My friend and former coworker, Mike Desjardins[156] asked me how people go about growing a blogging audience. It's a great question. I run into tons of people who have wonderful blogs,[157] blogs that deserve much more attention than they receive. What gives? What can you do to grow your audience? If you want to grow your audience, you first need to know who they are, then give them easy-to-consume chunks of content, promote your work effectively, and be persistent.
First and foremost, who are you writing this blog for? If the answer is "myself" and you have more than one RSS subscriber, congratulations. You've done it. If the answer is, "Anyone into _____," (e.g., "anyone into tech") and you have more than 10 subscribers, congratulations. Be clear about the audience. If I'm going to bother giving you some of my time, I want something back.
Let's take Mitch Joel's Six Pixels of Separation.[158] This is a top-shelf blog, with clearly written content, that speaks to people looking to better understand the future of digital influence. Brilliant work, considerately written, and created in such a way that I come away thinking about how this impacts me. Perfect. Spot-on.
Other great examples of focused blogs that target audiences well:
300WordsADay.com(This is a religious blog by my friend, Jon Swanson. Being that I'm not very religious, it should tell you that I love his writing and his engagement methods, no matter what he's writing about. That he makes me think about religion is a bonus.)
Technically, I could give you links all night, but the point is this. Look at how the content is focused on a specific audience. Look forward a few posts and then back. With few exceptions, you can tell exactly who the audience is.
Want to find some more decent blogs? Check out alltop.com. It's the Internet's magazine rack.
First, journalists know this, but I'll tell you: Start with the best stuff right up at the top. Don't do it as a buildup. Second, make it such that people can read it in chunks. Check out my blog at http://chrisbrogan.com. I have headings that break up the post. I have bullets that break up the post. I've led with a graphic.
Break things up so that human eyes can read them easier. Dense posts and superlong posts are a turnoff. Oh, and that's another thing. Brevity. It rules. Pass it on.
First, make sure there's a very prominently displayed link for folks to subscribe to your RSS feed for your blog. The bigger and more attention-drawing, the better. Second, add an e-mail subscription option to your blog. I prefer using FeedBurner to manage all that. When I added a very explicit "Get this blog sent to your e-mail" button on my site, my subscriptions leapt up.
Second, be sure your blog's URL is loaded into pretty much every social network where you belong. Add it to MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Flickr, and wherever else you can bring awareness. Make sure you submit it to directories like Yahoo! and Google. Get that URL out there where people can find it. I've had lots of interesting moments where someone has found my blog via Facebook or LinkedIn.
Third, add it to your e-mail signature and your business cards. If your company doesn't give you business cards, go to Overnight Prints,[159] Vista Print,[160] or Moo[161] and buy some. For 30 dollars or so, they help people find you (and your blog!).
In services like Twitter, promote your blog posts from time to time. Not every post, but ones where you feel you've done well. I never use automatic post-to-Twitter links. They just don't seem to net decent conversations. Instead, try using a conversational tone. For instance, when I'm finished posting, I will send Twitter a message something like this: "I shared my thoughts on growing your audience. What are your ideas?" Then I link to my post. You don't have to follow, but you'll know exactly why I asked for your attention.
One quick note: It's not always about your blog. Don't be "that person."
I could also say, "Be consistent," but in this case, I want you to persist in not only putting out your content, but also in making it better. All of us can make our stuff better. I would do well to focus on my takeaways. You might need to pare down your word count. There's always room to do better work.
Furthermore, try lots of new things. Stretch out the medium. Think of new ways to ask the same old questions. Decide on challenging approaches to blogging in ways that powerfully reveal the information your audience seeks from you. Persist in such matters, never accepting that your work is flawless, but instead analyzing your responses and your increase or decrease in traffic, giving more effort accordingly.
Another way that I've increased traffic to my blog is a basic tenet: Comment on great blogs. Write and submit guest posts to top blogs in space similar to yours (but be careful of how you guest-post[162]). Add occasional links to your blog posts in places like Flickr. Consider contests. Participate in other people's events. Find groups of bloggers you like and see if you fit into their circles of friends. Write a series so that people want to participate and come back for more. Make your URL memorable.
And beyond all that? Be as human as possible—in the most interesting senses of that idea. Make sense?