The Social Media Marketing Book

Building an Audience

You've got a blog set up and you've picked a niche. You've written a few solid posts, and you're ready to roll, but no one's subscribing or commenting. What's missing? (Besides readers, of course.) You need to have an understanding of where these readers originate. Blogs are best thought of as hubs for your social media marketing efforts, and the other chapters in this book will teach you how to reach out to various communities; your blog is a good place to point the people you meet. Hopefully, you're among your target demographic, so ask yourself: where do you hang out online?

A crucial aspect of building an audience is connecting with other bloggers in your niche. I've already described two easy ways to do this: links and commenting. But you can also get to know them on other social sites, especially Twitter. I'm much more likely to link to you from my blog if I've had a conversation or two with you before.