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Just wanted to start a discussion on how to promote your blog, and other topics...
I have decided to post only those things I think relevant to Reddit... good reception, but some mixed traffic results. The Safety post generated thousands of hits over a week, but others might drive a few hundred.
I have very mixed results from Facebook - which I think is really more the regional nature of my followers. Almost no links out from Twitter.
The other issue is that I tend to have a lot of hardware articles, perhaps not enough focus on recipes. I have a psuedo-experiment with Marshall on water chem in the queue, and plan to revisit the hopback debacle very soon. Both I think will be well received on Reddit. Also plan some posts on yeast counting / viability, forced ferment testing and record keeping... all of these are inline with my passions around all grain and brewing like a professional brewer.
Thoughts? What is working for you guys? What is not?
Posted 34 days ago.
Reddit is hands down my best source of traffic.
I sometimes get a small bump from facebook. I usually get a small bump from Homebrewtalk.
The more in depth the subject, the worse that it does. However, results are often random, as well; @vinpaysdoc did a brewday walkthrough that got something like 4k views, I did one that got about 1.5k.
Posted 34 days ago.
Social is something that builds slowly over time, but I'm finding it's a bit of a snowball. If you stay focused and only promote relative content (yours or others), you'll build a following. People begin to trust that they can go to your social site for real information on brewing (or whatever) and know they'll find quality. People will also start to notice they you're promoting their articles for them. Not everyone does it, but karma will tend to build up over time, and those same people you promoted when they published something will then reshare/retweet your content when you publish. This has a great multiplier effect for driving traffic. I also don't publish more than twice a day to social media so I don't get seen as pushing too much crap, being a bot, etc. I don't allow Untapped to post to my accounts, post random nonsense, drunk rants, etc. It slowly helps build an audience. You also have to stay personally engaged and talk to people in your networks from time to time. I may not say a lot, but I'll like/favorite things I think are interesting, ask questions if I can think of something meaningful to ask, etc. It's work, but I'm starting to notice it makes a difference.
Or you can just not do all the work and post to Reddit.
Posted 34 days ago.
I'll preface by saying I'm not a blogger, just a consumer of quality content.. which you certainly have..
Obviously visibility or "marketing" is what you're concerned with.. but I think you know that the content goes hand in hand with the "views" or "traffic".. I think this Q&A answer by CGPGrey (while specific to YouTube) is really universal to any content posted online with the intent of gaining more attention.. although its to the point and somewhat harsh, (and in his words, "unhelpful").. post content people want to view.. and a lot of times, people don't know what they want.. if you have time, this is a great video that illustrates this point.. (I like that the video can relate to brewing varieties of beers as well.. I really recommend it..)
I hope this doesn't sound as scatterbrained as I can sometimes be.. if anything else, I hope you enjoy the TED talk and how it relates to beer..
Posted 34 days ago.
All good points... and I guess I am struggling with if I should post more 'fluff' - which seem to garner the most traffic. I am not convinced traffic=quality... there are plenty of sites out there that prove that. I do, however, want to make sure I am not missing something. Page analysis is still pretty heavily sku'd toward the Reddit traffic so hard to make much sense of the clicks.
I have gotten turned off from writing for HBT and some of the other 'guest' posts I have written. Direct feedback, when given, has been positive. EC Kraus seems to be the only site that truly promotes their guest content - but it is clearly there to drive sales, not quality of advice.
OK 'fluff' is a strong word, no plans to soften the content that much, but like you guys seem to see - the less hardcore and indepth, the higher the rate of traffic. I have pretty good coverage right now - happy with 1.2K visits a week and a strong site retention rate.
I have considered doing surveys or a contest for some swag or something... and need to determine what I would expect from it.
Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by mchrispen
Traffic=Quality is subjective.. It's thin watery ragu vs super chunky prego.. To ask which is better is the wrong question, because they are both the right answer.. Depending on who you ask..
In that sense, I think diversifying your content is a great idea.. Via surveys, contests, experiments.. Whatever!
Posted 34 days ago.
"watery ragu vs super chunky prego ... they are both the right answer"
Oh man, I've got an Italian-American friend who would have had an aneurism if he had read that! That's like two steps away from ketchup on ramen noodles.
Try: "homemade marina vs. homemade bolognese". (No, really, you should try making bolognese for your spaghetti.)
Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by chino_brews
It's an apt analogy however. But yeah, we don't use canned sauce at my house, but I also do more simple pasta dishes for the most part. I am the home cook. Wife can burn water to be frank.
Trying to think through some of the promotion ideas. Perhaps we could cross link some of the blogs and homebrewdad through some kind of promotion. Might make sense when the switch over to BrewUnited occurs - and perhaps t-shirts or some other swag could be the swag. Just throwing that out there. A t-shirt that lists the blogs of our active folk under BrewUnited could be interesting. Happy to work on it.
Posted 34 days ago.
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