Viva the Easter Broccoli Bunny! Gaining the Edge and Managing your blog audience’s expectations

Mar 19, 2008

Viva the Easter Broccoli Bunny! Gaining the Edge and Managing your blog audience’s expectations - Day 3 of 5

NOTE! If you enjoy this post, please feel free to share and twitter it with the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/33b2l7 . Thanks, I appreciate it!

Pssst! I have the ultimate blog-writing secret:

Do you think you can handle it? Are you alert? Ready to be amazed? Can you guess what I’m about to write? Read the next line and digest it for 3 seconds:

Microsoft is buying CNN.

Okay, HOLD ON! The above is NOT true….but….let me ask you:

What if it was?

And what if my blog was the first place to break the news?

You’d certainly get an edge on a particular niche, right? You’d certainly say to yourself, golly, I need to follow this blog so I can know things before the rest of the world does, right?

Tell me now….do readers of your blog know they’ll get that all-critical edge as well?

Welcome back to Viva the Easter Broccoli Bunny! Managing your blog audience’s expectations - Day 3 of 5! This 5 day mini-tutorial is dedicated to showing you excellent ways of delivering to your readers what they’ve come to expect…and thus growing your audience ever larger day by day. Today I want to speak about one of the extremely useful techniques pro-bloggers use to help build their readership - that of providing a killer edge that cannot be found elsewhere online.

Gaining the edge.

What does it mean to you?

Wait, nix that question and answer me:

More importantly, what does it mean to your readers?

It’s human nature, it really is, to want to know secrets before one’s network does. It’s human nature to want to have a trump card, an ace in the pocket, the upper hand, the secret advantage, the decisive resource, the….okay, enough with the synonyms already, you get what I mean, right?

Knowledge is power. And when you consistently demonstrate to your audience that they’ll gain useful knowledge they can use in their personal life, you’ll see your readership numbers increasing skywards (instead of buying a one-way ticket to visit the Titanic).

This is one reason why all of my AskOwlbert postings always include tutorials, resources, links for more information, etc. But that’s not what makes me stand out; tons of other excellent bloggers do the same!

Here’s my Edge:

Because I have come to power blogging from a ‘way different background than 99% of others, I have an extremely unique take on many aspects that you simply will not find elsewhere. This isn’t bragging, it’s simply stating the facts - my:

20+ years online
entrepreneurial endeavors of writing 20+ ebooks over the past decade
my utter panic that is threatening to consume my being when I realize I have to update 100s of sites because eBay is dropping Commission Junction and it’s not like I even have time to drink the 11 cups of coffee that beckon seductively to me, let alone single-handedly regenerate all those keywords lists while souping up the site-building program I wrote in 2004 and making certain the kids’ laundry is done even though they stash their socks in unaccessible locations like the bathroom closets and Whoopsie! Got a bit carried away there now, didn’t I?

Anywhos, as I was saying, the above gives me a rare and different perspective than most everyone else.

My recent writing about easily adding a TinyURL to blog posts is an example of this. Experienced bloggers would think, everyone knows how to submit to social networking sites via a one-click link, right?

But non-techie twitter people might not be aware of that ability and think only of constructing and sending a TinyURL. Heck, that’s what I had been doing for the past 3 months. What better way to encourage sharing than to include that smack dab at the top of a page? I’ve done the work for my readers - all they have to do is copy/paste.

Simplicity! It’s key.

And because my motto is teach teach teach, I wrote up the tutorial so every visitor to my blog can incorporate the same thing. In other words, readers of my blog know they’ll get a unique edge that cannot be found anywhere else.

It’s not WHAT you teach or share….it’s HOW you get the message across. It’s your unique blogging voice, your humor, your style, your genuine caring of your audience that will pump up your readership.

"What’s that I hear you ask? How can you apply this to your blog writing?"

So glad you asked! Here are three tips to get you going.

Step 1 - Monitor news/blog releases ahead of the crowd.

Visit Google alerts, do it now! Here you can enter in keywords or a phrase (or your name or your blog or other people’s names or other …) and be notified in real time when new articles or blog postings or news snippets occur.

I cannot begin to emphasize how useful this service is! I currently have about 20-25 news alerts I monitor…it always keeps me abreast of niche happenings.

Other super resources/articles from which you can learn more include:

One of the unrealized benefits of doing this is you’ll be introduced to other niche blogs in your area…and you can then subscribe to their feed and stay alert as well.

Step 2 - Monitor Amazon.com trends

Did you know that Amazon offers eMail subscriptions?

Visit that page now, you should see something like:

This super-nifty resource allows you to receive updates and trends when they happen . For example, perhaps you blog about Electronics - click on "Electronics" and you’ll see links for:

Early Adopters
Hot Deals
New Cell Phones
Camera News

Sign up for these alerts and then post that information to your blog (ideally of course, including your Amazon affiliate link as well!).

Step 3 - Monitor eBay trends

I’ve always maintained that eBay is a bloggers dream for offering spiffy ways to monetize any site whatsoever (that’s how I’m able to include the MacGyver shirts you see on the right hand side of the page).

eBay also lets you request specific search results to be delivered to your inbox as well! Thus, let’s say that you blog about doll collecting - you can search for

rare doll

Next to your search results, you should see something like:

See that "Save This Search"? Click on it, you should see something like:

Favorite Search eBay

You can choose for how long you’d like to receive daily alerts - 1 week, one month, half a year, etc.

Stop for a moment and think of the power this delivers into your hands. You’ll be notified when targeted niche items appear in eBay! You can incorporate these by:

Blogging about rare niche goodies that are now available for your readers to buy
Blogging about niche trends
Blogging about hidden finds

etc.etc.etc.

You know your niche best…what would make your readers go OHMIGOSH, I DIDN’T KNOW THAT!!!!!!…..

and want to subscribe to your feed to stay abreast for more?

Hmmmmm?

Once you have a handle on such esoteric concepts…you’re leagues ahead of everyone else who blogs in your niche!

Why? Because you’re giving your readers….the cutting edge.

ThankYouVeryMuch!

Owlbert

#BEGIN highlights of this blog writing post:

Beginners blogging tips: Visit Google alerts and start tracking your niche to gain nifty ideas about which to write.

Intermediate and/or Advanced blogging tips: Go the extra step and monitor when niche-related goodies appear in Amazon/eBay. Then craft a blog story around them….making certain to use your affiliate link.

#END highlights of this blog writing post

ps - speaking of eBay:

pps - and speaking of Weird Al:

"Weird Al' Yankovic- Even Worse LP

WEIRD AL YANKOVIC-ULTIMATE COLLECTION - DVD *NEW

Weird Al Yankovic: Dare To Be Stupid CD NEW

WEIRD AL YANKOVIC**V1 GREATEST HITS**CD

THE WEIRD AL SHOW The Complete Series DVD Yankovic

TRANSFORMERS the MOVIE CD SCORE soundtrack WEIRD AL ost

Weird Al Yankovic Wendy Carlos-Peter+The Wolf-Sealed lp

(By the way, if you have any questions about the topics in this posting "Viva the Easter Broccoli Bunny! Gaining the Edge and Managing your blog audience’s expectations - Day 3 of 5", do comment below - I'll try to clarify any issues).

Barbara Ling and Owlbert

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2 Comments, Comment or Ping

Ray

Hi Barbara - interesting blog with lots of great ideas. It may be that I’ll use some of these…..

Mar 19th, 2008
Owlbert

Hi Ray!

Glad you like it!

Thanks for visiting,

Barbara

Mar 19th, 2008