Blogging to No One: Building a Big Audience, A True Story
There is lots of advice online about how to build a massive audience and how to grow your brand within your niche. Problem is that often this information is a little biased seeing as it is trying to sell some sort of book or product.
Thus, these marketers are often incentivized to make it sound like a doddle. They’re not going to get many people to try and build a brand if they say it is night impossible!
But what is the reality really like? How long does it really take? Here is a case study.
Blog A
Blog A was born in 2015 to replace an older blog that had lost its audience and was in dire need of an overhaul. It was a hard decision to replace it but it made sense to have a complete design and brand overhaul.
Blog A began slowly. Redirecting a few old links helped with a slight initial boost, as did posting very regularly with large, high quality posts (3-4 times per week). This saw traffic rise from 0 to around 200 views per month. A couple of shares on Reddit gained massive readerships numbering into the thousands, which of course gave an additional boost in growth.
Then other business ventures got in the way and the posting died down in regularity, dropping to roughly a post every 1-2 weeks. This resulted in a big slow down in growth and traffic as well.
YouTube Channel A
In the background, the owner had been running a YouTube channel. Videos typically got around 100 views at the better end but a couple did well and had several thousands. One of these caused another channel to reach out and offer a partnership. Training and new equipment were provided, leading to a big jump in production quality. This, combined with a good subject, led to one viral hit with 1.5 million views.
That alone was enough to drive subscribers to around 10,000 but it was only with consistent effort and one or two more breakout hits that the channel started to gain thousands of views for each new video. This then bled into the Blog, upping viewership to several thousand per day. This is also the first time the blog and the videos have gained real engagement.
The blog is still rising now but this entire process took around three years. It was not a simple trajectory and it involved a fair amount of luck, as well as some setbacks. Keep at it!
