This week we’ll be talking about talking: How to get people talking about your work (promotion) and how to deal with those who are talking about it (commenters). The links you’ll be looking through touch on each of these areas. Lots of material here, so skim to the stuff that serves you.
Promotion
- How do you promote your blog? Start with this list – we’ve already discussed several (commenting elsewhere; building long-term content). Pay particular attention to the Rule of 100.
- Learn about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Jeff Goins offers some tactics for writing SEO heds and posts, but beware – there can be a fine line between SEO and Clickbait.
- (Then again, maybe it’s all Clickbait…)
- Are you using Twitter as a tool or still just tweeting about mozzarella sticks with your buddies? If you just can’t adulterate your personal account, consider making a separate one to get your professional name out there.
Comments
- A quick illustration: Watch this clip, then scroll down through the comments. Why does something like this seem so familiar?
- Many sites are toughening up on commenters. Popular Science actually shut down its comment section, arguing that they’re “bad for science.”
- What are the “NymWars“? The LGBT community in particular took issues with these policies, many driven by Google.
- Google tried bringing its “real names” policy to YouTube in 2013, but in July 2014, it backed off. What’s so great about anonymity that it scared off Google?
Remember to respond to these readings (including Briggs) in a comment to this post by 10 a.m. on Monday, March 16. More importantly, come prepared to discuss these examples and, ideally, some of your own.
aaaaaargh
Interactive Journalism 
When promoting your blog, I think the Rule of 100 – make 100 personal contacts in a day- is very beneficial! Wow- well maybe for us it would be better to say 10.
Shmooze, respond to your readers, and make sure you are active. If you are able to do these things, people will return.
When these people return, as Briggs says, you need to track who they are, where they’re from, and what they’re looking at. It’s something I do every day. I’ve had readers from eight countries on my blog- and I think that’s pretty cool. Also, by tracking which posts get the most hits, you can see what you should keep doing.
To optimize your chances of a post showing up after a search in a search engine, use a keyword, make sure the keyword is early in the post, and make sure you change your WordPress URL to include the keyword! Using anchor texts is encouraged, and it’s something I use in every one of my blog posts.
Cory Haik mentions in Briggs that you should use data. I think you should use your own data, along with data such as keywords which will make you more successful.
I always thought of “click-bait” as a title that was so interesting that it could grab readers’ attention and get them to look at it. However, “click-bait” is misdirection and lying, according to Jon Stewart. When you think about it that way- then no- not everything is “click-bait”. Some things just are interesting, and you can make the title interesting, too.
I use Twitter as a tool every day. I always tweet my blog posts myself so that I can put my own hashtags and attract more traffic. I also use the WVU rifle twitter to promote all of my rifle stories, and retweet them on mine, WVUSports and the coach’s Twitter. I have cultivated a presence on Twitter where I can be funny, and yet still have high-profile people follow me. Two ESPN sideline reporters follow me!
I don’t even know what to say about the Obama video and its comments. It does show the reason why some sites don’t allow comments- people can get out of hand. (ex: MICHELLE OBAMA IS A MAN!!!! I’m a geneticist and I can confirm 100% she is a man.) However, it’s also something that comes with journalism on the web. Letters to the editor can’t be filtered anymore. NymWars don’t work. All they do is require an email now, and that can never be too secure. Anonymity probably scared off Google because people want it- and for people to still want Google, they’re going to have to give.
Finally, Briggs suggests using your attitude and use conversational language- and I’m so glad he did! I try to do that in all of my posts.
I love the idea of the Rule of 100. While it seems like a daunting task, I believe it would really help to increase readership on your blog. I think this is a concept that we all should strive to help better market ourselves. However, as a beginner in the blogging world, I think I would be starting at a much smaller scale and then gradually keep increasing. As Briggs mentioned, it’s important to interact and connect with your audience. By being able to track their online presence and learn a little bit more about your readers, this will help you cater your blog to their interests and keep them coming back for more. I think it’s also very cool to be able to look and find out which parts of the world your blog is being viewed in.
As we’ve learned in class and as Briggs also mentioned, data is beneficial to any blog. This help to increase your credibility and trust on the web.
As for Twitter, I think this is a vital platform to use to help get your name out there. I always try to tweet my blog posts and use Twitter on a daily basis. I have been able to cultivate a wide range of followers from many different backgrounds. One of my favorite features is the scheduler. People get annoyed if the see ten of your tweets in a row, but with the help of a scheduler, this can space your tweets out all day. In fact, many ideas that I write about on my blog come from information I have discovered on Twitter.
I can see why many sites are tightening up their restrictions when it comes to commenters. Nobody wants to come across profanity or read what the Internet trolls have to say. However, this is something hard to escape today, especially with more media platforms heading in the online direction.
As for click-bait, I don’t think it is always a trap. Of course, some headlines are sensationalized and trick readers into clicking. But some stories are very interesting and I believe they deserve an interesting title.
Lastly, I think it is important to keep your blogs post concise and short. As Briggs mentioned, no one want to read a chapter when they are browsing through a blog. Instead, keeping a conversational tone and establishing your own voice in your blog is key to attracting more readers.
Promoting your blog, especially when you first launch it, can be a very tricky thing. The Rule of 100 is greatly beneficial when you first launch a blog and even over time because as the author says, “The internet business really is a people business.” Establishing 100 personal contacts a day, though, seems a bit outlandish to me — at least at this point. However, maybe a more reasonable number (such as 15-20) would suffice. I also think not placing ads is a huge way to get readers to return to your site; at least to begin with. No one likes having to click out of ads.
Briggs also makes several points about connecting with your audience through comments; both public and personal. Your readers ultimately drive your site and the content you publish, so interacting with them is a must. Briggs suggests using conversational language when responding to readers’ comments, leaving them wanting to know more/keep the conversation going.
SEO and making sure a keyword is included in both your site’s head line and within the first few words is crucial to getting readers to your site. You want to include a keyword/searchable word in both of these places to get your site to show up in people’s searches.
Briggs also mentions that although content is king, linking is queen. He says that linking to meaningful content gives you more of a prevalent presence in search engines, thus leading to more readers directed to your site.
Clickbait is an interesting concept because you see it more and more today; especially on social media. Whenever I’m on Facebook, there’s always a link to a video or article that starts out with some drastic set of circumstances, then is followed by, “Find out what happens next,” or, “What happens next will shock you.” We’re all susceptible to it everyday, whether we realize it or not.
I can understand why Google had to back of anonymity because people simply don’t want to reveal their true identities — for some reason or another. It’s also very easy to remain anonymous. All Google+ asks for when registering, really, is a valid email address. If users weren’t granted anonymity, I think Google would probably take a decent hit.
The rule of 100 makes a lot of sense or a blogger since the Internet is continuously talking about one thing or anther. Making 100 contacts a day would be tiring, but it would make the blog a million times better by increasing viewership. Speaking of viewers, Briggs did say it’s important to know who you’re talking to and to know what they’re reading.
I’ve noticed that most people who visit my blog check out my first Disney blog. Why? I assume they’re either Disney fanatics or they thought he title “What’s Disney Changing?” meant something like Cinderella’s Castle is getting dismantled. Either way, it’s important to see what posts check on the most.
Clickbait to me is the most annoying thing on the Internet. I scroll through Facebook and see most of my high school graduate class posting the “You won’t believe” posts when really it’s a little kid doing nothing or a dog chasing it’s tail. Unfortunately, I have seen good stories like #dancingman go from being a great follow on Imgur to another “you won’t believe” post. Awesome stories like #dancingman do not deserve to be thrown in the cesspool that is clickbait.
I only use Twitter for classes and checking where the West Run bus is on it’s route so I don’t really tweet about mozzarella sticks anyhow. I do see how a username like krissnotchris would confuse people if I tried to explain where people should follow for new blog posts. I think it’s important to also make sure that you actually tweet for your post. People could figure out who would pass and fail the CAPTCHA test by looking at the tweets you make. Also, robots can be morons who don’t understand that extremely long and drawn out statements could make your tweet non-retweetable. You must make tweets short.
I get why places are getting rid of the commenting tools on their websites. People say gross things and robots like to share their spam. At the same time, if you don’t allow people to openly share their thoughts, then you have less opportunity to connect with your viewers and hear out what they’re mad or happy about. Of course, if you’re like most sites now-a-days, you could filter comments by having to approve what comments make it on your site. It may be more work, but at least you can make sure horrible people don’t get the opportunity to slow down societies progress. Just don’t be that person who only approves positive comments.
While the Rule of 100 would no doubt be incredibly useful for one’s blog, I could not get past the idea of the amount of time it would take- every day. However, the tips and ideas in this article did make me more aware that I should be more active in the blogosphere. Especially because it is fun speaking about a topic that you care about with random people that you don’t know but that also care about the topic. The problem I run into is the amount of time it takes to read through so many other people’s blogs when it is getting so nice outside. (This idea of connecting is also something I can relate to life now as I try to network in order to get a job after graduation.)
Involving SEO’s, I have been practicing writing key tag words into the headings of my posts and hashtagging them on Twitter. I get some random retweets from people who must have found my tweet from the hashtag I used, so therefore I know that this tactic works.
The Nymwars involve the idea of identity, which is supposed to be free. By regulating the name someone is allowed to refer to himself or herself as, I believe Google attempted to regulate people’s identities- which is unacceptable.
What also cannot be controlled but may want to be filtered and monitored, is what people comment on a post. As seen in the Obama video, discussion from many different viewpoints can generate a conversation that can be beneficial with creative ideas and interpretations or create a hostile atmosphere. Comments on this video range from critics of Obama, such as “His votes have certainly stopped a lot of babies from ever have even the chance to cry,” or “He probably used the opportunity to plant a bugging device,” to supportive comments and witty ones such as my favorite: “He used his OBAMACARE.” With such a political topic, there are bound to be strong opinions from all sides and if the comment is not outright offensive it still adds to the conversation.
Briggs points out that commenting back to people is key in promoting your blog. You have to engage the people that are taking their time to comment on your work and Briggs says to do this in a relaxed way that will want the commenter to continue the interaction and show your personality. He also mentions that the type of language you use is important in your blog as a whole. Being engaging and creative is key to creating your own voice and making something different than has already been done. It is important to add something different to the conversation and make it something that people want to read.
When you are first starting off a blog and trying to promote it to as many people as possible, as all of us are, it can be a difficult and frustrating process. These days, everyone wants to see success immediately without putting the work in, so the Rule of 100 would be something that could be daunting to many bloggers out there. Getting 100 contacts everyday seems like a job for a more advanced bloggers. A more realistic goal would be to get 10-20 contacts a day and work your way up as the blog gets more and more views. As Briggs mentioned, it’s important to know your audience, so as you get more viewers you would be able to know what to post to get your readers involved and interested.
When I first got Twitter, I used it strictly to follow sports writers and to get my sports news as quickly as possible. Now, I used it for that and to post things that I write to try and gain a following. It is a critical tool these days to network so that you can get your work out there. People that use Twitter just to post about what they had for breakfast are not using it to its full potential.
Click-bait articles are among the most annoying things on the Internet and while they are easy to spot, they are still everywhere and clog up my newsfeed on Facebook. It just shows that the writer doesn’t think their story is good enough on its own so they have to make some ridiculous title to get readers to click on it.
Finally, as Briggs mentioned and was we talked about in class previously, data is vital to your blog when trying to show your credibility to your readers. Data gives you information to give substance to your posts rather than just have a bunch of opinions.
What a lot of people fail to understand about creating a blog is the amount of work that it takes to create the blog. Blog Marketing Academy leads off their list with this concept. Although hard work is the cornerstone of any successful venture, it’s something most bloggers overlook. If you want to make something successful, you have to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal.
However, the tools that bloggers can use to create this helps them achieve their goals. I completely disagreed with the notion that clickbait doesnt work or the notion that clickbait died in 2009. In my blogging experiences, I’ve noticed that the most flashy headlines get clicks. That’s the goal at the end of the day. We’re not a hard news source, and people aren’t reading our blogs for news or information on topics. They read things for unique aspects.
The rule of 100 stems from the processes of hard work. Creating 100 contacts per day seems daunting, but the more you promote and market your blog, the more you will find that this isn’t as hard as you think. Whether that means following another blog, or sending calls or emails, it is important to get your name out there as much as possible, because the other bloggers are already doing that.
Comments can be a blessing and a curse. Obviously, editors and bloggers have to make certain that what is being posted is correct, and if it’s opinion, it can’t be slanderous or rude. You don’t want others to shy away from your blog because you have a troll in your midst.
However, the lack of bloggers who don’t respond to comments is astounding. I can understand from the perspective of a celebrity on twitter. You don’t want to respond to a troll, because you could be letting your emotions get the best of you. However, commenting helps you establish those connections that you may not do otherwise.
Now, Briggs says that commenting is the key to the promotion of your blog. I disagree. I think social media and circulation plays a much bigger role in the clicks and the page visits of your blog. Commenting boosts your reputation with your current reader community, however it doesn’t do all that much to attract new viewers to your site. Clickbait can be very important, and the effective use of social media to promote said clickbait is something that I have found beneficial in my own blogging ventures. I do agree with Briggs’ assertion about linking. I think linking does more to help your overall effect in the community. Also, if you link to other content, they are more likely to link to you.
When it comes to blogs, especially new ones, promotion is a huge part of getting it going. Without it, who would know, who would read this blog?
The readings provide many, many options to promote a blog. One thing that stands out to me is SEO’s. I’ve written for several sports sites that are powered by WordPress and I can’t express how much my editors stressed the importance of SEO’s.
Having key word or phrases in your SEO’s allows your writing/blog to be seen when people search on Google or what not. This is essential for a blog, it gets you and your work noticed.
Briggs mentions the importance of data. That’s something that has to be included. It helps establish credibility and once people discover your blog, you want them to stay and read, and buy what you’re selling. For that you need to have data to back up your statements.
Overall, promoting your blog is super important because it’s what will bring your readers in and maybe help you establish a popular page.
Before today, I had never heard of Search Engine Optimization. I’ve always attempted to use keywords, tags, and hashtags when linking to my post on Twitter to possibly get it some more views. However, it seems like having that SEO can give a blog a needed boost. Just like we’ve been talking about this semester, no one cares. It’s hard to not let that discourage me. I want people to care. I don’t want to write just for a class. I want the public to take a genuine interest in what I have to say. But after reading the “10 Smartest Things” list, it just comes down to a whole lot of work. It’s a full-time job to have a success blog. I’ve heard that you come up more often on Google searches if you have video on your website.
I don’t want to get into clickbait, but you also want to give readers a reason to click. I try to find one interesting fact about a post and put that into a tweet. BuzzFeed always has those ridiculously interesting headlines that you just have to click. But I never feel cheated once I have clicked. I usually walk away thinking, you know, that was genuinely interesting. There’s no deception involved. They just know how to package information to get people to want to go to their site.
Briggs mentions many different channels to target when promoting a blog. But one channel he doesn’t mention that would actually be very helpful for my blog (which I’m very excited about) is Twitch. A lot of these video games that I blog about, I could be streaming online to mesh together with the post. As much time as I spend playing video games, I might as well record some of it, cut it down, and add content to my blog. It can only enrich my content.
I haven’t gotten to the point where I’ve had to really moderate any comments because well, there aren’t any comments. But with YouTube comments, that really is the pit of humanity. At MetroNews we had a serious discussion on whether or not we should allow comments on our stories. The decision was to allow them but we had to moderate them very diligently, because there wasn’t much of an automatic filter. Seems kind of dangerous, doesn’t it?
Promoting a blog is vital to the success of the site. While content is the thing that keeps readers coming back for more, you won’t get them there if they don’t know about it.
The options the readings offer to help promote are all helpful. Search Engine Optimization is one of the most basic ways to help build readership. SEO’s only require you to use words and phrases that will help your page show up more frequently when people search online.Briggs says that by creating useful and engaging tags you can set yourself apart and gain readership.
The Rule of 100 seems like a daunting task. Creating 100 contacts a day is time consuming but if you have the time and determination to follow through with it the benefits can be priceless. Contacts drive readership and can lead to advertisers wanting to use your site.
Without promotion a site is simply a place for one person to type what is on their mind. Without readers there is no conversation which is important if you want to have success with a blog.
As I skimmed through the “Ten Smartest Things You Can Do To Promote Your Blog” article, I found a lot of tips that I had never thought about before, such as not tweaking your site all the time, but more importantly, I was excited to see that I’ve already taken advantage of a few of the suggestions given by the author. Although I don’t often have a lot of commenters, I’m always sure to craft thoughtful responses to my readers, whether on social media or the blog itself. I have to say, though, that the 100 rule is intimidating as hell. I think it’s an incredible idea, but I would definitely have to step up my game in terms of personal connections. I would probably turn to Twitter for a lot of my interactions.
I also skimmed the article on defining clickbait. I found this to be especially interesting because I’ve often has this debate as an intern with NASA. Things that I thought were witty and intriguing were often shut down and cited as clickbait. It seemed sometimes that catchy headlines, puns, or quips were called clickbait, although they were a far cry the Upworthy headlines I was used to. I think finding the happy medium between blatant baiting and creative promotion is a tough place to find, but worth the effort and experimentation.
This experimentation brings me to this week’s chapter in the Brigg’s book. Tracking clicks, comments and shares are all great ways to measure the effectiveness of a certain style of headline or content. I’m familiar with Google Analytics, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social, which offer some great insight into things that worked well on the NASA social media accounts I handled. For instance, tweets that focused on the people who worked on our team generally did better than tweets that focused solely on technology. This allowed us to start weekly “meet the team” campaigns to grow followers.
Promotion is key to any successful entity, whether a restaurant, blog, or even person. We see promotions everywhere we look. Being that the Internet is so vast, it is pertinent that new bloggers promote themselves and their blogs.
Risley gave great tips for new bloggers. The one that I found most important was about blog and forum commenting. Risley states that an online presence is essential. Participating on other blogs or forums by leaving helpful and insightful comments will help to build a presence and hopefully draw in followers.
The Newswhip headline generator was certainly eye-opening. Sadly, every time I generated a headline I thought to myself “I would read that.” Briggs stated that 8 out of 10 people will read a headline, but only 2 out of 10 people will read the content. While we do not want to be misleading in our headlines, we do want something that is intriguing to draw the readers in.
We discussed in class how to use Twitter as a blogger. Retweets and hashtags allow posts to be shared far beyond a person’s followers. Using Twitter effectively means being retweetable. If you want a tweet to be shared, get to know your followers.
It’s amazing, and kind of scary, the direction the comments can take on anything. The video of President Obama with the crying baby was very sweet and funny…the comments were not. My favorite comment is “Michelle Obama is a man!!!! !I am a geneticist and I can confirm she is 100% a man.” If the 15 year old girl in the bikini top who posted that comment is a geneticist, then I am Bob Saget.
Anonymity creates bravery. The Nymwars, although unsuccessful, strived to take away the anonymity of the Internet. However, this is not the only way websites are combating cruel commenters. Popular Science took down the comment section completely. While other sites have a “3 strikes and you’re out” rule. It is unfortunate that those people who take the responsibility of commenter seriously may be effected by these changes. But it’s like Uncle Ben said ” With great power comes great responsibility.” Not everyone is ready for the responsibility that comes with the powers of an Internet commenter.
Every bit of advice provided in the linked articles is pure gold, but only if you have optimal circumstances. Most people who are interested in starting a blog are passionate about their area of focus. However; daily life often gets in the way of passions. Things like jobs, children and an overall life away from a compute screen can prohibit the successful implementation of these tips.
The using Twitter as a Tool article was very familiar after already having discussed some of the points in class, but another great way to supervise your brand was left out of this article. Briggs spoke about analytics and how tracking incoming data is a great way to succeed, but I don’t feel enough people use it. I love Twitter and Google Analytics though.
Finally the whole topic of commenting is a mute point for me. People are going to say what they want no matter what, but I do believe there should be a way to punish specific instances that actually violate a law. Anonymity is just a shield for the weak. If someone has something worth while hearing that will only build their brand with a likeminded audience and promote better relationships. That’s just my opinion though.
Networking is a key strategy for bloggers. Brigg’s focused on the importance of knowing your readers and knowing what they’re reading. This relates to the Schmooze rule: find the top 20-30 blogs in your space, read them, discover the authors and build relationships with them. I also liked the Blog and Forum Commenting Rule: using your real name, leave insightful comments and genuinely participate. As for Use the Power of 100 Rule, making 100 personal contacts a day seems a bit overwhelming. 100 contacts would require a huge amount of time and effort, but I’m sure it works like a charm. Whatever rule you do use, just be sure to be social and professional.
When making connection and building relationships, it’s important to first identify your audience. Find out their demographic. What are they doing? What are they not doing? What are their values, attitudes and interest? Research is key. Bloggers should first get to know their audience then develop a digital campaign specific for that audience. (That’s the PR coming out of me)
Another strong promotional strategy is social media. Social media drives huge amount of traffic to blogsites. As for my blog, I think twitter is the number one platform. I’ve recently discovered the power of hashtags. Just by developing hashtags, my click rate has increased significantly, along with number of followers.
I think there is a good and bad side to click bait. Click bait can be a beneficial tool when used as a catchy headline…like the Panera group blog example we discussed in class. In this case, click bait grabs the reader’s attention. However, click bait can be a trap. In this case, click bait annoyingly blows up newsfeeds and provides no useful information.
The 100 rule would be really beneficial to people who are blogging for a living. Contacting 100 different people a day will make your blog widely known to different types of people. Other than blogging, I think this rule would work very well with politicians who are running for elections. Making 100 personal contacts a day helps the candidate to get his/her name out. Back to blogging, this rule does not really apply to our course blogs because we are still in college and do not have this amount of time.
Briggs encourages the readers to comment and link to other pages when it is appropriate. Briggs suggests exploring blogs, YouTube channels, twitter accounts, and other social media channels that are related to your focus. I think that Briggs’ way completes that 100 rule. Exploring social media channels that are related to your focus and commenting gives the advantage of communicating with people that share your focus.
To be a little different, I’m going to start off with Briggs discussion of building and controlling a digital audience for news. This really stuck with me because of my internship. I’m helping grow a local Morgantown business called Choosy Kids, and much of what was talked about in Chapter 11 is what I think about and deal with at work. Not only do myself and a small team of four other women send out a newsletter each month, we manage Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest accounts as well as produce a blog and editorial content based on the national and international trainings the company provides. At every staff meeting, we track page clicks, subscriber increases or decreases, interactivity level, and relevant data. We have had to work with various search engines and talk to our customers about digital improvement. I can testify that multimedia efforts (though time consuming), content, links, and all tips provided in Briggs truly help build an audience.
The only way to really begin building that audience is through promotion first. You can’t get people talking about your content if they don’t even know it exists. The Blog Marketing Academy article mentioned a few things that easily contribute to promotion such as writing up a daily action plan (maybe a to-do list for organization), finalizing a concept and a design to build a consistent marketing image, and “schmoozing,” also known as networking, where you can get others to promote you as well. The Power of 100 Rule, while seemingly daunting, doesn’t actually feel that bad to me when I think about it, but obviously I agree with my peers that right now, I don’t have the time or mental capacity to handle that many contacts a day. However, when I think about it in a professional way, I don’t think it will be bad once I only have a job and don’t have an internship and school work to worry about and I’m not completing volunteer work. Thinking about it, at my volunteer job, in 3 hours I send out at least 10 emails a day in itself, I respond to phone messages for clients at least 5 times, and I respond to comments fairly often from co-workers to past contacts. If I had all day, I might be able to make it to 30 at first, then learn with practice how to connect quickly on the daily.
Hamblins click bait article is additionally something I find particularly ironic and interesting because I know that click bait personally gets me all the time. Honestly, that’s why I try to keep titles outlandish, funny, or corky in a way. It’s a style I really enjoy and snags my “ooh shiny things” mentality.
Once you have an audience, you can continue growing it by helping the conversation surrounding your content grows just as much. The response and interaction keeps your audience invested and involved in your work, but I have noticed many of the issues presented in the provided list. I’ve noticed more and more that blogs are taking away the comment option, which I didn’t exactly realize until I was going through the best of the blogosphere list. I agree that sometimes, comment sections get out of hand with the bigotry and hateful comments, but I keep remembering how last week in Briggs, it was mentioned that you have to contain and watch your comment sections. You can’t just let it spiral out of control. It’s hard, but if you can manage it, I think having the comment option is better for the audience. At the same time, LaBarre’s article about how comments skew reality in science made me question that thought a bit.
Lastly, the subject of NymWars and Google’s name reversal policy in the LGBT community is well-known, so I wasn’t exactly shocked to find this information here. Your preferred pronoun is sacred in the LGBT world. And your personal discovery and life story involving your gender or sexuality is sacred too. Protecting yourself and your identity is a hot topic in this way.
I think the promotion of your blog mainly depends on the community you can make. The way you get readers is by reaching out and using the rule of 100. In order to get readers and followers you have to get out of your comfort zone and your own bubble. You need to be an active reader of other blogs and participate in their discussion. It seems weird that you would want people to visit your blog but you wouldn’t spend any time going to other blogs and being active in their conversation. I like to compare it to a thing I was told when I was a child, “Do unto others as you wish to be done to you”. I think this applies because if you want people to visit your blog and comment on your posts you need to do the same for theirs.
I also think that click bait can be a tool to really get traffic to your blog, and also that the way you use tags and present your information can get you a lot of traffic with the optimized searches for search engines. However, I find that sometimes click bait is just really annoying and often times for me it seems kind of desperate especially when your click bait doesn’t even deal with the story you are trying to promote. Gossip magazines are really bad about this online.
Briggs also encourages you to get out in the blogging community and commenting to make contacts.
Obviously promoting your blog is something that every blogger desires as a result. But as most of us know, this can be a very daunting task. The first thing that I will say is definitely to read other people’s blogs. Because why in the world would someone expect other people to ready their blog, if they are not taking the time to read other people’s blogs. That’s how it works, you read other people’s blogs, share ideas, learn from their ideas, and make appropriate and intelligent comments; the same is more likely to happen to your blog.
I think the 100 rule would definitely make a lot since to in terms of promoting your blog. This is because if you contacting 100 different people every day would no doubt have your blog’s voice heard, I think that is pretty obvious. Even if all of those contacts did not like your blog, you are still making the effort to reach out to people and people can realize that. On the other hand, in this point of my life, as a student, I don’t have time or interest to be reaching out to 100 different contacts each day. That is just way too many people to be connecting with on my kind of college schedule. But when I reach a time in my life (hopefully soon), where I am working in a professional career, I think aft some point I would learn to be able to handle something like this. Like Paige said, it kind of reminds me of my internship, because I was constantly having to connect with new people every day (maybe not 100, actually never 100), but I would still be contact at least 20 a day, which may not sound like a lot, but still benefited us, and gave me the experience I needed to maybe someday reach that 100 rule level.
So out of all of what Briggs discusssions, the 100 rule on controlling digital audiences definitely stuck with me the most because of my internship, and it was interesting to actually read about something that I was actually doing (even if it was in its most minor form).
Whats the good of a blog if there isn’t and an audience willing to read it? That is where promotion comes in to play and by effectively promoting your blog there ways that can increase overall traffic and the volume of comments. Both the amounts of hits your posts get and the commenting volume per post are telling towards how well a specific blog is being promoted.
The link that talked about the 10 smart ways to promote your blog made some great points that could be beneficial as we work on establishing an online presence for our group blogs. Some of the relevant points made here discussed how responding to your readers comments or questions makes the reader more appreciative and it shows that you care about the topics that are being posted that names attached them. Quickly getting back to someone that reaches out about a post or clarifying something in a timely fashion can be the difference of someone keeping up with a blog or it being an after thought.
In the article that talks about shutting down their commenting section because it was “bad for science” showed that differing views on how comments can or cant be helpful for different types of blogs. As noted in the article, some people think that the comment section can skew ones view of what an article was intended for. This is an interesting point to consider but I think the collaborative aspect of a comment section and the wide range of different expressed viewpoints make for a better overall experience with a blog for the reader.
In the chapter Briggs talks about how to build a digital audience. The web tracking software that can be used now to tack hits on a blog or other types of data that reveal what type of traffic a blog is receiving is something would help blog creators gauge how well their blog is doing. There is a lot of resources out there can help with establishing a better presence online.