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by Duncan Epping

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Blogging

How to grow your blog/youtube channel/podcast/social following

Duncan Epping · Jan 18, 2021 · Leave a Comment

I posted this thread on Twitter and Linkedin, and I figured I would cross-post it here as well, as it makes it easier to find whenever I need to point someone to it. I get this question still once every quarter at least: I started blogging, podcasting, and/or a channel on youtube, how do I grow my audience? It seems that everyone is always looking for that magic formula. But there really isn’t a formula if you ask me. There are a couple of things that will help to grow your blog/podcast/channel or social profile/following though.

First and foremost: content and authenticity! You need to make sure you are passionate about the topic, and of course that it is a topic that others are interested in. if you are not passionate then that will stand out in your content, and if others are not interested in the topic of course views will be relatively low. The content will also need to be delivered in an authentic way, whether that is in writing or recording.

Then there’s consistency and perseverance. You don’t need to post every day, but there needs to be some kind of consistency in terms of content publishing. Once a week, three times a week, twice a month. Keep going, even if you don’t see the numbers going up. This is what definitely helped me grow my blog readership in the early days. I had a goal of one update a week, but don’t force it. If there’s nothing to post, don’t post…

Then there’s timing. If you want to capture views from social media channels, you will want to post the content around the time most people will click it, or see it. As things like RSS readers are pretty much dead, two things will drive your views: social media and search engines. So make sure to pick a day/time where you feel you would get the most traction (look at your stats).

That leads me to the next thing, search engines. Make sure you optimize your content (title, body, keywords, images, video) and platform (wordpress etc) for search engines. Most blogs these days, as an example, will get their views via Google. If Google doesn’t rank you high enough… I guess that speaks for itself right. Most platforms also have plugins to optimize your blog for you, and of course, with youtube/podcasts your shownotes/description and title are absolutely key!

Then there are the social channels. Make sure to grow these organically. Be active on the various platforms, be responsive. Don’t overdo it, don’t try to stand out, but try to be helpful instead! People appreciate the responsiveness, people appreciate the help. Even though my inbox/DMs are swamped at times, I always aim to reply to everyone. Not only reply, but I have a few search columns open on twitter always, if I know the answer to a question I will reply. This not only helps you grow your following, but it also helps with finding new topics for content!

The last thing I want to mention, be unique in terms of content. There’s no point in being blog number 78 sharing release notes. Look for that detail and try to elaborate on it. Dig deeper. Whether it is a blog, a video, or a podcast. People appreciate unique solid content! That is why they will follow you, that is why they will return to your blog or subscribe to your channel or podcast.

Get started!

Top 25 bloggers 2014 results are out…

Duncan Epping · Mar 27, 2014 ·

The top 25 bloggers 2014 voting results are out. This year the competition was insane, and I know that I say this every year but if you look at bloggers like Cormac Hogan, Derek Seaman, Frank Denneman, Chris Wahl and William Lam you know what I am talking about.

1400+ people voted, 15 new blogs in the top 50, 5 new blogs in the Top 25, and a new blog in the Top 10. A big thank you to every who has voted for me again, I am honored and humbled to have been voted number 1. I want to call out the top 5 as I have worked closely with most of them the last years and it has been a great pleasure: William Lam(2), Frank Denneman(3), Cormac Hogan(4) and Scott Lowe(5). Each of them has consistently produced excellent material. I have been very very impressed by what they’ve released over the last year and hope everyone keeps putting out their material as I very much enjoy reading it.

Congrats to everyone else who made the list, if you are curious who they are head over to the full top bloggers list on Eric’s blog. Maybe even better, watch the awesome show Eric, John, Rick and David recorded… It is very entertaining!

Support your fav. virtualization bloggers, vote for the top blogs!

Duncan Epping · Feb 25, 2014 ·

I just woke up in an extremely warm Vietnam and noticed it is that time of the year again. I am hoping to end up somewhere at the top of the list again, but I realize like no one else that this is not a given. The competition is huge and some really stood out this year. There are three in particular that stood out in my opinion which for sure made my Top list: Cormac Hogan, William Lam and Derek Seaman. All three did something different than most bloggers do. They bring unique content, a unique perspective and showed dedication / perseverance. I am expecting all three to be in the top of the list for sure.

2013 was a crazy year… I joined a new team and am working on an exciting new product at VMware, which I unfortunately cannot talk about yet. We saw the beta release of Virtual SAN and that resulted in many many articles. I was fortunate enough to be selected to present at both VMworld EMEA and US, and presented at various VMUGs but the two which particularly stood out were Italy and Denmark as I had not been there before. The busiest blogging day of the year was August 27th with over 13k views.

I guess something exciting to mention is that I started working on a new book, of course somehow Eric Sloof managed to notice if first and scooped the news. Will take a while before it is released but the title will be: Essential Virtual SAN. The rough cuts should be online soon as well. Happy to be working with Cormac Hogan on this, I couldn’t think of anyone else who would be better fitted to write a book on the topic of VSAN with.

Something worth noting as well, the top referring sites: twitter, VMware VMTN Community, facebook, Eric Siebert’s VLP and blogs.vmware.com. In that order, and it makes you realize how important social media is today. Whether it is twitter or a community forum… it can drive a lot of traffic when used in the right way!

Thanks again to Eric Siebert who spends a MASSIVE amount of time going through the voting, filtering out discrepancies and making sure it all is done in a fair manner! Make sure to bookmark his website, add it to your RSS reader and follow him on twitter. So what are you waiting for, head on over and take the survey!

Access Denied on wp-admin / wp-login page

Duncan Epping · Jan 10, 2014 ·

I have had this problem various times in the last 6 months on my WordPress blog. For whatever reason all of a sudden when I access my wp-admin page I receive an access denied on wp-admin / wp-login.php. Really annoying as you can imagine as it means you cannot get in to the back-end of your blog making it impossible to manage it. The blog it self is still available though when this happens so I figured I would write down the fix, as I somehow keep forgetting it.

  • FTP in to host
  • Check file permissions on wp-login.php, in my case permissions on this file are somehow magically always “00”
  • Change permissions back to 0644
  • Fixed, you should be able to login again

Simple solution, for a strange problem. If I ever find the rootcause I will post it here as well.

Top 25 bloggers 2013 results are out…

Duncan Epping · Mar 12, 2013 ·

The top 25 bloggers 2013 voting results are out again. This year the competition was insane. With newcomers like Cormac Hogan and Chris Wahl, but also old-timers like Chad Sakac, Scott Lowe, Eric Sloof and of course Frank “resource management” Denneman.

First of all, a BIG THANK YOU to Eric Siebert who took the time and effort again to set this up. I know how much work these kind of things take, so once again thanks Eric for spending your evenings on this! There were over 80 new blogs this year and 4 new blogs made the top 25, and one new blog made the top 10. With a total of ~1300 votes this is probably one of biggest community awards I have seen. Yes being a vExpert is awesome, but getting votes from your readers feels 10 times better.

I am not going to list the full top 25 here, I feel everyone should hit Eric’s page for that. I do want to thank everyone for taking the time to vote for me. I am honored to have been voted number 1 blogger for virtualization again for the 6th consecutive time. This is crazy, who would have thought that when I started yellow-bricks.com years ago… I sure did not expect that, and it was also never my intention. Thanks everyone, and please keep coming back and leave comments – be interactive!

There are two bloggers I do want to call out, first of all someone who I managed to persuade to start his own blog and who entered the Top 10 as a newcomer… Cormac “the god of all things VMware storage related” Hogan. What a tremendous achievement this year by Cormac. So many great articles, not just deep technical but also his “storage vendor overviews” are awesome. Of course the resource management guru who jumped from spot 5 to spot 2, Frank Denneman. Awesome work, what can I say more?! Keep it up,

Once again, make sure to watch the vChat below and hit Eric’s page for the full list. Thanks everyone, and see you next year 🙂

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About the author

Duncan Epping is a Chief Technologist in the Office of CTO of the Cloud Platform BU at VMware. He is a VCDX (# 007) and the author of the "vSAN Deep Dive" and the “vSphere Clustering Technical Deep Dive” series.

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