Growth of blogs over the years, how to keep an audience, the reasons why my growth doesn't increase more,... These are the questions I'm daily asking myself, and I wanted to share my thoughts with you today.
I started my very first blogs a very long time ago, when I was a teenager. They weren't successful, I didn't have much audience, but I was happy to write every week. Then, some years later, I started this blog, mainly to share my readings, but also to talk about anything that crossed my mind. And this time, the growth I've experienced is much more interesting to see.
At the beginning, I didn't have much visibility. My posts weren't seen many times, and I understood it was because of the way I addressed my audience. My posts were too formal, unpersonal. Therefore, I started to make an effort to make them more personal, to write as I would speak (or almost), to put more of my personality in my posts. And it worked. I gained way more views, and more reactions, more likes, more comments, more shares to my posts on social media. Because I put my personality in my posts and I truly shared what I honestly thought, it was much more interesting to read for my audience. And when I shared my thinking about a book I read, it made them more feel like buying or not buying that book, because they could feel that I was really invested in my post and in my work. And if your audience feels you are invested in your work, to them, it means you are reliable/trustworthy, because someone who cares about his/her work will be honest about his/her recommendations. If you try to sell something, for instance, be honest about the product, sell something that you really believe in, and it will automatically convince your audience, and therefore, your audience will automatically grow. Because they will know they can trust you and your product.
People also tend to say that for your blog to grow, you have to be regular in your posts : daily, once a week, three times a month, etc. I am quite divided about that : on the one hand, I agree that your audience will stick to reading your blog if you post regularly, and therefore your audience will grow, but on the other hand, I usually am not regular, and it didn't change anything to my growth. And when I am regular, I don't experience more growth than when I'm not.
Now, I am more focused on my saling business than on my blogs, but the two are linked, since when you have a shop or a business, I think you need (in a way, of course, it doesn't rely only on this) influencer marketing to help you. If you have no idea why I'm telling this, or if you don't understand, you can go check this review that will explain everything better than me.
On a more general point of view, I think that blogs and social media definitely experienced a huge growth, especially since there are much more influencers since those past few years. And for this reason, I think it may be more difficult to be successful and see your blog grow, because there are many influencers, and it may be easy to become one, but it's not to make your posts grow and be seen. And this is in a way linked to what I said about my personal growth : we can see that influencers with a strong personality, who play on their personality (I.E. exagerate, are extravert, are funny) tend to be more successful because people like to see “real” people on social media, with a true personality, and not just formal and unpersonal posts. One good example of someone who became successful whereas she was unknown before is Jessica Gury, who you can discover in this article from intellifluence.
But anyway, if you want to start your business as blogger, influencer, etc., I'm part of those who think it's always possible. You just have to know what you want to do, be yourself, and get started ! By the way, if you want to read some advice, I recommend you to read this post that gives you some tips.
