Every Blogger wants to go about expanding your reach and their audience, but knowing how to achieve that can be elusive. I recently found inspiration from a rather unlikely source: YouTube Gamers.
Yes, I mean those people that create videos of themselves playing video games on YouTube. Some have over 3 million subscribers, others have a few thousand people watching and interacting with them as they live stream on a Monday night, and some have viewers sponsoring their channel for $5 a month.
What do they know that you don’t?
Expanding your reach tip 1: Love what you do
There is no doubt about it, these guys (and a few gals) love video games. While that may not be your passion, it is theirs and their audience’s. And you can hear the excitement in their videos.
Your posts should make your reader feel something: excited, angry, happy, curious, hungry, etc. If you do not have an interest in your topic, chances are your audience won’t either.
Can your audience tell how you feel about your topic?
Tip 2: Interact genuinely on social media
They read and respond to the comments on their videos and interact with their audience on other social media channels as well. I tagged one whose video appeared in the background of one of my Instagram photo. He asked if I had seen his series on a related game. He promoted his own content but did it in a way to serve my interests.
You cannot just post on social media and expect people to follow you or visit your blog. Building an audience takes some work. If you don’t have time to be on all of the channels, pick a few and be active on those.
Do you respond to comments? Do you interact with your followers on social media or is it all about you?
Tip 3: Give your audience what they want
The good gamers take note of what does well on their channel and what doesn’t. One commented that videos in which he gets upset do not perform as well as those when he does not based on fewer likes and negative comments.
Another stopped making videos for a game that was not getting enough views to spend his energy on videos for games that more people were watching (much to my chagrin).
Keep an eye on your stats and plan your blog content accordingly. If you have a monthly poetry post that no one is reading, either remarket it or focus on what your audience does want.
You only have so many hours in the day, is what you are doing resonating with your audience?
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Tip 4: Link your content
Every one of their videos links to others in the series or other videos the viewer may want to watch. Keep them on your channel!
YouTube will autoplay into another video, but blogs don’t.
Do you link to related content within your posts? Not just with a plugin at the bottom of your post, but are you doing it throughout the post in a conversational way too?
Expand that reach tip 5: Tell your audience what to do
Each one of them spells it out for their viewers in every single video what they want their audience to do: like, share, comment and subscribe. And they do it at the beginning and end of the videos. That works in a 30-minute video but would be a bit much for a 700-1,000 word blog post.
Do your posts have a call to action? Do you have easy to find social sharing buttons? Do you make it easy for readers to follow your blog or social media?
Are you ready to put these ideas into action?
None of these strategies are extremely difficult. Some, like the call to action, may feel awkward at first. But, if you keep them in mind when you create your posts and interact on social media it will help you to attract a loyal audience like these YouTubers.