Measuring impact or how do I get people to read my blog

I know it has been a while since I have written a blog post. We both got busy with other things. You entered LinkedIn (which we can write about in the next few posts), pinterest, and youtube. All of these will be useful for you to learn about. But for now, I think we should address the last question you asked: How do you know if people have read what you have written? How do you get them to read it?

How do you measure who and what people are reading

So, let's say that you are writing a blog on something of interest to you: quilting or storytelling. You write the post, you ask for feedback, but no-one comments. Perhaps your audience is shy. Perhaps there is really nothing they want to comment on. However, perhaps no one is reading it. How can you tell. If you are using blogger, every time you go to your dashboard (menu) you will see a set of statistics. The graph shows you how many times people have looked at your page and below the graph you will see how people found your blog. If you click on the "stats" menu on the right, you can see additional information such as where your readers are located and what devices they are reading on.

Why is this important? Let's say that the majority of your friends and family like to read your blog posts on their smart phones. This will make a difference in terms of what template you might want to choose so it is easier to read from a cell phone than on a regular computer. Think of the size difference between a cell phone and a computer. If the majority are reading on a computer, you might want to include some pictures to make it look better. However, those same pictures on a cell phone might make it more difficult to read. If you are writing for a cell phone or tablet, you might want to make it shorter (many shorter posts).

You can also click on the "posts" sections of the stats to see which of your posts had the most readers. If you want to gain more readers, you can use these stats to see what they are interested in. Finally, if you want more information on a long term basis about your blog, you can type in your blog name at trends.google.com. You can also use a free program called Google analytics, but that is not really necessary at this point.

How do I get people to read my blog

It is important to know who your readers are (so the stats are important). However, the more you know about where they are coming from, the more you can target a social media to share your blog address (URL or the https:// address). If you find many are coming from Twitter, and you don't have a twitter account, most likely someone who has a twitter account found your blog and is sharing the web address with the world. You might consider going on twitter then. If they are coming from Pinterist, you might want to make sure you have some nice pictures (e.g. quilting blog would want a picture of a finished quilt or a quilt in progress) to make sharing your post easier. You might also want to make sure you have a pinterest account so you can interact with your readers there. If your readers use a cell phone, you might want to message those in your address book when you write a new post.

For this post, for example, I announced on LinkedIn that I was adding a new post. I will be also sharing the URL on twitter where I have a number of followers who work with technology. This is the audience I am writing for, so that is where I will be sharing the link.

So, I will end for now. Next week we can either discuss your experience with LinkedIn or I can answer those questions you have about Pinterest.

Maybe time to start thinking of expanding your tool set

So Ruby, it appears from your previous post that you are thinking of going a bit more public with your blog. But you don't really want the post about how your ex-sister in law sold you down the river to go viral! (Going viral means that it is picked up by social media and seen by many people, usually internationally, very quickly without you being able to stop it).

Well, if google+ and email aren't giving your friends the access you expected, you may want to explore a new technology to help you communicate with them. I'm sure you've heard of them but have been a bit wary. So my recommendation is that you choose one of the following:

Twitter: This is used mostly as a way to broadcast resources, ideas, information. If your readers are addicted to their cell phones or iphones, this is a good alternative because twitter only allows 140 characters (that's characters, not words. This includes spaces and periods). I use twitter to save blog posts I'm interested in, share blog posts and internet references with others interested in what I'm interested in, find links to resources, keep on the latest news and mark them to read later, and let others know when I've written another blog post (I'll be sharing this post later on twitter).

If you want to use twitter to have others share what you have written, you include a link to your post. But if you want to keep it private among friends, then you can control who sees your tweets (the 140 characters).

Facebook: More and more people are sharing their blog posts on facebook. Facebook used to only be a for social relationships. However, as it became commercial, it now interacts with programs like twitter, a blog, or youtube. Now you can upload the link to your blog post and depending on who you want to see it, can limit it to friends, friends and their friends, or the public in general.

Facebook is used as a place for social interaction and is much more personal than twitter. If you want a dialogue between people about your blog post, Facebook is a good way to let people see it.

Pinterist: Pinterist would be a good program if your blog is about hobbies or recreational. You will need a photo to use pinterist. The most successful way to get people to share your blog is to embed a pinterest button on your blog site so someone only needs to click on it to save it to their Pinterest account. I have seen receipt/cooking and quilting bloggers use Pinterist to share their blog.

Linkedin: Like Facebook, you can share your blog post with a large number of people you know at once. This is appropriate if your blog is professional. By sharing on linkedin you can reinforce your professional image. However, be careful that it reinforces the image you want to project and doesn't create an image you don't want.

Google drive/docs: Google docs is a program where others can interact with documents online. Technically it is a wiki, which is a program that allows others to contribute/revise/comment on a document. This is a good alternative if your post is in Beta (the experimental/draft form). You can click on the document and share it with specific people by emailing the link to them. Only they will be able to see the draft. So if you think that comment you made about your coworker's outfit might be a bit too harsh, you can have others read it before it goes public. You can then cut and paste from the google docs/drive into your blog post.

So now it's your turn. Choose one of these to work on next. Then I'll give you more instructions once you have decided which one you want to focus on.