I have been promoting, not writing. Trying to work on audience development before I post anything else. I have a backlog of material with that being said, so I want to try and deliver a few nuggets of wisdom that I have come across. I have mentioned some before, but they are worthy for startup bloggers. So here is the latest installment with 3 tips for audience development.
1. If you are not using photos in your blog post and tweets and Facebook posts...stop. Don't do anything else until you check out Canva or PicMonkey or Snappa so that you look like you care and create strong visual content. I don't mean that harshly, but there is nothing worse than opening up a blog post and there is a plain old picture off of your phone with no border, enhancement, nothing. OR worse...I saw one that the writer did not even rotate and it was posted sideways. So why would I want to follow you if you can't even be bothered to care? Mine are by no means a work of art, but I am trying. I read and try to imitate what works for huge successful visual experts like Emily la Grange. She talks about successful, cohesive images that brand you so that people are able to know to whom the image belongs to without having to read it. I have mentioned her before and you really must follow her for all of her weekly tips. She runs various platform tips each day. Here is a sample of hers below from her twitter, property of Emily la Grange. This image holds her fact in her tweet and provides data. People love data. I myself am data driven. This one in particular is a powerful fact that we as bloggers, need to take into consideration.
2. I keep saying this and I keep seeing it not being done...have you defined your audience? If you are a mom blogger, for instance since that is my primary audience, who in particular are you targeting? You can do a mom blog as a broad spectrum, but you'll never make a dent in the traffic. Are you a breast feeding mom who is vegan? Now you are talking a little sweeter to readers; this is niche marketing. We love the occasional anecdotes about family, but really, we don't need your quirky stories all the time. Give me something I need. Try surveying your readers for what matters most to them and post topics based on your readership's answers. We discuss this at length in my interview on the Huffington Post with now, #1 Global Digital Marketer, Sam Hurley. Sam points out, "Obviously the deeper you go, the narrower your audience…but also the more engaged..." You have to figure out what makes your audience tick and why they should choose you to read
Here is an example of both a creative image with data and my niche target:
3. Lastly, please for the love of all that is holy use HASHTAGS!!!! If you don't have a large twitter following, and even if you do, it can't be searched by someone looking for that topic if you have no hashtags. Example: say you only have 143 followers and you post a tweet with no hashtags...that is all of the people who will see your topic. Get creative and find hashtags trending or what is relevant to the post and use it. Don't use more than three or so (use your judgment but it's not Instagram), but use them!!!!! I can't stress that enough. I say it a lot in my posts, but I still see great blog posts that no one saw because they aren't using Twitter effectively. I actually read all that I tweet out because I hate it when people post stuff that is broken or no longer up and was it really helpful or just the same ole regurgitated crap from 800 other people? I like to know it before I share it. The same thing for Instagram, but there you can use up to 30 hashtags. I have gotten lots of audience build up by changing up my relevance of posts with hashtags to get in front of more people.
"When someone clicks on a hashtag on any of these social networks, they’ll automatically be shown all other public posts that include the same hashtag. This is incredibly valuable for a small business because it can expose your content to a wider audience, and help your business get found. If someone does a search on a social network, or Google, for a hashtag you used, your post — and potentially even your profile — can be found by someone you never would have reached without hashtags". See this and the full article by Constant Contact on their blog, here.
I am not trying to say that I am the most perfect at this, but at 4500 followers and steady growth, I feel I am doing something right. But you have to read. You have to research. Twitter is a fickle beast as is Google and Facebook and you have to stay up to date on algorithm changes so that your posts get seen first and foremost. To be successful at blogging, you have to have a game plan, not just throw out lot of posts. Again, read that interview I linked to above on the Huffington Post; a game plan all devised and ready to go...but you have to read it.
