Once you’ve started building media, like a podcast, or a new videoblog, the very next thing that happens is that you want people to actually see it and experience it. One of the most common questions I’m asked by people who blog or podcast is how to grow their audience. Audience does make a difference in making media, at least if your goal is to build conversations and relationships. Here are a few tips to getting the word out to prospective new people.
Your Email Signature
Stick a link to your blog or podcast in your email signature. Here’s a hint, though. If your email signature looks like the titles at the end of a movie (7-15 lines long), people are going to glaze over them, not pore through them in great detail. The second thing in my signature after my name is a simple text pointer to my website. Everything else, including my title and phone number, are downstream from that.
Subscription Tools
If you’re not using FeedBurner, you’re missing a ton of tools that help people get your media the way they want it. FeedBurner is a tool that enriches your RSS feed. But it does more than that. It adds ways for people to subscribe by email, ways for people to get your media on their reader of choice, and tons and tons of other add-on services like republishing widgets, and more. If you’re not comfortable editing your blog’s template and files, you might ask around for help (Twitter would surface a lot of willing helpers- or go to a PodCamp and someone would help), but swapping out the built-in RSS feeds on a website for FeedBurner’s even-more-detailed feeds would be helpful.
Blog and Podcast Directories
There are tons of places where blogs and podcasts are listed. Rather than recreate the wheel, I googled for some directories list posts:
Blog directories
Podcast directories
I recommend subscribing to a bunch, though I’ve yet to receive a message or comment from someone saying, “I found you on Super Blog Directory dot com!” But hey, it doesn’t hurt.
Oh! One point to make sure you’ve done it. CLAIM your blog/podcast with Technorati. It looks like you need to get an account, and then you can claim it here .
Comments are Your Friend
Reading big blogs and podcasts that you admire, and commenting appropriately is a great way to build some awareness of your blog or podcast. I’ve had lots of people surf over from a comment I’ve left on a big and amazing site, only to retain that person as someone who thinks what I’m blogging about is of interest to them. Never spam a blog. Never sound overly self-promotional. But if you add a conversation point or two that people resonate with, there are tons of folks (like me!) who will follow through, and consider adding your blog to the feed reader for a while.
Use Social Bookmarking Tools
Most blogs allow you to add on 3rd party applications, and one that I *highly* recommend is AddThis. If your blogging software supports AddThis, I’d say use it. (You might use a similar tool, and it’s probably okay). Add This gives you 36 social bookmarking sites all in a teeny tiny button. Thus, if your audience uses a bookmarking tool on ANY of 36 sites, your post can be added to their information quite easily.
Some of these sites are GREAT traffic adders. The #3 referral mechanism to my site is StumbleUpon, so I can tell you for sure that these tools drive awareness.
Facebook
I was just about to scrap using Facebook entirely, but then Steve Rubel sent me a quick message telling me that he first discovered my blog through Facebook. The minute he said that, I realized that Facebook’s big value to me would be to redistribute my blog so that even more people might discover it and come back to the mother ship.
I’m using an application called Flog Blog, and also Blog Friends to promote my own stuff. I also use Feed Heads and some other tools to discover other people’s work. (Remember, this SHOULD be a two way street).
A Short Note on Digg
Not sure why, and not sure if it’s just me, but Digg has never really done much for my blog. I’ve made the Digg front page a few times now, and the folks who usually come over from Digg don’t stay, and often tell me what a piece of crap my site is. Not that I mind critics, but I also don’t rush out to invite them in. Your mileage may vary.
Value Matters
At the end of the day, the reason why people will or won’t subscribe to your media is that they find some value in it. In a few small cases, they might subscribe because they know you and just want to stay in touch. But for attracting people that aren’t your friends or relatives, you need to offer something of value. I’ve had people ask me how to promote their blog, only to read nothing but random posts about why they liked last night’s episode of Dancing with the Stars, a YouTube video of dogs singing, etc.
It’s not that your blog HAS to be about any specific thing, but if you’re looking for tons of traffic, the blog should have some value outside your own interests. If you want to stay blogging about whatever it is that appeals to you, that’s perfectly cool, and I’m not saying don’t. But if you want to take your media up to tons more folks, try to deliver something to others, and try to do it succinctly.
How Are YOU Promoting Your Media?
Guaranteed that I’ve missed some good ideas, and that you’ve got some great ones. What else are you doing to get your media out there and seen? How are you finding your audience? We’d love to hear your ideas. What’s worked for you? What hasn’t?
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
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