10 Ways to Grow Your Audience

10 Ways to Build Your AudienceBlogworldexpo 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
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

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10 Ways to Grow Your Audience

by Nicole Simon on Nov 05, 2009

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