Increase Engagement Blog

5 Tips to Increase Engagement on Your Blog

The emergence and widespread use of social media have enabled companies, particularly those with small marketing budgets, to build active online communities and powerful brands through web publishing platforms like blogs. A blog (a truncated combination of the terms “web” and “log”) is a website characterized by distinct posts or articles displayed in reverse chronological order, with the most recent post displayed at the top. Blogs are just one of many promotional tools that can be used in your organization’s marketing mix, helping to increase brand awareness and expand your social media influence on the web. 

One of the most pressing questions for corporate and individual bloggers alike is how to capture more readers with captivating and engaging content. Research suggests that over 74% of consumers use social media to guide their purchasing decisions, which means it is
crucial for small companies to use blogs and other cost-effective marketing channels to cut through the online chatter and reach their target audience. 

What makes a blog unique compared to other online marketing tools is that you can customize the look and feel, similar to your standalone website. This control means that your blog visitors are a captured audience, which gives you greater leverage to convert them into fans and customers. Continue reading for some tried-and-true tips on engaging your audience with a well-designed and well-executed blog.

1. Choose Your Target Audience

Writer Eric Pangburn on Snitchim.com stated that, as of April 2013, Tumblr.com had over 101.7 million blogs, withWordPress and LiveJournal reporting approximately 63 million blogs each. With so many blogging sites competing for web visits and user clicks, standing out from the crowd can be a daunting challenge. The key is focus. 

To create an online community that is not only engaged but also excited about the content you post, you need to create content that is targeted towards your users’ needs and wants, rather than those of the general public. Who are your brand cheerleaders and advocates, the customers who get most excited by your products and services? Try thinking like a niche marketer, and break your market into segmentsbyidentifying specific demographics with unique characteristics that are worth marketing to, and reach these segments with personalized content campaigns. 

For example, if your business specializes in selling home crafts and goods, refine your target audience based on characteristics that include your customers’ personal budget (e.g. well-off), location (e.g. consumers living in Seattle) and age group (e.g. women between the ages of 40 and 55). Whether it’s providing a monthly newsletter or directly linking web visitors from your blog to your e-commerce site, tailoring your blog towards a narrow demographic can distinguish your content and brand from competitors.

2. Opt for Multimedia Over Plain Text

Blogs have come a long way since the days when they resembled online journals instead of the fully interactive websites we’re familiar with today. Video blogs, or “vlogs,” are widely popular due to the explosion of YouTube, which allows anyone with an internet connection and a webcam to record and upload videos from their home or office. Some of the benefits of vlogs include: 

• The ability to build deeper connections with your audience.
• The ability to place a human face onto your brand.
• Cost-effectiveness when compared with the cost of traditional advertising, such as commercially produced broadcasts. 

If you’re intimidated by video-editing software or are hesitant to jump headfirst into vlogging, start out by searching for relevant videos and embedding them into your posts.  

In lieu of video, micro-blogging sites like Tumblr are ideal for showcasing photography and other imagery that grab users’ attention. Study after study has shown that visual content on social media sites, whether digital images or interactive video and audio, generates significantly more likes and comments than regular text. Social Media Today, for instance, states that user engagement is typically 200% higher for tweets that include image links.

For more pointers on producing video for your blog, here is a good step-by-step guide on assembling your first vlog post.

3. Tag Others to Your Posts

You now have a healthy mix of multimedia content geared towards an audience that is interested in your company’s brand and offerings. The next step is getting the word out by posting on your Facebook page and tagging individuals and other brands in your tweets and status updates. 

When posting updates about new blog entries to your Twitter feed, Facebook page, Google+ profile and other social media networks, remember to use an “@” symbol to tag other users in your posts. This links your content within and between different social networks, exposing your brand and blog to the fans of your business partners, suppliers and other stakeholders. 

“Liking” other pages not only connects you to potential partners and customers, but also engages a wider audience through free word-of-mouth advertising.

4. Consider Guest Blogging

Offering to be a guest blogger on reputable and well-established blogs is one way to increase your profile as a thought leader in your industry. Guest blogging also expands your network, building business relationships with potential partners and increasing your social engagement as people consume your content. Some things to look for when offering to guest post include: 

• Targeting blogs with a large audience. Blogs with sizeable, active audiences will translate into a wide readership and increased visibility of your own brand.
• Ensuring that you’re contributing content that the blog’s audience will want to read and share within their networks.
• Finding opportunities to insert links to your social media profiles, especially Facebook and Twitter, so it’s easy for the blog’s readers to find you on social networks.
• Sharing a teaser of your post on your social networks, and spreading the word beyond the blog’s audience to maximize visibility.

5. Entice Your Readers to Share

There are two great ways to make it easy for your readers to engage with your blog posts. The first one is to incorporate content that is easy to tweet. Readers who use Twitter can easily share your blog post, which can quickly amplify your reach. Using a service such at Click to Tweet can be a powerful tool if your tweet includes a link to your article. All you have to do is create a tweet and put it in your blog post; and all your users need to do is click the tweet, and they can easily share it. 

The second way is related to the second tip. Using visual infographics and allowing readers to share them is another great method to get your content spread by others. There are several sites that let you easily create an infographic, including Piktochart and Infogr.am. Once incorporated into your posts, you’ll be amazed at how quickly your content can spread.

Get Started

A good trick when getting started is to set a goal and make it accountable. Challenge your team to write a great blogentry as many times a week as necessary. Create prizes for the most consistent person or for the best content. You can easily track shares and likes in order to measure how effective your blog is. 

It’s never too late to get started with corporate blogging. By positioning your blog as a place to share news about your core products and services, it can become a valuable online vehicle for driving more traffic and qualified leads to your organization.