Amazing Flickr image by hoysameg
Although many news organizations have great writers on staff, many offer little training to reporters who want, or are asked, to blog. In fact, I had no training on blogs at all.
To make up for it, I studied how well-known blog authorities wrote and structured their posts and paid attention to a lot of the tips they revealed.
Some of my teachers include: Darren Rowse, Brian Clark, Chris Garrett and the Performancing team. (notice none of these are newspaper people – there’s a reason)
Much of what I’ve learned from professional bloggers I’ve translated into ways print writers new to the blogosphere can improve their blogs. Blogging presents new challenges to skilled writers, including engaging audiences, expanding readership, managing content and interacting with the web.
Take a look through some of my beginning blogging guides to help you or your writers better understand ways to build an audience for new blogs.
Blogging basics: Building an audience
- Getting to know your niche: How to find out who’s already talking about your topic of interest, and what’s on your prospective readers’ minds.
- Start planning your blog: Blogs need focus, dedication and an engaging author. Learn how to plan for your blog to help it grow.
- How to interact with your niche: Now that you know what you want to write about and how you will write your blog, it’s time to really engage the people in your niche. Get some tips for interacting with them on social networks.
- Best newspaper blogs for comments, community and readability: My list of top blogs from newspaper sites throughout the U.S. that could give you some ideas on how to model your own blog. Have a blog that you think should be added, please leave a comment and let me know!
Future entries will be added to this series. Please comment on any of the articles and share your stories how you’ve built an audience for your blog.
{ 4 trackbacks }
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Shawn,
This a great list. One aspect of building an audience is doing your research and planning in advance!
I would add is building a folder of RSS feeds using NetNewsWire. That way you can track everyone who blogs on your topic. After a month or so of use, you can weed out the good from the bad. I do this by tracking who gets the most activity and remove the ones who get little activity.
Naturally, the bloggers who are better will get more activity and you can quickly go from 50 feeds down to 25 and down even further.
Your Single Source For All Your Uniform Needs.