In the first part of this post, I discussed ways to encourage sharing once someone has read a post.
But before anyone shares your content from the highest hill in the twitterverse, you must convince people to read your content. This is a whole different challenge. This post will discuss best practices to put your content in play.
Reading
Again, in order for a post to be shared it must be read. There are certain things producers can do to increase the chances of visitor staying to read it:
1. Write a compelling first sentence.
Bloggers compete in the attention economy. Readers have no shortage of content to consume, but a fixed amount of time. Within this environment, you need to capture someone’s attention quickly …
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If you’ve ever spent 2+ hours slaving over a blog post only to have 1/2 a spam bot be the sole person to share it you may want to read this post.
Improving the odds of getting people to share your post starts with creating compelling content (or having a lot of money to give entrepreneurs). Assuming you can achieve this, there are certain considerations and practices that maximize the exposure available through social media.
The Sharing Funnel
You can visualize the content sharing funnel by working backwords.
For content to be shared, it needs to be read (unless you have a posse retweet jockeys).
For it to be read, a visitor must perceive that it’s worthy of their attention upon arriving at the post.
For …
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It’s no secret that including a link within your email signature is a simple way to promote your blog. But almost all people who do this still miss out on optimal traffic generation.
Few people realize that Google hides content that you’ve already seen in your inbox. For example, I just sent an email from my personal gmail to work one.
Pre-Send Compose View:
Default view from my work inbox:
The default Google view does not display the signature from my personal email. Why? Because I’ve forwarded messages to my work one already this week. Due to the fact I’ve already seen all the content within my email signature, Google’s default view hides it.
The only way to view my signature is by clicking the small …
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This is the third and final post on things I’ve learned about blogging over the course of 100 posts. Parts one and two focus on continuity and the process. In this post, I want to highlight a few things I’ve learned about content and audiences.
Creating a Destination is Tough
The greatest challenge for anyone looking to cultivate a vibrant content destination is that you’re only as good as the last piece of content you put out. When I first started blogging, I thought that a viral post was all it took to be off to the races. That’s far from the truth. Sure people might venture to your blog that one instance, but that doesn’t mean they’ll ever come back or …
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This post is the 2nd part of series that outlines things I’ve learned post 100 notches on my blogging belt. Pun, anyone?
The first post provided insight into what I’ve learned about continuity and how to avoid heading to the 19th hole after 4 posts. Here I’ll outline the process I’ve arrived at and why I’ve found effective.
Before Writing the Post:
My workflow is heavily reliant upon a moleskin notebook and google docs.
Everywhere besides places I have to wear fancy pants, I carry a moleskin notebook to record ideas, thoughts, and observations. A lot of this serves as ammunition to store in my blogging war chest. Every 2-3 days I review and transfer my notes from my moleskin to a series of …
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This is my 100th blog post. I thought I’d take this as an opportunity to share some things I’ve learned about blogging. I previously wrote on why I think everyone should blog here which speaks to a lot of things I’ve picked up about the benefits of blogging. In this series of posts I’ll focus on what I’ve learned about continuity, process, audiences, and a few other things.
Continuity:
Don’t Make It About the Outcome
Feedback loops are important to creators. They allows us to refine our work. They helps us identify which audiences our creations resonate with and why. They confirm that the work we do is worthwhile, thus motivate us to continue creating.
In the blogosphere, the main feedback loops are comments, …
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My belief is that most (not all) successful consumer web products do an excellent job of feeding your ego, saving you money, or saving you time. I was taking a look at some of my most popular posts and noticed a clear trend that is in alignment with this thesis; at a high level, the most popular blog posts are shortcuts. They save readers time.
Originally I noticed that many popular posts contained a personal anecdote as part of a non-obvious, overarching insight. Posts fashioned in this way are like cliffnotes to writers’ lives.
But even these posts can be encapsulated under the more ubiquitous theme of shortcuts:
Stories or Perscriptions that Contain a Personal Anecdote – a shortcut to wisdom forged over …
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I’ve grown to love blogging and it’s served me well, but it wasn’t always this way. I started blogging because someone in tech I respected told me “I needed to have a digital presence.”
This rationale for blogging doesn’t sound all that compelling. Maybe that’s why there’s far more cheerleaders on the sidelines than players on the field.
Here’s 10 reasons I advocate starting a blog in no particular order:
1. Crystallize Your Thoughts
Often the best way to master a skill is to try and teach it to someone else. When it comes to mastering your thoughts, I’ve found attempting to communicate them in a concise, convincing manner to be highly effective. When we write, we dwell on our thoughts. And when we …
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