Reaching Out with Your Blog

This is a guest post by Lindsey Harper Mac.

Blogging is an excellent way to communicate with friends and family over the Internet. You can write about life experiences, talk about your plans for the weekend and even share pictures of your home and family. However, you can also use your blog to attract other readers with interests similar to yours. This allows you to reach out to people with common interests, share what you know and learn new things from your readers.

Starting a Focused Blog

For example, if you are currently looking for a job, you may start a blog related to unemployment. You can then use the blog to write about your experiences as an unemployed person. You may write about your job search, creating a resume, or living on a limited income. When readers living in similar situations come to your blog, they can read your posts and learn from your experiences.

Attracting Readers with Common Interests

Before your blog posts can provide insight to members of your target demographic, you must attract the readers to the blog itself. To draw in readers who can relate to your blog, you can announce your blog via social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. You can also announce your blog on forums dedicated to similar issues. For example, in the case of the unemployment blog, you may announce the blog's presence on forums that focus on resume writing or job search strategies.

Building Relationships

Attracting like-minded individuals to your blog is only the first step. To retain your readership, you must build solid relationships with them. Contrary to the beliefs of some, blogging is not a one-way medium of communication. To enjoy the most success on your blog, you need to allow your readers to communicate with you by posting comments and questions. You should also make an effort to respond to each reader individually.

When you communicate with your readers personally, you can help them on a much deeper level. For example, if you write a blog post that focuses on resume creation, a reader may respond with a question about using friends as employment references. By responding to the reader directly, you can save him from making a potentially detrimental mistake on his resume. In addition, other readers with the same question may visit your blog, read the exchange of comments and find the answers they needed.

Collaborating with Others

Using a focused blog to reach out to readers with common interests is helpful to all parties involved, including the author. For example, assume again that you have created a blog focusing on unemployment issues. While conducting research to prepare yourself for an interview, you come across a website with comprehensive information about how to make a good impression on a potential employer. After you finish prepping for your own interview, you use the information you have found to write a blog post about interview skills.

Your established readership will then read your article and use the information to improve their own interview skills. In addition, individuals who have never visited your blog before may be searching for tips on interviewing and run across the post. To attract even more readers who could benefit from the post, you could announce the topic on social media outlets.

In the end, you will have found a way to learn valuable information that you can use in your own life while simultaneously sharing this information with hundreds of readers. As your readers post questions and comments on the topic, you may learn even more about the interview process. This large-scale form of online collaboration would not be possible using any other medium.

What to Take Away

When you use your blog to reach people with common interests, you are able to provide them with more than just entertainment. You can post about your life experiences in a certain area, such as education, unemployment, or raising children and you can share what you have learned with others. You can also learn more about the topics on your blog by viewing your readers' posts and responding to them. As you continue to create new posts and attract more readers, you will build a solid community of individuals with common goals and interests.

Image credit: twobee/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the author
Lindsey Harper Mac is a professional writer living in the Indianapolis area. She specializes in writing guest posts on social media and education and writes on behalf of Colorado Technical University. Currently, Lindsey is completing work on her master’s degree.