I probably should blog that I am speaking at Blog World Expo next week. Here is my pitch on why you should attend the conference.
1) It is in Las Vegas.
2) You get access to a lot of top people in the social media space in a fairly relaxed setting.
3) I am going to be there. (That could actually be a deterrent.)
(You can see why I am not in sales.)
What I really want to talk about is my presentation, “Getting Rich With The Niche.”
When I originally started blogging over six years ago I always wrote for blogs or created my own blogs that were very general and easy to promote. (Humor, music, pop culture, dating, etc.) General interest blogs are pretty easy to set up and drive traffic to. You can go with a lot of different strategies but in all honesty the more eyeballs you get to those types of blogs the more of a reader base you can create. (Of course the content needs to be good.)
Through the years while consulting or working in house with agencies and businesses I ran into the challenge of working on blogs that were very narrow like; land use management, construction workplace safety, regional restaurants, specific sports teams, and other niche topics. With these blogs you couldn’t use the same strategy that you would for a very general blog. You needed to be very measured, very surgical, and take the time to create a focused strategy attacking the niche.
My presentation at BWE is about creating a strategy focused on using studying the niche you are in and using various social media tools that are niche based in order to create a strong readership base. (Notice I am talking about READERS and not traffic.) I am going to talk about how to study your niche, how to formulate a plan, and the best practices you should use when becoming involved in various communities.
I feel that this type of strategic thinking is often overlooked for new and established bloggers. People get obsessed with leveraging Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit or mass adding people on social networks to drive traffic that is often untargeted and the visitors will often have very little interest in the content of your site. Additionally because bloggers are targeting this traffic they are writing to bait this traffic, which often turns off people who are interested in your expert opinion. By creating and focusing on a niche you will be able to build a strong base of readers that see you as an expert. These readers are people you can turn into advocates who will share you content, continually expanding your readership.
I am pretty excited about this presentation, I love talking strategy, and I hope to see you there.
I should have the presentation up the day after I speak for those who can’t attend.