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

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!

As most of you have noticed by now I am a heavy user of Social Media (Twitter, Google +, Facebook). VMware acquired, and is working on, some very interesting products which all have a common theme: Enterprise Collaboration. In this post I want to give an overview of products that I’m using and are available today or which have been announced.

These solutions allows me to communicate with my colleagues in a ways I have never been able to do before. They make my life easier, yes this sounds like I am exaggerating but I am not… I am sure I am not the only one who thinks long email threads are boring. On top of that they are difficult to control and knowledge gets lost (in the trash folder). Social collaboration solutions allow you to easily capture your companies most valuable asset: intellectual property. Start using it!

Socialcast
Socialcast is a true enterprise collaboration tool. It could be viewed as a social media solution for organizations, but that would be understating its value. Socialcast is something I use on a daily basis, if not on an hourly basis. I post work updates aka “worklogs”, ask questions on specific topics and mostly answer questions on any topic to which I feel I can contribute. It allows me to communicate with my team without flooding their mailboxes and it allows them to respond when they have the time and on any device. Cool thing about Socialcast is that everyone within our organization has adopted it, I can submit feedback to a KB article using Socialcast for instance. At the same time you will see communication from VP/CxO level passing by, not just generic posts but actively replying to questions as well! If you’re starting to get tired of those endless email threads floating around and you feel all valuable knowledge is being lost… sign up for Socialcast!

Sliderocket
Many of you have already seen this and probably looked at it. I’ve been so accustomed to Powerpoint that it was difficult to use Sliderocket at first, not because it is difficult to learn but because I would click that “P” on my desktop without thinking about it. Two weeks ago I decided to remove the “P” from my desktop and to create all presentations I make from now on using Sliderocket. You might ask yourself why as Powerpoint is a great tool… If you find yourself sharing slidedecks on a daily basis or providing feedback to slidedecks I can promise you that Sliderocket opens up a whole new world for you. Sharing a Sliderocket presentation is simple. No need to sent out that 50MB PPT. Just share it using the Sliderocket and get notification when people have opened it / reviewed it. Sliderocket also provides statistics for each of your decks like unique views, views, imports etc. Start using it, I am sure you will enjoy it as much as I do.

Strides
Strides is currently in Beta and is what I would label as a “getting the job done” tool, but others may label it as a social project management tool. Either way, Strides is all about collaborating and working towards a common goal… successful completion of a project. Strides not only will keep track of objectives and associated tasks, it also allows you to attach deliverables and comment on these or even on tasks by it self. It is a simple way for teams who are not all located in the same room to work on a common project and keep track of objectives and deliverables, and keep all project communication contained. Definitely a tool worth exploring! Sign up for the Beta now!

VMware Octopus
Although VMware Octopus isn’t really similar to the above mentioned solutions it allows me to easily share documents with others. VMware Octopus was announced at VMworld and is a dropbox alternative aimed at the enterprise. I recently moved all my documents from dropbox over to VMware Octopus as a test and I must say that I am impressed. The version I am using is running in one of the VMware Datacenters and that is something which other solutions don’t offer today, on-premise, and is what I probably like the most. Especially for the people in charge of security (compliance) this is a big thing. It gives me everything dropbox provided me, but now I know my docs are safely stored within our organization and that by itself is worth a lot. I am using it on my iPad and Macbook right now… no more hassle juggling around files. I can’t wait to see what is coming up next. If you are interested, sign up for the beta.

Stop the endless boring email threads, dull unnecessary conference calls, get on-board the social collaboration train!