How to get Followers for your Blog

Q.  Dear Dorothy, How do I get followers for my blog?

      Alex

A.  Dear Alex

The marvels of social media, the threads that have come to bind the world together in a giant of fairy floss. No it doesn’t taste sweet, it doesn’t even taste particularly nice… it’s just plain sticky as it gets into everything and everywhere.

It appears that there is no escaping this relatively new form of universal communication and, no matter where you venture you will hear people discussing the latest going-on’s with friends on the other-side of the globe as though they lived next-door.

From Twitter, Grinder, MySpace, Facebook and Blogs, the biggest fascination however appears to revolve around the number of followers you can gather along the way. For many, having large numbers of followers has become like driving luxury car or living on an exclusive estate. The more followers you have, the more popular, or in some cases, the more infamous and influential you are. But I ask you, is this really the case?

Getting followers is a relatively simple task, if getting followers is all you want to achieve. Eric Berne, author of Games People Play refers to this process as Transactional Analysis, a simple form of reciprocation -- You follow my blog, and I’ll follow yours --.  If you were to pursue this particular concept, a new Twitterer, Blogger or Facebook fanatic should have no difficulty in gaining 400 followers in less than 4 hours. Try it, it’s easier than it seems.

Ok, now you have all the followers you want and you’re the most popular person on the internet. Give yourself a huge pat on the back. You didn’t need to get undressed and that disgraceful wobbly you threw last week at the supermarket that got posted on YouTube didn’t even go viral. What’s next?

Oh! You actually want people to continue taking notice you and read what you have to say. This is where social media differs to other forms of communication. Followers are not always readers, and readers are not always followers. Virtual popularity does not put food on the table, nor does it pay the bills, and if you’re hoping to make a living out of your new labour of love then you need the reader… not the follower.

How to get someone to read your blog and return

Getting someone to read your blog, and then hopefully follow you is a slightly more challenging task than just getting followers. When first contemplating blogging there are 10 simple steps you can take to increase readership.

1.      You need to ask yourself: Do I have something worthwhile and of interest to convey to a wide range of people, or is my blog designed for a specific group?

2.      Is my blog worth the time and effort to read? If the answer is no then you have little to no chance of gaining and retaining a faithful group of followers.

3.      Does my site have an easy to navigate layout with things in a logical order?

4.      Know who you are writing for and the things that hold their attention. While you don’t necessarily need to be a subject matter expert on what you write about (after all that is what research is all about) you do need to know your audience.

5.      Invite people to return to your site if they like what you have to say.

6.      Use other forms of popular social media such as Twitter to promote your latest blog entry. This is where having 40,000 followers and knowing your audience is useful.

7.      If you are promoting your blog through social media, be aware of different world time zones.

8.      Promote your blog throughout the day and during peak reader periods. There is very little point in wanting to get more readers from Italy if you are Tweeting about your blog when they’re all in bed.

9.      Use popular topics and commonly searched for words in your title, and

10.  Choose your words carefully. Unless the purpose of your blog is of an adult nature, or is designed to cause offence, don’t generate postings that will get you off-side with your readers.

Remember quality followers who read your blog and want to return, are hard to find. They are even harder to retain.