When it comes to the point of connecting with people, we have to stand by their expectations. Blogging is all about updating people on a topic. Blog should be one that entertains its readers by not just giving information but it should be able to establish a connection with readers, by involving them into a real situation. For example, one can attract readers by involving them into conversation. Metaphors can be used as a good tool for connecting with the audience. Why metaphors? Because they put the readers into a situation where they have to exercise their imagination; see, hear, or feel what the blog is trying to explain to them! The word you is the most powerful word in armory of English language. It depicts the sign of bond between the reader and the blog. A good blog should be personal and use you and I to make it more informal. Now let’s move on to next step, what is a blog? A blog is personal experience shared with the entire world, which includes sharing your views and thoughts with readers. People like you are bloggers and they are ready to share any news or any experience with others. Blogs can be related to anything from personal life advice to advises on commercial grounds. Blogging has become a business from a hobby. There are millions of bloggers who blog every day. By now, you will be thinking why do people blog? So, the answer to this question lies in the fact that everyone wants to be heard by the whole world so people use blog as a medium to reach out to everyone, which has proven to be quite effective. Writing your own blog? Got stuck? What to write? A blog can be related to anything as long as its focused towards a specific audience. Here are few points which can provide a solution to your problem:
- The easiest way is to read newspaper and magazines: Newspapers and magazines are great sources for writing blogs. The articles which are trending are published in newspapers and magazines. From here, you can get fresh ideas to blog on.
- Keep an eye on your competitors: Competition is the best way to get something constructive out of one. And reading your competitor's’ blog will give you topics to write on.
- Social media: It is the place where everyone is present and topics can be found very easily by going through what people are sharing and what is trending currently.
- Reviewing a product: Buyers usually check for reviews on internet for the latest products so that they can make wise choice. This can serve as another topic for you.
- Industry Forums: Forums are a great source to find out what people in your industry are discussing. You can find relevant audience discussing about their challenges.
You can always write on the above topics and many more such kinds of topic which your audience prefers. While writing a blog, a blog must have that “X-factor” with which blogger should be able to mesmerize his/her readers. A good blog should have something which inspires its readers. A blogger should blog on topics in which he is able to understand problems of readers and give solution to the problems. A blog must give easy solutions which are easy to implement. However, only giving solutions to problems may not work all the time; a reader should get inspired through your blog and should implement it in their lives. Thus, a blog should be inspiring and not a snooty one. Readers should be touched, inspired and challenged mentally by the blog and should imagine themselves in that particular situation or accept the challenge which the blog puts them into. This way you’ll be able to engage the reader with your blog and connection can be established. Creating common goals or making common enemy could also lead to a blog’s success. For example, keeping same point of view regarding one or thinking according to the audience could also work in achieving your goals. This will help you strike a chord with the reader. Nevertheless, a blog should never exaggerate any one point again and again which might defame the blog. Hence, a good blog should have emotions which inspires the readers, touches them, unites them and challenges them at the same time. There are many people who have started their business without much success but eventually blogs made them play in millions. Blogs can be used to market anything and everything. Some choose blogs to market their business and do great by writing blogs. We have a few case studies of businesses which made it great through blogging mentioned here for you. Blogging for Business - Some Successful Stories What do you think about a mesh and fencing business? What is so special in that business? It may be nothing. But a mesh and fencing business increased its sales by 85% since they published their blog. Louis E. Page made success overnight by using social media and increased their sales to a mammoth number. What actually helped them to grow a big empire was the content they were providing. It was exactly what the readers wanted. They understood the problem being faced by people and provided them with appropriate solutions which can be easily implemented by the readers. At the same time, they also discussed about the problem being faced by the people and addressed them in their blog. One of their articles received more than 1500 clicks in which they told the use of woven wire fencing to build a horse paddock Similarly, we take up the case of Pat Flynn, the most inspiring blogger in the blogosphere. Pat was laid off in his day job. He had to support his family so he eventually started with his own website named ‘SmartPassiveIncome.com’ to earn money online through various projects. He has done phenomenally well and gained so much fame due to the popularity of his blogs. Pat has not kept his earnings secret from the common man and is earning nearly USD $50,000 per month. He is currently attending industry conferences and writing podcasts for his audience and is also enjoying time-off with his family quite regularly. There are many such inspiring people and their stories to narrate. Blogging has worked wonders in their life. While coming to the point of how to distribute it to the right audience, it becomes a very difficult task to determine what the readers will like. For example, a technology geek won’t like food blogs much or vice versa. So, there always comes the problem of audience and their preferences. To solve the problem of how to distribute the blog to the right audience, you must first identify your readers. Conducting surveys on blogs can be the easiest option without asking of too much personal data as most people won’t prefer to disclose. Writing blogs on different topics can be the answer or having detailed profile of core readers and providing the readers what they want from the blogs can be a long term solution to this problem. Asking the audience questions like whether they prefer written material or pictorial representation, videos or podcasts and collecting more data regarding your audience or readers will help you come up with better blogs. This way the blogger will be able to reach its readers and understand their likes and dislikes in a much better manner. Reaching the right audience can be done very easily through promotion on social media and telling people about your blog. If the blog is related to a trend, it will be reached very easily with little efforts. Giving your readers, easy access to your content and providing it to the right audience will work for you. Now, the daunting task is to attain fans of your blogs and encourage commenting and blog subscription. A black hat way to getting more comments is to create seed users and use them to comment on your blogs. This is the best way to encourage more readers to comment, which will eventually lead to more comments and blog subscription. Commenting on other people’s blogs can also work as other people will eventually follow your blog. Make your comments system easy, so that it does not deter the reader from commenting. Ensure that you read all comments and reply to each one without fail. Readers are looking forward to replies and it also leads to a good following. How about using a poll? Here, everyone can participate and give their opinions. You can also end your blog by asking people to give their comments and opinions on the topic you just wrote about; this way people are more likely to comment to your blog. These strategies are some of the ways you can get more people to start engaging with your blog content, which will eventually make it popular. What do you think are other aspects to engage your audience better? Do let me know below.
