Sharing the News

October 3, 2014

Sharing the News

This blogging concept is really interesting.

From a technical point of view, there are approximately twenty three gazillion templates to use, once you have set up your hosting and domain name options. Each of these templates look good in their own way, some have bells, some have whistles, some have both, some are free, some cost a few dollars, some cost a fortune.

From a content point of view, initially it is easy to create or find interesting articles, videos, audios, images, and “stuff” to share. But, as time goes on, it becomes harder to find or create new and interesting content for your blog.

Then, there is the sharing aspect.

It’s all well and good to build a blog, build a website, throw some content up and see what happens. The idea of “build it and they will come” unfortunately does not work as well now as it did ten or fifteen years ago.

So, how do you get your content in front of the people who matter, in front of your audience, in front of your customers, in front of others who will share it to their audience and customers ?

This is the million dollar question. And one that unfortunately I have yet to answer.

Here at Calming Music Weekly I am tackling this question in a variety of ways.

First and foremost is making valuable and useful content available to our readers. Content creation, for me anyway, mainly involves writing. Writing is something I enjoy, but need to be in the right mood and head space in order to create something vaguely worth sharing.

“Writing” for me in my Calming Music project can be “writing words” – pen on paper or fingers on computer keyboard – such as this article. Or it can mean writing emails to other bloggers, writing small Twitter or Facebook posts, comments on other blogs, answering questions put to me through various methods. It can also mean writing scripts for various videos or podcasts.

It can also be “writing music” – playing my instruments, recording the performances, mixing, adding instrumentation, listening to the result.

Then, once the writing has been done, we come back to the technical aspect of running a blog…. Posting the results of the writing and making these results available to whom ever wishes to read / listen / watch.

Creating videos, creating audios, creating articles – having the content in the first place is one path I am following. I am building it, but how do I get them to come ?

Keyword research is another path towards sharing. It will come as no real surprise that one of my main keywords is “calming music”. “Relaxation music”, “Meditation music”, “relaxing music” and “yoga music” are also keywords that are suitable for my blog. Keywords are those words that people type into search engines such as Google in order to find the content that they are looking for. In theory, this is relatively simple – optimise your website for your chosen keywords and internet surfers will stampede to your blog. How hard can it be ? Actually, it is rather difficult, especially since Google changes the rules and moves the goal posts with unfortunately alarming regularity.

Then there is Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, SoundCloud, Pintrest, Instagram, StumbleUpon and a whole list of other social sharing sites. Having a presence on some or all of these appears to be the way to go….. but, again, it is more difficult that the “experts” would have you think. My strategy certainly involves these social media platforms. However, if anyone has some hints on how to make content go viral then I’d love to hear from you !! Google and the other search engines like this, but it certainly is time consuming.

I’ve been doing some research and a lot of reading about blogging. One blogger who I have found in my internet stumblings is a gentleman by the name of Jon Morrow.

Jons theory is that content is all well and good, but having it shared by others is the main concept to focus on. Jons suggestions appear to be based on spending more time promoting and sharing your content than actually creating it. His theories revolve around writing articles for other (but relevant to yours) blogs and websites, creating content for others in similar and relevant spaces to yours. In theory, by spending more time engaging with other bloggers who have complimentary topics to yours, but are not necessarily in direct competition with yours, then the links you get from their websites will cause their audiences to visit your blog.

Sharing useful and relevant content with your audience can only benefit your audience. Therefore, other bloggers will want to share useful and relevant content with their audiences. If this content on other blogs is created by you, and has a link to your website, then it stands to reason that your website will get traffic and visitors too. This makes perfect sense.

So, over the next few weeks, I am going to try this concept from Jon Morrow. I will write some articles specifically for other complimentary blogs and websites in my calming music space. I will contact these other bloggers and offer them some easy content. I will offer to help them, which in turn might help me. And if id doesn’t then that’s ok too. Helping others can only be a good thing.

How do you get the word out about your website or blog ?

What strategies do you have to ensure the right people who are interested in your content come to see what you have to say ?

How do you share your content, or how do you help to share other peoples content ?