I'm 100% positive this has been discussed before, but I can't find it anywhere. I just have a simple question and if you can find the proper thread leave it down belowwww! What are websites people go to to read blog posts? If someone were to start a short online journal about life experiences as they happen and they'd like to get to an audience, where do you go? The obvious thought is Tumblr, but I (and others) have personal grudges against the like of tumblr. I need the YouTube of the literary world... Does that even exist? Why doesn't it! Agh!
Honestly, you're probably not going to get much of an audience wherever you go. There are a gazillion blogs now and unless you have something special AND devote a huge amount of time on a regular basis to market it, yours isn't going to attract much readership. Or you could get really lucky but... unlikely. The platform itself isn't that important, it'll be your advertising of it on Facebook/Twitter/other social media. Wordpress springs to mind though.
Yeh, i know youre right. I doubt I'm a good enough writer to attract an audience without a whole lotta work. Part of the platforming idea is that its easier to share... I think it'd be great if a social media for blogs would get bigger. Of course... Tumblr is also an option. Urgh!
It's really not down to your writing skill, please don't think I'm saying that! It's more about the subject - does it grab people's attention? - and how much time you put into advertising it.
I'm not up on blogging very much, but I did run a blog for my campus radio show back in college. This was a few years ago, but when I did research on which platform to use I found three that were well-known at the time: Blogger/Blogspot, Tumblr, and WordPress. My research gave me the impression that Blogger was essentially the MySpace of the three, Tumblr was mostly for fan pages and porn, and WordPress was mostly for professional blogs. I went with WordPress. But yes, marketing is key. It takes a lot of work to get a sizable audience.
Out of curiosity, where does one market? Forum platforms like ours are, in general, pretty hostile to what we call blog-spam. It's not a stance we're about to change, btw, because it starts to take over the forum with posts that answer to a "I was just talking about the same thing over at pleaseIbegyoureadandfollowmyblog.me.com" format, which quickly dilutes the reason for having such a venue. So, where else?
The (admittedly small) audience I've got - or had, I've not posted anything in a year or so - mostly came from setting up a Facebook page. The audience built up through posts that people shared and some paid ads - it's still pretty cheap to advertise for likes, though it's worth noting that of all the likes you've got, maybe 10-15% will be paying regular attention. You could advertise directly to your blog as well if you want, you just tend to get better rates if you keep everything inside the Facebook ecosystem. From there, as well as the stories, I'd occasionally post things designed to get people to the blog proper and onto the e-mail list.
For me it was fairly easy because I'd just push it on my show--"You're listening to WLVR Bethlehem, head over to our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter, and follow The Rock Show off the air at <insert blog URL here>." I don't know how anyone else does it outside of just social media and SEO. But once you do have an audience, you have to have reasons for them to keep coming back--regular content updates, a good variety of content, and a unique presence. I know there are some YouTubers who have their own merchandise. You could also get involved in the community for the topic you blog about. In my professional world, there are lots of blogs for SharePoint. Those bloggers often speak at or at least attend the local SharePoint user group meetings. Some of them contribute to textbooks. Some of them have YouTube channels. Don't know how they all do it. I doubt I could, especially since I can't keep pumping out content on a regular basis, which was probably the biggest reason my blog ended (it continued on for a bit after my show finished).
This is also part of my question! I not only have an interest in writing and sharing it, but I'd like to start reading other writers who are starting out. I want to find some people who have dreams on the side (or even as a main goal) and see what they're writing. I've never heard of SharePoint. What is this?
It's a Microsoft application for businesses to use to build enterprise intranets, portals, or occasionally front-facing websites. Ferrari's website, for example, is famously (well, famously in our circles) built with SharePoint, though it's very heavily customized. And now that I've bored everyone to tears, we return to our regularly scheduled programming
