So a year or so ago – January 11, to be precise – I published a piece on this blog about some of the changes that I was going to be making.
I’d been experimenting with podcasting for a few months leading up to the post, and had really enjoyed the experience.
READ MOREWhile browsing the homepage of my preferred sports site the other day, I saw an ad for a “content engine”, to help with blog post ideas.
Given that I’ve had a little bit of a battle in the past with companies and consultants that offer a quick-fix “this will change your life/business!” promise, I thought I’d check this solution out.
I wasn’t disappointed.
From the blurb of the sales pitch, this “content engine” would help you…
…to quickly crank out share-worthy, clickable blog content that gets you traffic and converts that traffic into sales.
Okay. Sounds great. Traffic and conversions is every business’s goal (and bloggers – after all, conversions can be email sign ups, comments, downloads of ebooks, etc.).
Continuing down the sales page, though, quickly shows the flaw that this “content engine”, and other automated solutions like it, run into.
As part of the solution, buyers of the “content engine” are provided with seven “fill-in-the-blank” blog post templates.
These templates are the ones that will get your content shared, clicked, and lead to sales (from the earlier blurb).
Using them will help you create the seven types of content that get the most traction, regardless of niche, topic or industry.
This all sounds great – but is it really? Looking at the templates reveals another “flaw”:
Take a look at the bracketed additions – notice anything consistent? Yep – every single one is using ideas, content and authority from someone other than you.
Which, as a tactic, is kinda lazy, in the long run.
Start to see the picture?
Yes, we sometimes have content blocks, where we can’t think of anything to say, or publish.
Yes, we want to drive more traffic and eyeballs to our content, especially if we’re just getting started.
But at what cost?
If you want the long-term appeal that blogging and content can bring, you need to start building for the long-term from the start.
Quick buzz traffic from folks whose egos dictate what they participate in is not the way to go. Nor is repurposing already frequently shared and frequently quoted data.
Instead, think of your traffic. Your audience. Your goals.
A little while back, my wife was talking to me about her blog.
She’s an independent author and, as such, uses her blog a lot to talk about her books, her characters, events, etc.
One of the things she said was she found it hard to come up with ideas, given that there’s only so much you can talk about plot and print.
I asked her if she’d ever considered being more personal. Let readers get to know the real person behind the author.
What inspires her; what she’s afraid of; what her goals are beyond sales and recognition.
As a result, she started to publish more personal posts, with one in particular getting over 800 shares on Facebook and more than 40 comments.
From my own experience, even though I stopped writing directly about business on here in 2014, I still get business inquiries, along with emails and comments on how certain posts aren’t restricted to the personal topic I’ve written about.
Which makes sense – because our whole lives are one big blog post idea.
These are just some ways that everyday occurrences can result in a business lesson. Which can then be turned into a piece of content.
Because if there’s one thing I’ve found to be true, both in business and in life, it’s this – people relate to real life.
If your people (your customers, your colleagues, your clients) can relate to your life and all you learn from it, it’s pretty much a guarantee that the goals you have will be easier to meet.
Try it – you might just find out it’s all you needed to do to begin with.
One of the topics that continues to do the rounds is that of blog comments.
Do they still count? Should blogs just switch off comments and become a content publication instead? Are comments even valued as they once were?
This follows the decision by many bloggers and content creators to close down their comments section, citing?all the conversation is on social media now, there’s too much spam, and it takes time to moderate the community.
For me, though, it?s less external issues that have caused these sites to close down comments, and more internal ones ? namely, the blogger (or blog owner) stopped showing up and caring.
I used to follow a lot of the blogs that closed their comments section(s) down, and something that became clear as they were getting close to that decision was the blogger was seen less and less in the comments.
Whereas before they?d been very active in helping build community and hold active conversations with commenters, now they were only replying to comments that praised them or their post.
That?s if they even showed up at all.
Instead of a thriving, interactive comment section, there was simply comment after comment without a reply, either from the blogger or other commenters.
In that kind of environment, of course blog comments are going to suffer ? after all, how long would you stay talking to someone on the phone, or in-person, if there was no reply coming back?
Not long.
Then there’s the “I’m too busy to do all the back-end stuff” argument, which – in fairness – has some validity. But to what degree?
I get it. We?re all busy, and we all have finite time in our days.
There?s only so much we can allocate to our blogs versus elsewhere, and remain effective on both sides of the coin.
But then isn?t that true for everything in life?
Don?t we make decisions based on what we want and how to get there, as opposed to giving up because the work to get there is a little more than what we want to put in?
It?s easy to blame social media for blogging?s woes. Much like blaming others for our own failings in life, scapegoats are more attractive than self-analysis.
But it?s not as clear-cut as ?all the conversations are happening on social media?. They may well be happening a lot ? but guess where that traffic will come when they want to see the source of that discussion?
Once that traffic arrives, if they find a comments area that looks as fun and inviting as a McDonald?s restaurant does to a food snob, of course they?ll leave immediately.
If, on the other hand, they see a blog that opens up to others, and ? imagine this! ? actively converses with them, they?ll stay. Comment. Reply. Subscribe.
Social media won?t ?kill? blog comments ? bloggers will.
But it doesn?t have to be this way.
Unless you let it be.
When I first started blogging “seriously”, it was a continuation of a public relations blog that I had, back in my early solo consultancy days.
The goal was simple ? to share thoughts and ideas on social media and where that fit in the business world.
When people think of growing an engaged audience, it’s usually in reference to blog readers; or an email list; or visitors to a sales page on your website; or listeners to your podcast; a social network community, or similar.
But what are we really building an audience for?
Is it simply to participate (click through on an offer or download a product)? Or is it to interact, via comments on a blog, tweets, Google+ conversations and more?
If it’s the former, then do we even care about engagement?
After all, no-one says anything on a sales page except the seller, so where would the need for engagement be?
If it’s the latter, though, and you’re looking to build a truly engaged audience or following, then understanding your blog audience is key to building your goals for what that engagement will look like, and what your end goal really is.
When I first started my own blog, there was no agenda for it to be a lead generation platform. While a lot of business blogs will act as a cover for a sales message (and there’s nothing wrong with that), my goal was a bit different.
Instead of having a ton of ads and affiliate links, and subconscious messages to drive traffic to the website of the agency I ran at the time, I simply wanted a place where I could put ideas out and have others respond to them, no matter whether the response was positive or negative.
There were so many blogs out there that simply state a point of view and don’t encourage further conversation – I found little to get excited about on these blogs. So I made a decision.
While I couldn’t guarantee that I’d get a lot of readers, I would guarantee that those who did find me would arrive at a place where their view was just as important as mine, if not more so.
I’d also keep my viewpoints honest, even if it meant pissing off the “leaders” in the space that I was blogging about (and that’s happened a few times!).
Again, this meant that readers would know that they could come to my blog and learn exactly how I felt about something, and they’d have the platform to share their frustrations too, whether they agreed with me or not.
By doing this, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have had some great discussions on here, and these have continued across the web on platforms like Google+ and Facebook walls.
There may not have been a huge amount of conversation in the beginning, but I stuck to my goal of having an open mic where all opinions are respected equally. For me, this has led to the growth of the blog since these early days more than anything else.
Of course, like anyone, I’ve made mistakes along the way, and I know I’ll make more – that’s just how we are.?For example, a few of my early posts were the kind I call “traffic jams” – lots of traffic, but not going anywhere.
Basically, the types of post that were easy to write but had little real substance.
That’s not to say they were written that way deliberately – every post I’ve written has been with good intent.
But from a satisfaction viewpoint, there was little to be had from some of these earlier posts. I could have easily stayed on that path, and would have probably had a lot more subscribers than I do today.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I wanted somewhere that would be a real source of engagement. So I learned from the early posts, and made a more conscious effort to write more questioning posts, and try to offer up ideas that weren’t available elsewhere.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Write more questioning posts, and offer up ideas that aren’t available elsewhere #pureblogging” quote=”Make a conscious effort to write more questioning posts, and offer up ideas that aren’t available elsewhere”]
And it worked.
My subscriber list grew, as did the engagement with my readers – and not just on my own blog.
There have been some great examples of continued discussion as readers took the original viewpoint into a brand new direction and really made me think about the original post.
For someone that thrives on that kind of exchange, you can’t ask for much more than that.
It’s not just the interaction where the benefits have come. By building an area of trust where people would feel welcome in a safe and open community, it resulted in that same community showing their own value.
For example, when a non-profit consultant attacked me personally regarding a social media-led charity project I had founded, the community rallied in numbers to counter the claims, resulting in her removing the piece from her blog.
They also rallied round me when I was seriously ill in 2010, and for that I will be eternally grateful. So, yes, opening up your blog offers some huge benefits.
That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have done anything differently – heck, if we’re always satisfied, then we aren’t growing! If I had my time again, I would have implemented some things differently.
I started off writing a blog post a day (and sometimes I posted more than once on the same day). Sometimes this made me publish stuff that, in hindsight, could have (should have) been better.
In the middle of 2011, I made a conscious decision to post less frequently and really ask questions of the stuff I wrote about. I’d like to think it made me a better blogger and resulted in deeper conversations and points of view being exchanged.
Let me rephrase that – I would not have been afraid to speak more honestly. There were times early on when I wouldn’t have offered a negative opinion about certain people, since I (incorrectly) thought they were right.
Turns out we all get blinded by vacuous respect.
When I realized this, and began writing openly about questionable practices or calling out BS, it opened up a new level of understanding between blogger and reader, since others were clearly thinking the same thing.
One of the things many bloggers complain about is that social sites like Twitter and Google+ have seen comment numbers decrease, as conversations about a post shift to the network as opposed to taking place on the blog itself.
But that’s missing the point.
Engagement comes in all shapes and sizes and, while your blog may be the most desired place for discussion, true engagement allows the discussion to expand wherever people feel most comfortable talking.
If I was to do anything differently here, it would have been to get active on a Facebook Page sooner, or be more involved in social conversations as opposed to trying to limit them to my blog.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Engagement comes in all shapes and sizes – don’t limit conversations to just your blog.” quote=”Engagement comes in all shapes and sizes – don’t limit conversations to just your blog”]
Because, ironically, I’ve tended to find that the more willing I am to converse away from my blog, the more likely people are to click through and read more of my stuff.
And that’s a win-win in anyone’s book.
Of course, this is just personal experience and thoughts on my own blogging journey. Will the above work for you in helping to meet your own goals? Maybe, maybe not.
A lot will obviously depend on your own data. For example, going by my analytics, the demographic of my readers is absolutely right for the content I’m producing.
And tools like Postmatic, and the conversation that springs from there, can help?me optimize even further for new audiences.
I know that when I’ve used the framework of what’s worked for me when helping others set up a new blog, they do tend to find a good level of engagement from the off.
So, the fundamentals mentioned above may be useful – but don’t quote me on that!
One thing that is guaranteed, though, is this: if you want to build engagement, then build your learning first and never stop learning.
If you can see where you’re going right, and learn to notice where you’re going wrong, it’s a lot easier to take the steps needed to meet your own success metrics, whatever they may look like.
And if you can do that? Well, you’ve just laid the foundations in building your engagement model. Now you just need to keep building.
And with the right data behind you to support these foundations, the next steps won’t be as difficult as the early ones.
