10 WAYS TO BUILD YOUR READERSHIP

Nicole Simoncrueltobekind.orgtwitter.com/nicolesimonfriendfeed.com/nicolesimon

Housekeeping

Title of this session

10 Ways to Build Your Readership Sunday, Sept. 21, 2008: 4:15 PM - 5:15 PM, 219 BlogWorldExpo 2008, Intro To New Media Track "If you don't know where you're going anything will

do". There are more than ten ways to build your audience but where do you start? Do you need to do what the A-Listers use or can you ignore it? What are must haves and no-no's? Comparing different approaches, this session will give you a better insight from when to use which strategies and how to make them work for you.

This session is part of the "Intro To New Media" Track and geared towards professional and businesses use of blogs and podcasts.

What we will cover today

different ways in growing your audience and what you should be careful about

defining what your audience is in order to grow it

short look at statistics and analytics blog centric, because it is the basis of

what you do

Companion slides

this presentation references the other session “Where Do Your Visitors Come From & What Do They Do on Your Site?”

slides to both can be found at crueltobekind.org in a few days and will be up at http://www.slideshare.net/nicolesimon

Find more of this topic

use a tool like stumbleupon.com to discover new sites in areas you are interested in and subscribe to these

add the interests like “social media” or “weblogs” and more to your interests

http://nixande.stumbleupon.comstart exploring my tag cloud and subscribe to the areas you want

use searches in tools like delicious

Where do you want to go?

what do you want?

more readers or listeners? more subscribers? more advertisers? more comments? more trackbacks? ?

depending on what you want you will need to go big time or (better)

just grow organically may have to scrutinize some of your

ideals work with method and a system should measure the results be aware: what works for others does

not necessary work for you

you are not the unpopular kid starting out a blog or growing it can

make you fell like being the unpopular kid in school

but it is much more like the new kid or being new in town.

Ask yourself: “I am new in town. How should I behave to make new friends. And: Who can help me?”

If you ask for help …

can others help you or would it be awkward to do so?

do you have enough content to share and show?

do you have a clear focus?

Promote yourself the usual way use your blog in your signature of every mail add your blog to your business card (if

doable) or use additional cards for yourself with the address

add your link to all networking sites you use (Facebook, twitter etc)

put up advertisement ? there must be more >> where does new audience come from?

who is visiting me?(explained in more detailed in companion slides)

Analytics

Feedburner

use feedburner to track numbers (and export)

different to set up per blog. if not possible, rather choose a blog which allows you to use it

not perfect but everybody has the same numbers

Google Analytics

free tool (you pay with your data) easy to install and variety of reports can mail reports to dedicated addresses

Where does it come from

where do users come from

Referring sites

(explained in more detailed in companion slides)

Not all traffic is equal

major traffic sources

Balance is different

You blog for different audiences immediate audience of your subscribers later search engine visitors come to you have a look at your content – does it

work for both groups or is it not understandable without reading everything else on your blog?

self explaining content is also more easy to share

Make your blog accessible

ask yourself for every of these groups: if they come to my site, will they find what they are looking for and will they ‘convert’ to your goal

do they find their way around your blog? do they understand what this is? “most popular” is irrelevant for your

subscribers but highly relevant for other visitors

no guarantees of course :)

The road to success

before you start promoting … if people will come, do you have already

something to show off which would make them subscribe?

be realistic in your expectationsrather go for smaller numbers and be happy than go big time and have nothing but stress

you can make a name for yourself without having much traffic on your blog

be recognizable and authentic use a photograph on your site use a unique design which clearly shows

what your site is about use a recognizable avatar on all other

sites choose a nickname if you have a too

common name

have a focus and stick to it

personal mixed bag blogs never will be as successful as topic / niche oriented blogs with a clear focus

they work for some A-Liters but they have other ways to grow their audience

Tip: do split up blogs to be topic centric and attract more visitors

podcasters do the same

decide on a format and stick to it for a while

be consistent in delivery and length switch if it does not work but give people

time to prepare use ID3 tags and do have show notes if

possible!

Be reliable

be consistent on your schedule (at least 2-3 times a month, better more)

be reliable in what you produce as your content

manage expectations tip: learn from magazines, have an

editorial calendar and mark important dates for you to prepare

be a resource

lists and alike are highly popular think about what you would like to have

and do it yourself example: overview of all relevant

information for visiting this conference / the party guide / the map with all locations … pay it forward

participate

actively search for content that you are writing about through Google and Lifestream tools

Interact with the audience there, they might be interested and check you out

note: in order to use Lifestream tools it is a good idea to already have one

example: http://search.twitter.com/ and search for blogworldexpo

Share content

ask friends to submit your content to bookmarking sites or do it yourself to spread awareness and increase backlinks

get yourself users on those bookmarking platforms which are used in your area, and fill out your profile!

reshare to get attention understand that you need not ‘love’ this

but it is part of your business

Blog carnivals

search if there are carnivals for your topic

you submit an article of the last x days and once the carnival is finished a link to all posts is published

if there is no carnival for your topic, start one!

Interact with commenters

you do not need to answer every single comment but you should answer most of them

use the chance and visit the commenters blog and if there is something of interest to you, leave a comment there or share content from that site

Interact with backlinks

check your backlinks on tools like technorati, google blogsearch and alike

read the content and react leave a comment send an email share it in a bookmarking service (frowned

upon)

Offline promotion

use the backside of your business card to list your most favorite postings or the ones you want to push

use stickers with your blog / podcast name on it

think about useful merchandise to give away

The main way to grown your audience be passionate be yourself do outreach have fun! :)

THANKS FOR LISTENINGQUESTIONS?

Nicole Simonhttp://crueltobekind.orghttp:// twitter.com/nicolesimonhttp:// friendfeed.com/nicolesimon