In 1968, the artist and mega-celebrity Andy Warhol said, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” In 2002, the Internet theorist David Weinberger updated Warhol’s famous oneliner: “On the Web,” he said, “everyone will be famous to 15 people.”
We assume that if you take on the hard work of writing a blog, you would like your prose to reach an audience wider than family and friends. It could take a while. Building an audience for your blog takes time, effort, and social media savvy.
Think of building your audience this way: When you publish a blog post, you’re “pushing” your writing out at a world of potential readers. Pushing alone isn’t enough. You need to “pull” readers to your blog as well. And nothing “pulls” like social media.
You need to be on social media because that’s where your readers are. The Pew Research Internet Project, in its report “Social Media Update 2013,” found that almost half the American Internet users it surveyed used two or more of the Big Five social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
The site that pretty much invented social media is still the Big Daddy. In the United States, according to a September 2014 Pew Research Center report, two-thirds of adults use Facebook, and half of those users say they get news from Facebook. “Facebook is an important source of website referrals for many news outlets,” the report states.
For drawing readers to your website or blog, “Facebook is definitely the most effective,” says Kailani Koenig-Meunster, multimedia editor at msnbc.com. “It isn’t my favorite, but it does bring the most traffic. A lot of it has do to with just that’s where people are—and that’s where normal people are, whereas Twitter can sometimes seem like journalists talking to other journalists. Everyone’s on Facebook. My mom is on Facebook.”
How can you use it to drive traffic to your blog?
The pros use Twitter. A 2013 survey of more than 1,000 journalists by two professors at the University of Indiana found that more than 80 percent of the journalists used social media to “pull” readers to their work, and two-thirds of the journalists said social media engage them more with their audience.
Matt Porter, a sports reporter at the Palm Beach Post in Florida who covers the University of Miami Hurricanes, writes a blog called the Canes Watch. Porter, who has more than 8,000 Twitter followers, says he gets more response from Twitter than Facebook.
By maintaining a consistent presence and interacting regularly, and often casually, with readers on Twitter, Porter said, he has seen the number of people visiting his blog increase.
But as Twitter users know, Twitter often seems an unending stream of noise, trivia, and inanity. It takes hard work to make your Twitter account heard amidst the 140-character din. Here are some tips on how to build an audience of Twitter followers:
Porter has two guidelines for using Twitter: Self-edit and Think hard before you tweet.
“About half the tweets I write I never post,” Porter says. “Self-editing is a huge part of successful Twitter use. Be highly critical of your work. If you think you’re being funny or smart or wise, take a second to re-think the tweet. Word choice is so critical when you have 140 characters. Pick the right ones.”
Adds Porter, “Not tweeting is often the best move, especially when it comes to controversial topics. How many times have you seen someone (a brand, for example) try to be funny or amusing and completely fall flat, leading to apologies and Twitter mob shaming? If you’re unsure about it for a second, don’t tweet.”
Jenny Li-Fowler, web editor and social media manager for Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, says, “You want your tweets to be like a nugget of information that people can share at a party, that make them feel smart or clever or witty … You want them to say, ‘Guess what I read on the Kennedy School Twitter feed?’”
For example, researchers at the Kennedy School found that the cancellation of school days because of snow doesn’t harm children’s education. Instead of saying something formal in a tweet, Fowler says, it’s better to be more conversational. You might say, “‘Kids not missing out on learning because of snow days,’” Li-Fowler says. “Tease with something interesting and specific. Give them the nugget instead of something formal.”
What does Li-Fowler mean by “formal?” Here are a couple of formal tweets about Harvard scientific studies that Li-Fowler did not write.
Climate change study contradicts IPCC reports & others claiming climate change will cause stronger/more hurricanes & extreme temps.
Not a very interesting tweet, and, by the way, what the heck is IPCC? Are we supposed to know? Twitter is a mass medium. Don’t expect your audience to understand obscure abbreviations and references. Nor should you expect them to rush to stories promoted by dull tweets such as the following:
Harvard concussion study says NCAA needs improvement.
That may very well be what the study says, but surely it contains more specific advice to the NCAA than its concussion policy “needs improvement.” (The abbreviation NCAA, by the way, for National Collegiate Athletic Association, is widely enough known in the United States to be acceptable here.)
By the way, both of the above tweets use the formal “A study says …” construction. Li-Fowler’s tweet about snow days and kids avoided that.
Scott Kleinberg
Scott Kleinberg, who calls himself a “social mediaologist,” is Social Media Editor of the Chicago Tribune. He writes So Social, a social media advice column, and founded the Tribune’s blog iPhone, Therefore I Blog.
This will vary depending on audience, but for me it’s Twitter. I feel like my Twitter followers are engaged. Facebook certainly helps, but Twitter is my favorite. I also use a scheduling tool for tweets called Buffer (https://bufferapp.com), which helps by allowing me to spread out content yet be consistent. (Using the Buffer app, a tweeter can write tweets and then tell Buffer what day and time you want the tweet posted to Twitter.)
The perfect mix to gain traction/readers involves Facebook and Twitter, but also good engagement. When I do social media, I stand by a tested method that works called The Rule of Thirds.
This method is what shows people that I am human. And it ensures that I engage in social media versus broadcast. I can’t stress enough how important that differentiation is.
[Here’s a tweet from Scott, who got held up trying to enter a building because two people kept talking as they went through the entrance’s revolving door: So let’s talk about conversations while going through a revolving door. Really? Can you not wait 2 seconds?]
They can be, but I definitely don’t rely on them. A hashtag is really intended to keep a group of tweets about one subject together for easy viewing. It was never intended to be an engagement tactic. But if enough people are using a hashtag about a subject, I will as well. During the World Cup, the use of the #WorldCup hashtag provided a big boost in engagement and numbers.
When most Internet users log onto social media just to hang out and see what’s up, they head for Facebook or Twitter, not Google Plus. A 2014 story in the New York Times called Google Plus a “ghost town.” But it still can be a valuable way to attract readers to your blog, and it has far more members than you might think.
According to Google, 300 million people visit Google Plus every month. That’s just a quarter of the number of people who visit Facebook, but it’s more people than visit Twitter.
Here’s a little secret that makes Google Plus that much more important: when you copy and paste what you wrote on your blog into a Google Plus post, it will appear higher in Google’s search engine results than other blog posts—and it will appear more quickly. The Google search algorithm boosts the ranking of posts on Google Plus. (Can you guess why? Think of who owns it.)
If you don’t have a Google Plus account, get one and fill out your profile as you would on Twitter. Add as many of your Facebook friends as you can to your “Circles” (Google Plus allows you to create “Circles” of the people you friend). Google Plus has a “People Find” button that’ll help you. Finally, use the search function to add to your Circle other Google Plus members in your area of interest.
When you write a blog post, in whatever blogging software you’re using, copy and paste it to your Google Plus page. When readers give your post on Google Plus a “+1” (the rough equivalent of a Facebook like), your post gets bumped up the Google search engine results seen by people searching for your post’s keywords (see Chapter 6).
“Google Plus is something nobody goes to, but you can establish a Google Plus author page,” says Koenig-Muenster. “I write a blog post, I share it on my Google Plus page, and the Google search jumps those posts to the top.”
The photo-sharing site Instagram doubled its number of users in one year, going from 100 million in 2013 to 200 million in 2014, according to a press release from the company. Instagram users can take photos, edit photos, and post online using the Instagram app, which includes a camera and photo-editing software.
If you use any other social media site, you’ll know enough to navigate Instagram. You can add a comment under the post of a photo, you can “like” a post, you can chat with other users (whose usernames begin with the @ sign), and you can use hashtags. Sound familiar?
Facebook owns Instagram, so when you set up your account, Instagram asks if you want to follow the accounts of all your Facebook friends. Just tap on “Yes.”
Instagram, like Twitter, allows you to create a brief (150-character) bio. Make sure to include the link to your blog in your bio. You’ll need this link because any URL you post in the comment box under your photos is not clickable. (Instagram doesn’t want users to leave its site.)
As on Tumblr (see Chapter 7), hashtags are the key to expanding your following on Instagram and driving traffic to your blog. Whenever you create a blog post that includes a photo (and most should), post it to Instagram, write a caption, and add a few hashtags. Don’t get carried away with the hashtags; if you put 50 under a photo, you’ll look like a spammer.
So, for example, if your blog is about bicycling, you might use the hashtags #bicycle, #cycling, #bike. Though Tumblr and Twitter also use hashtags, those on Instagram are much more effective because Instagram has no search box, so hashtags are the primary way readers search for content.
“On Instagram, I put hashtags on all the photos I post—and that will quadruple the number of likes you get,” says Koenig-Muenster of MSNBC.
You may not think a website on which people “pin”—as on a bulletin board—photos of interesting things they find online would be of much use to a blogger. But you’d be wrong.
Not only is Pinterest the fastest-growing social network, with more than 250 million users, but “when it comes to referral traffic from social networks, there’s Facebook and Pinterest—and then there’s everyone else,” said the tech website Mashable in a 2013 article.
What makes Pinterest so useful to bloggers is this: if you post a photo from your blog on Pinterest, when a user clicks on the photo they’ll automatically be taken to the blog page on which the photo appears. And Pinterest users can comment on whatever you pin to your board. It’s a good way to build your following.
Not only is Pinterest a blog (in its own way) and a useful tool for increasing traffic to yours, but it’s also fun. You can create your own categories. Friends and students of the authors have created such categories as “Bucket List,” “Tats I like/want/will get,” “Tech gadgets,” “Awesome photos,” “Books worth reading,” “Magazine design,” “Heroes,” “Album covers,” and “Infographics.”
If you’re listening, you’ve joined new social media sites and updated all your bios to link directly to your blog. What now? Here are a few more ways to promote your blog:
If you’re really ambitious, you can even use your feet. If you write a local blog, you can meet your readers in the flesh by creating meet-ups. That’s what the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, once a print newspaper, did after it launched The Big Blog when the paper went all digital in 2009. The Big Blog set up weekly meet-ups in Seattle coffee shops. Other bloggers were invited, as was anyone who read The Big Blog. Sometimes the Post-Intelligencer would bring along a “draw”: a weather blogger, for example, or a local person who had appeared on the popular American TV show Dancing with the Stars.
“I met so many interesting people,” says Koenig-Muenster, a Seattle native who liked to go to these events. “It developed a buzz. It can be important to get out from behind the computer and put a face to the people who comment.”
Let’s pause a moment to remember something. Your success as a blogger is going to rely on more than social media networks and social meet-ups. Don’t forget that discussion of voice (see Chapter 4, “Writing as Rap”), or the notion of the special relationship between a writer and reader.
Or, to put it another way, you’re not just a blog, you’re a person. You have a purpose. Yes, we have suggested a variety of ways to get curious readers to click on your link and settle down for a moment to read what you have to say.
But if what we have suggested in this chapter can get readers to come to your blog, only you can get them to come back again and again. You have to give readers what they want: helpful information and intelligent opinions, perspectives, and guidance. Posts, in other words, that readers will find both useful and a pleasure to read. You also have to give them something of yourself.
“If you’re a person who’s overjoyed about your cereal or dismayed at your awful airline experience, that’s who you are, but I don’t want to read about it,” says Matt Porter of the Palm Beacon Post. “Said a different way: quality over quantity.”
Quality and personality. It’s that voice your social media posts can convey, too.
“I would say 90 percent of my [Twitter] use is work-related,” Porter says. “[But] I include a couple real-life tweets here and there to remind people I’m a real human and to try to keep things light and amusing. Everything you post comprises your personal brand.”
Adds Li-Fowler: “You don’t want to sound like a robot or like you have a set pattern for everything … not like you’re just cutting and pasting the headline. You want to sound like a person who’s offering a good nugget of information to people … Make every Tweet individual.”
Discussion
Exercise
Pick 10 bloggers whose work you enjoy. Find their Twitter name and follow their Twitter accounts. Create a list called “10 Bloggers.” (Go to your Twitter profile page and click on “Lists.” On the right side of the page that appears, click on “Create New List.”) Follow this list (go to your Twitter profile, click on “Lists,” and then click on “10 Bloggers”) for two weeks and keep a record of what each blogger tweets, recording specifically how many times each blogger:
Using these data, discuss similarities and differences among the bloggers’ approaches. Do any apply Scott Kleinberg’s Rule of Thirds? Do you believe they should? Why or why not?