 in to a badge anyone can grab and display. Amy Lynn Andrews has a nice tutorial post on how to make a blog button here. NCBN has used “Grab My Button” code generator to easily create HTML code.

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 say thanks to people who participate in your online party by visiting what they submitted and commenting. Oh, and, of course, if people actually leave a comment on your blog post, reply!

Other Ways to Help Host a Successful Linky Party

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

• Start a Facebook group around your linky party,
• Highlight some of your favorite posts (lines, sentences, images) in a blog post about the linky party,
• Create a Twitter list of frequent participants,
• 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 own 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 give bloggers a chance 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!