I’ve been blogging since October 2011 via my neetswriter
blog, and since January 2015 via my neetsmarketing blog (this one). Both blogs between
them have received 200K page views during that time, and they receive together
around 7-8K page views per month, depending on how often I post and how much I
promote the blogs on social media. Sometimes they get more. You may not mind
whether anyone reads your blog, you may be writing it for friends and family, or
for fun. But if you want your posts to be shared on social media and to receive
comments (although often these days, comments are left on Facebook instead of the post), here follow a few points on blogging, and some ideas on how to engage
a blog audience. This post is aimed at writers/authors.
How often should you
blog?
I don’t blog daily or weekly; I aim to post on each blog
once a month (which I suppose is the equivalent of fortnightly on one blog),
and often I include a guest post on my neetsmarketing blog too. I try to make
the content interesting on the neetswriter blog, and useful on the
neetsmarketing blog; sticking to my brand in each case.
I’d rather write one good quality post per month that gets
some attention than four posts that nobody reads (sometimes it takes me a while to
write a post, especially for this blog). There are many thoughts online about
how often you should blog. I’ve known authors
who have blogged daily or weekly, and after a year or two they’ve stopped
blogging altogether because it was too much. If you blog daily or weekly,
are you getting the page views to make it worth the time you
spend writing the post? Do you need to blog weekly, could you blog fortnightly
or monthly and write posts which get the same number of page views, or more (of the daily/weekly posts combined)?
There are a lot of posts out there saying how important it
is to blog daily or weekly, but if you're doing that and your posts aren’t being read, and you’re
spending a lot of time writing them; as well as leaving comments on other blogs
so someone reciprocates on your posts, and reciprocating for comments left, is
it worth it? If your daily/weekly posts are being read, and you have time to leave/reciprocate
with comments, then it's worthwhile.
Quality over quantity
My thoughts are quality
over quantity-you can milk the same post, especially a popular one on
social media for a week at least. I wouldn’t expect my loyal blog followers to
visit more often than they do (I'm grateful to anyone who comments or shares via social media), and I can’t commit to
reciprocating with reading or commenting more often than once a month. Because,
don’t forget, blogging isn’t just about
writing a post, it’s about promoting the post on social media, and
commenting on other blogs. And if you’re not careful, it can eat time you need
for writing (been there early on with the neetswriter blog).
Why should someone
read your posts?
There are so many posts out there, why should someone (hereafter referred to as “blog reader”) read your
posts? Aim to make posts thought-provoking. Your blog reader needs to feel: empathy, inspired; and/or that
they’re learning something new.
And you want the blog
reader to return. When they see on Twitter, Facebook etc that you’ve written a post, the ideal scenario is that they click through straight away, or
make a mental note that you’ve got a new post out, and that they’ll read it
later.
Social Media promo, Title and Photos
Before you can engage
a blog audience, they need to find your post in the first place. This will
mostly be via social media, especially initially, but once your blog has a few
posts, you’ll probably find that some views come via Google searches (this is
great!)
You need to entice
the blog reader with a title which makes them want to find out more. Be
punchy, use a question, or a number as I’ve done with this post, or perhaps a
title which could have more than one meaning. A photo which relates to the post
in some way can draw your reader in, and if you include a photo at the top of the
post, Facebook (and possibly Twitter, depending on whether your blog has
Twitter cards set up), should pick up the photo when you and others post the
link. You can include other photos throughout the post too.
Here follow 9 Ways to Engage a Blog Audience
Content:
1. Move your blog reader or give them
something to think about
My most successful neetswriter posts have been ones where the
blog reader can empathise. The most recent neetswriter post,
My Mother and The Durrells, inspired by the anniversary of my mother passing away and the TV programme, The
Durrells was my most popular neetswriter post for a while. This was probably because
many blog readers could empathise with losing someone, and The Durrells was a
big hit on TV, so using
#TheDurrells hashtag on Twitter helped. The post came to me fully formed when I woke up at five in the
morning, the day after a trip to the National Gallery, which I used to visit
with my mum. Often I use what I’ve been doing, how it relates to my
writing/books and turn it into a blog post.
2. Provide useful information
My neetsmarketing blog is packed with advice for writers on
how to use social media, inspired by client and course attendee questions. The
most popular posts are about Twitter and Facebook, and there are lots of
helpful posts written by guests too.
Top three posts:
3. Use your brand to engage potential readers of your books
If you write historical fiction, you can write about the
history relating to your book. I have a series of eighteenth century and art posts waiting to be written
for if/when my book 2 is published with photos all ready. If your book is set in Spain,
write about Spain. If your books are about dogs, write about dogs. If there's a popular TV programme or film which links to your brand, use it, and then you can link to the hashtag on Twitter too (eg. The Durrells above). Some
authors choose to write about writing, and some prefer not to. I've heard that posts about writing can be popular, and I guess if they bring page views, you could do a few here and there to gain followers.
4. Have an angle
Often, I write a post and return to it later on. Then I ask myself what I’m trying to say, and amend
the post so that it has an angle.
5. Get your facts right
If you quote someone or something, check your facts, so that
your blog reader trusts you, and returns for more. When I write posts about the
history relating to my novel, I wouldn’t want to get any of my facts wrong.
Because then who is going to trust the information in my books?
Extras:
6. Use photos
I test out photos on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, using the most popular ones for my blog posts.
7. Format nicely/break into sections
Use headings in bold and make them bigger,
use numbers, break the information down into sections so that your blog reader
can skim the post if they want to, finding what’s relevant to them.
8. Make sure links work (obvs!)
9. Avoid typos (obvs too!)
My posts on hosting and being a guest:
That’s it! This post
was inspired by the blogging part of my course in May
2016.
In other news:
On 18 June, I wrote an article for the
online magazine, Women Writers, Women’s Books:
My Social Media Course for Writers, 8
October 2016 in London:
My next Social Media Course for Writers is at the same venue as in May 2016, and there’s an early bird discount of 10% until the end of June. Bookings have been coming in and places are limited.
See Facebook photos and comments from my course in May 2016 here .
Find out more details and see quotes from previous courses via my website here.
Book by sending an email to anitajchapman at gmail dot com.
And I shall be at the RNA Conference in July 2016! Look forward to seeing some of you there. Here are my posts from last year's conference in London:
If you missed Sue Moorcroft's recent guest post on Street Teams, you can read it
here
On 21 June 2016: author, Liz Fielding will be a guest
with her
fab post on newsletters (now published, 21 June 2016).
