Presented at Podcamp Halifax 2013. Any questions? http://www.twitter.com/andrewkonoff

1. How to build
an enormously popular
and successful blog
by Andrew Konoff
Saturday, 19 January, 13

2. Warning!
Participation enforced.
Bad language ahead.
I’ll talk about philosophy.
Saturday, 19 January, 13

3. An overview
1. It’s a process, not a guarantee
2. There are four and a half steps:
• define your goals.
• choose a focus.
• build a diverse content calendar.
• expand to a bigger audience.
• do some other shit that’s helpful.
Saturday, 19 January, 13

4. Stuff we won’t do
• Talk about platforms (e.g. Tumblr)
• Talk about specific topics (e.g. cats)
• Talk about media types (e.g.
infographics, vlogs, podcasts)
• Care about haters
Saturday, 19 January, 13

5. Why listen to me?
Saturday, 19 January, 13

6. Why listen to me?
• I’m the marketing guy at GoInstant,
and this is exactly what I’m doing there.
• I was the Saskatchewanderer. Ran a
travel blog that had 173,000 unique
visitors in four months, 45,000 YouTube
views, and 2,000 Twitter followers.
• I’ll be using these as examples of what
to do and what not to do.
Saturday, 19 January, 13

7. It’s a process...
Saturday, 19 January, 13

8. Not a guarantee
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9. Processes involve feedback
• Each step in this process generates
outcomes, which we will measure.
• Some outcomes are better than others.
• If our metrics are well-chosen, the
numbers show which outcomes are good.
• The numbers don’t matter if the metrics
don’t measure your goals.
• If your goals suck, that’s another matter.
Saturday, 19 January, 13

10. Step 1: Pick your goals
• Ask yourself: what should your blog get
you? How will you know you’ve
succeeded?
• Money?
• Sales leads?
• Expert status?
• Laid?
• Text can do anything but write itself.
Saturday, 19 January, 13

11. Define your commitment.
• How much money and time and energy
do you have?
• Our process involves prioritization, so
don’t worry too much if you’re
resource-poor.
• Mostly, ask this for your own sanity.
Saturday, 19 January, 13

12. Question time!
What’s your blogging goal? Do you have
more than one?
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13. Step 2: Find your focus.
• It has two parts:
• Your thesis, argument, or insight.
• Your audience. Who is passionate
about what you have to say?
• GoInstant: Customer experiences
matter for business.
• Saskatchewanderer: Saskatchewan is
full of cool shit.
Saturday, 19 January, 13

14. Focus Metrics:
• Forget about audience size. Care about
engagement per reader.
• Lots of readers with little interest equals
bad bad bad die die die
• Measure time on page, subscriptions, social
shares, number of posts read per visit,
comments, etc. etc.
• Engagement is the fundamental building
block of every good blog, app, relationship.
Saturday, 19 January, 13

15. Focus Metrics:
• The proof of a growth opportunity:
you want each post to generate a
higher rate of marginal engagement.
• If I got 10 views last week, I want 12
next week, and 15 next week, and 20
next week.
• Marginal gains: +2, +3, +5. Up and to
the right for the 2nd derivative.
Saturday, 19 January, 13

16. Focus Metrics:
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17. Question time!
What’s your blog’s focus?
How’s your engagement?
Is it a growth opportunity?
Does it accomplish your goals?
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18. Step 3: Build a content calendar
• The secret? Mix up these two axes:
• Audience: Niche <--> Broad
• Durability: Timely <--> Evergreen
• Take risks to really engage people.
Some types of post are riskier than
others.
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19. Step 3: Build a content calendar
Saturday, 19 January, 13

20. Content Cal Metrics
• Preliminary work: define blog
categories for matrix quadrants.
• How many shares?
• How many views in the first day?
After the first week?
• How much time on page?
• Then compare the categories.
Saturday, 19 January, 13

21. Question time!
Make a post idea per quadrant.
Which work best for your audience?
Do some posts get more views later in
their life?
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22. Step 4: Expand
• It’s time to build out your audience by
expanding the focus of your blog:
• to add another highly engaged,
closely related audience.
• to include a thesis that is
consistent with your core focus’s
thesis.
• Remember: focus = thesis + audience
Saturday, 19 January, 13

23. A lesson from Lakatos
Imre Lakatos is the coolest Hungarian
philosopher of science ever.
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24. Research Programmes
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25. Same for blogs
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26. Same for blogs
• For GoInstant:
• core of “customer experience
matters,” surrounded by “X matters
for customer experiences.”
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27. Mistakes
• As the Saskatchewanderer:
• Saskatchewan is cool!
• After the Saskatchewanderer:
• All purpose travel writing! Please for
the love of god hire me I’m
unemployed actually I’ll write
anything just c’mon please try
Saturday, 19 January, 13

28. Better idea
• If Saskatchewan has all this cool
stuff, I can find other beautiful stuff in
other unpopular Canadian
destinations.
• Audience: broke ass Canucks.
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29. Expansion Metrics
• Exact same as focus.
• Are your readers highly engaged?
• Is this a real growth opportunity? Is
the rate of growth itself increasing?
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30. Step 4.5: Everything else
• Get good at writing by fucking up constantly.
• Marketing matters.
• Market to your audiences. Test.
• Build relationships with other bloggers
through guest blogs.
• SEO benefit is huge.
• Give a fuck about the technical parts of
writing and of running a blog.
Saturday, 19 January, 13

31. Any questions?
Saturday, 19 January, 13

32. Thank you so much!
Share the presentation:
http://bit.ly/bigbigblog
Follow me on Twitter:
@andrewkonoff
and HAVE AN AWESOME PODCAMP!
Saturday, 19 January, 13