It is much simpler and more convenient than ever to connect with your readers in order to grow your loyal followers. With so many tools and resources, it can also get complicated and overwhelming to make those personal connections with them.
This is the 5th Episode of the Blogging 101 Series.
7 Ways To Better Connect With Your Blog Readers
Social media is one of the ways to connect with your followers and fans if done correctly—–creating interesting contents that your readers want to share—however, if you’re just updating your entries to put contents on your blog, it’s a quick way to lose them, and you’re not really connecting with your readers.
To be able to help you make those better and loyal connections, here are seven simple and effective ways to connect with your readers, while growing your brand and following at the same time.
1) Know Your Readers
The first thing that you need to do to establish a better connection with your readers is to know them on a personal level. Use available tools that let you identify the following information: demographics (age, location, gender, hobbies, and interests); personal wants; and needs.
With these details available, you can strategize your approach and ways to promote your blog. This can also help you decide whether you need to modify the contents you provide as well as the frequency of your blog updates.
As a blogger, you need not forget what Google Analytics can provide you. Information from Google is one of the most reliable resources you need that can help you start a targeted following database. You can discover what kind of readers you have and what do they need from you and your blog. These details can also help you with identifying their online reading habits which can assist you with knowing the proper time to post new updates on your blog and promoting them.
Aside from Google Analytics, you can also make use of the Facebook Page Insights. Learn who your readers are by doing an analysis on your collected data and segment them accordingly by categories or groups to be able to personalize the connection.
2) Engage on Social Media
With the growth of social media, it is one of the better ways to have a connection with your readers online. Social media have become the essential online tool to search for information and knowledge base they need. Tools like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other available resources are avenues for people to engage and for bloggers to grow their brand.
Facebook can be used to build awareness and personally connect with your readers. You can create a Facebook Page where you post videos and images to explain your niche and inform them the benefits they get if they read your blog.
Twitter, on the other hand, is a way for both bloggers and readers to post their thoughts and opinions. Hear what your readers think personally about your blog and engage with them by answering their queries directly. You can also keep your followers up-to-date by sharing news immediately. Twitter can also help you track what are the trend on social media and from fellow bloggers under your niche.
A great place to market your blog with a simple visual element is Instagram. Now with more than 300 million daily users, Instagram quickly climbing the social media hierarchy of best sites to connect with readers. With simple yet rich media content, it can engage more users with a strategic use of search keywords through using hashtags and also with a good skill on photography. There are several tips on how to have eye-catching images to boost your online presence and your social media posts.
3) Start Live Events and Meet Ups
Not all social media performance can be successful. Even though these strategies can help your blog to gain followers and connect with them, facing them personally is still effective and engaging. Register to blogging events where you engage with your readers and market your blogs to potential followers. Get to see their response and feedback on a face-to-face level.
If you have a lineup of merchandise, invite your loyal followers to purchase them and promote them to others. You can also get to know your potential brand leads and engage with them to build a partnership.
In doing live events and meet ups, of course, you need to plan out by preparing your flyers, brochures and some giveaways. Don’t forget to let your readers get involved. Learn from them first hand, see their reactions personally, and talk to them to leave a good impression about your blog and your brand.
4) Keep Them Updated
Send them emails, newsletters, or push notifications on their mobile devices for announcements on new blog posts, future events, or anything related to your blog. Keeping your readers in the loop is the easiest way to reach them whether on social media or on traditional personal engagements.
Update your social media channels through tools available for you. You can also utilize social media advertisement services like Facebook Ads to promote the updates on your blogs. Never miss encouraging your customers in sharing your updates with family members and friends who can possibly be your potential readers.
5) Build The Trust
There is no other way for letting your readers keep coming back to read your blog and support you but with trust built with a good foundation. Trust is a necessity to an emerging blogger. This means engaging with your readers and provide them facts on the information they need. You need to be genuine with what you believe in as a blogger and promote the right products if ever you have partnership deals with companies and establishments.
Building the trust with your readers, no matter how strong your social media channels, how huge your following database or how engaged you are with them will be affected by the experience they are getting from you through your blog. You need to plan out the section of your online and offline presence to be able to attract new readers and let existing followers stay with you for the better of your blog and your brand.
6) Ask Them Questions
If you are able to build a loyal following, it’s a better way to connect with them if they are involved with your blog. You can ask them questions that they can answer and collect these data for your upcoming blog posts. It’s a good way to let them feel they are part of your blog by putting their relevant answers and credit them with their ideas.
Their answers can also be a foundation of your next update if ever you are in the stage where you ran out of ideas on what to write on your blog. Always remember that readers visit your blog because they need information to better their lives. Readers who get involved to a part of your blog can make them feel that they have done their part to also share their ideas with others.
Your blog can be a community of online readers, too. It’s a give-and-take phenomenon that soon you can achieve.
ALSO READ: The 5 Characteristics Of A Blogging Leader
7) Be Patient With Your Efforts
Building the community of readers and followers of your blog is not rocket science. It’s also not as easy as a snap of a finger. If only we are like Harry Potter that can conjure magic spells to automatically grow something, in this case, our blog readers, sad to say, it is not. You need to be consistent with your updates and always track the trends of your readers using the tools and resources available for you.
There are ways on how to quickly grow your readers and followers. However, you need to spend double time with your efforts and time, as well as your budget to get things done and fast. Extend your online presence not just on your blog or any social media channels. YouTube can be one of the best ways to do it as you can engage with your readers in a video format. If it is something new for you, you can get used to it if you start right away.
YouTube can be a fun way to connect with your readers. But you need to put in mind that it will cost you time and effort from conceptualizing the idea of your content, filming the video, editing, and uploading on the YouTube channel.
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I hope you like this discussion and will help you grow your readers and follow. There are more ways that you can do to better connect with them, and what I have included here are some of the things that I have done and helped me with my blog efforts.
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If you have questions, or if you wish to share your ideas about this discussion, you can leave your thoughts in the comments section below. I would be very happy to read them.