Prelude: The concept for this post was provided by ReputationManagement.com, a leading provider of premier relationship services.
Branding isn't just for businesses. It's also for bloggers , YouTubers,
podcasters, and all those internet creators.
And when it comes to promoting your creations, the choice of
social media platform is key.
It's critical to understand how the different platforms
work, and where your audience is. It's
very easy to stick to the largest networks (e.g. Facebook and Twitter) and then
getting disappointed that you aren't building your audience.
Two examples - firstly, my own blog. Whilst not being the largest blog in the
world, over the years I have been fortunate enough to build up a number of
regular viewers, making me feel that my work is read.
Facebook is great for friends and family, and when I first started blogging Facebook was my go-to social media platform.
But the trouble with Facebook is that it is for friends and
family. My friends and family may
love/like me, but they don't necessarily want to read my ramblings about my
various hobbies. So not every blog post
- in fact, few of them nowadays - get promoted on Facebook.
Twitter always attracts a few readers, but to make Twitter
work, you need ideally to have content that is trending. A blog post about Valentines Day on
Valentines Day, with a cute GIF of a heart, and the right wording in the tweet,
will (hopefully) drag the readers over.
Otherwise it's only going to be your followers that ever see it.
So which social media platform do I personally find best?
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Or a GIF like this works. |
So which social media platform do I personally find best?
Well, I actually find Google+ is the best social media platform for me, in that its communities allow me to find like-minded people and places where I can share my content, and discover other content. Blogging is very much a quid-pro-quo world, where you need to read and work with other bloggers to build your own audience. And it makes it more fun, too.
So despite various rumours that Google+ is about to vanish,
I desperately hope that it carries on, because for the likes of me, it is the
best way to find and attract new readers.
The second example I have is my wife. She loves to cross stitch. And she's found YouTube to be hugely
successful, as there is a large YouTube community of what are called
"flosstubers", people who cross stitch, and vlog about their cross
stitching. In a very short space of
time, she's taken her YouTube channel and attracted over a thousand
subscribers. And she's been able to
leverage this into starting her own cross stitch-related enterprise on Etsy,
for me she's a real success story on how to use social media to promote your product.
I am not on FB because that platform doesn't work for me for exactly the reasons you listed, Mike. Like you, G+ has been very good to me. Twitter is also working out quite nicely for me. This is really good advice!
ReplyDeleteThanks Susan! :)
DeleteI find that my post never go viral, I am willing to settle for bacterial, or even subatomic. Aah, a man can dream.
ReplyDeleteOne day Tim, one day. I don't think we've been helped by the problems with Google+, going back a couple of years I used to have posts with maybe +30 G+votes on it, now I'm lucky if I reach +10.
DeleteI agree, FB and Twitter are fun, but not great generators for my blog. Google + is better, although my biggest draw is through the Wordpress community. I probably should stop getting my annual flu shot, nothing viral has come my way.
ReplyDeleteWordpress community is interesting, never really thought of Wordpress as a community (but of course it is). You definitely deserve something viral (in a good way!)
DeleteAgree. I love twitter but I don't discount G+ although there are a few things I'm not keen in over there. I do use fb a little but I don't get much blog promotion from it. I do promo via Instagram and Pinterest too but not sure how much comes from that direction. I guess the key is to keep shouting on whatever network you can.
ReplyDeleteI could do more via Instagram and Pinterest, I don't think I'm making the most out of them. The trouble I have is that once I've put in the effort to write a blog post, I generally can't be bothered to do adequate promotion! Must try harder :)
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