10 WAYS TO BUILD YOUR AUDIENCE

BLOGWORLDEXPO 2009, LAS VEGAS

@NicoleSimon / nicole-simon.eu

Companion slides

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

psst: last years presentations fit right in “10 ways to build your audience” and “Where do your visitors come from”

What is this about

Ideas on what you should consider once you want to grow your audience

not all of them need to be covered right now

But you should be able to handle themin the future

Traffic can be misleading – and you need to cover all your bases

Think Audience

major traffic sources

subscribers

search

engine

traffic

social bookmarking

life strea

m

subscribers

search engine traffic

social bookmark

ing

life strea

m

more info in slides

Type: Subscribers

Subscribed to your content / your feed through an feed reader or an email subscription

do really read / listen to your content are genuinely interested in you / your brand

/ your products / your offerings have a more personal relationship with you more inclined to leave comment and share /

bookmark / recommend your content ignores everything but the content

Type: Search Engine Visitors

came on your site by accident through a search engine and are interested in finding what they where searching for

could care less about your blog but may be interested in looking around

acts on targeted advertising as this could be a better information than your blog post

Type social bookmarking user comes to your site by discovery in a

social bookmarking service either through random choice or friend

recommendation more interactive than search engine

users as they might reshare your content

Type: Life stream users

Services where I as a user can enter ‘my lifestream’, i.e. add my twitter, my bookmarking, my blog, my pictures all in one place

Friends follow me and if they encounter something interesting go to the link.

Highly interactive, but if it scrolled past me in the timeline, I will not see it

Additional “traffic”

people who want to contact youexample: journalists

people who want to offer you dealsexample: other bloggers

people who want information from you

Big question

What do each of these segments want from you and your site? They are all different!

What do you have to do to help them get what they want?

Each of them needs to be treated differently but you will be able to tie them all together

Think Nicole

What does make Nicole happy? What does help Nicole to get what she

wants? What can I do to make Nicole happy?

(replace Nicole with each of your target groups)

Learn and transfer!

switch mindset start thinking “what can I get out of it” know what you don’t know built up a support group example: look at all sessions of bwe09 get inspired: learn from others

and take notes on it!

think professional media

me, me, me! What is the difference between an advertisement and a magazine / article? What makes you think blogs and podcasts are different?

editorial calendar: have a plan helps you to prepare content

if you want to do partnerships – can you? do you have something to offer?

Cover the basics

Is your blog added in search engines? Sitemap.xml, Webmaster-Tools? if a new posting is done, will it ping? how are your rankings and backlinks? tools of the trade need to be handled by

you you need to understand these in order to

delegate

work like a professional

tools of the trade:how many workers you know just arrive with a hammer or just their brain?

research. use what works for you buy books and information to get

information prepacked and learn in a short amount of time

use tools which will save you time in writing, editing

while this costs money, it helps you save so much more!

think workflow and procedures workflow = f.e. lists you can work

through without having to use your brain everything you do needs to be

outsourced – at least in theory

how do you work? how much time does it take you?

can you optimize? can you outsource parts of it?

which tools work for me?

The conversation prism

think Stumble Upon

this is the first time I ever see your site – do I get what you are, what you do, what I can get here, who you are and why I should give you a thumbs up or tweet about this?

use other pages to gather what you like when you stumble them yourself

think Twitter

think in titles which are retweetable 120 is the new 140 can I easily see your twittername? what is this content about? will others have a reason to point to it (and

then think SU again) Bonus tip:

think landing page think research, networking and other peoples

click

think offline

look at the person in front of you and behind you

offline promotional material which is interesting to them?

Vistaprint and co make for easy postcards

collection of super articles? special pages for events like these?

think Newsletter

What can you provide for newsletter authors?

Which content do you deliver them for free in exchange for visibility and feedback?

your 2-3 sentence bio? your best of articles? how do I contact you for inquiries?! go search for them in your niche – they

will love you [Use helpareporterout.com as well]

think Facebook

just because it is hip does not mean it fits you

while this is a personal tool, you need to think of it professionally

Facebook Fan page knowledge and how to connect the page with the rest will be a must in the future

Tip: FBML boxes are simple

Stop thinking A-Listers

Think Dancing with the stars and Top Chef

you can become like them, but what works for them does most often not work for you - they teach you steps but you need to learn the music

trust in yourself - learn and evolve

Pay it forward

get in the habit of retweets, relink, bookmark forward interesting information freely to other –

it will come back to you honor others who make your life easier give feedback and state what you like and

missed Think: If I make other people happy,

they will make me happy! think of at least one person you know at home

and send them the information from blogworld

THANK YOU :)

QUESTIONS?

Nicole SimonMentoring, Consulting and Training on Social Media, Twitter, Facebook.

nicole-simon.eu@nicolesimon