Re: Help me out here, please.

Response to http://ramblingsfromawritersmind.wordpress.com/2015/01/04/help-me-out-here-please/.

Hello Paul White, marketing isn’t my specialty. However I would like to offer my views on blogging and social media platforms.

For the past few years, I’ve been ranting on about games, people and anything that touches a nerve to me. Thus far, I have seen a small trickle of readers. In the early months, I wasn’t too sure what to do or say to generate traffic. However there are a few things I’ve kept in my mind when I posted something onto my blog.

In terms of content, I do my best to leave the profanity at the door. I swear more than a sailor in real life, but my blog gives me the opportunity to back up and cool off to look objective but still have a fire burning to the point. I’m a personal blogger so I like to be open to my readers, however there are exceptions to this. As a personal prerogative, I keep information that’s very personal and intimate away from my blog. I try and not talk about the people I know by name nor do I try and describe them.

As for “exposure” you kept mentioning, I do think it’s a good thing to have your blog seen by others and have them provide their point of view. WordPress.com is a community of thousands of writers, bloggers and hobbyists. For your content to be seen, you have to write something worth talking about. Write something provocative, informative or opinionated; you will get the attention of a few readers. Importantly when producing content, you should know how to generate viewership. With WordPress, you can use tags to attract other users to your blog. The more tags you attach to the post, the more likely it will be seen based on a keyword search. The kicker to this with WordPress.com, some tags usually overused. Meaning there are a lot of people using the same tag for their post and therefore your post might not be seen and could be buried. If they are patient, they will stumble on your post. Importantly, keep posting constantly. Create a schedule and try to stick to it. When I first started my blog, it wasn’t (and still) is not aimed to generate views. In fact, it’s my own personal platform to release. There are things to be just said and let go rather repressed deeply. I try and aim for a post once every 7 days because it feels natural for me to post at that rate. I subscribed to some bloggers that post every day and some do it once a month. Find your speed.

In a way, we are competing indirectly for viewership through what we tag. This is where social media comes in handy. If you have other media platforms to share, you can bring traffic from other sites towards your site. Of course not only you should be letting the world know what you are producing, at the same time you should be engaging. Doesn’t necessary mean you have to be passive aggressive with bloggers and guest writers where you post a small comment to redirect them to your site, but more towards on building a rapport with others to keep them from coming back. Rather than shake hands and part ways, try and find some common ground where both can benefit through generating traffic rather than having guests redirecting their viewers to your site to generate a viewership on your site.

In case you nodded off with me mumbling on. Here’s the “TL;DR” (Too Long; Didn’t Read) version:

• Constant content
• Tag everything like a graffiti artist
• Reach out on other social media platforms
• Hope you’re 1 of the many 1000’s people are reading and sharing
• Don’t be selfish, contribute back

In the end, success just depends on what you have created. If it’s something the same and something that has been done, then it wouldn’t take off as quickly. Doesn’t mean to give up, just means you have to keep going. Soon or later something good will come to it.

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