PRAV TALKS

Nothing has proven to be quite as successful at rocketing your blog to fame as social media.  Yes, SEO is important.  Sure, content might be king.  But what is a king without a kingdom, a following?

If social media is an important part of your marketing strategy as a blogger — and you know it should be — make sure that your campaign has these qualities:

Authentic:  McKinsey Quarterly recently reported that “the trust gap between consumers and things in general is widening.”  Given that one of the most important functions of social media is to build trust between you and your readers, it is obvious that any social media efforts you make have to be genuine, and framed as authentically as possible.  Don’t be overly self-promoting, engage with your readers on a personal level; send social media updates that are full of personality and charm.

Agile:  This might not be one of the qualities you expect to see in a list about social media campaigns, but the truth is that changes in the social media world happen in the blink of an eye, and you have to be able to respond just as quickly.  Don’t build a campaign that is so expansive that you don’t see the small changes.

Positive: All your social media efforts should be appeal emotionally to your readers.  Instead of focusing on getting a message about yourself and your new content out, try to foster a positive emotional response from them when you post.  The way to do this is to “turn happiness into a resource,” as McKinsey Quarterly puts it.  What drives your readers’ happiness?  The answer to this question will help shape your social media campaigns

Unexpected:  It is pretty amazing to see how quickly paradigms form with new technologies — already there is a generally standard method of posting social media updates.  Any time you deviate from this standard, you will pique the interest of your readers.  Visual components are especially effective when trying to catch your readers’ attention.

Shareable:  Making your social media updates shareable is paramount to the success of your campaign.  Your campaign could have all the above qualities in spades, but if you don’t provide tools that make it easy for your readers to share your content, it is very unlikely that your campaign (or your content) will ever leave the ground.

Blogging is a great way to bring in extra-income or even replace a traditional job, but if you don’t have the marketing tactics to support your blog, it’s unlikely that you will ever see the kind of success that you want.

Some are naturally better suited to blog, such as students at online colleges who are often already familiar with the technology and are in many cases online for a great part of their day to begin with, but anyone can learn the principles of a running great blog.

It starts with analyzing what you are doing, and comparing it to what works.  Review the list above and ask yourself what you could be doing differently to get your blog popular.

This guest post is contributed by Lauren Bailey, who regularly writes for online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: blauren99 @gmail.com.