Staying in touch when you’re online can mean one of two things: either communicating effectively with other people, or being as relevant as possible to try and stay in the social hemisphere. It’s a cutthroat world out here after all, and there’s a lot of people in this position; how do you set yourself apart? There must be some ways your niche is going to blow the rest of the competition out of the water, and make you a well known expert or advice site in your field.
First thing to remember is as soon as you have an audience, make sure you appreciate them. Treating your readers or viewers with respect and dedication is the best way to cultivate a loyal following after all, and it’s a great way to show others you’re the best of the best. Staying in touch consists of remembering you’re just like the people on the other end of the screen, which a surprising amount of people forget.
We’ve touched on this topic before, as growing your influence is part of staying in touch, and when you’re online that’s more important than ever. If you run a blog, have a whole website, or you’re just a casual user, being down to earth when it comes to other users is going to be your best strategy. So it’s time to make sure you’re as in touch as possible, using all the best resources online to connect with the right people. Here’s a list of a few.
Try Being Genuine
The first thing you’ll need to do is be yourself, as you can’t be anyone else, and trying to will always lead to a downfall. Internet users often have a habit of exposing people who hide behind a mask or a different persona, and unless you want to be upfront about the fact that you’re acting with a stage persona, you’re never going to hit the mark you really want.
And you don’t even have to expose yourself to the public eye, as the person you are can come across easily in everything you say and do. So use that to your advantage if you’re camera shy, and base your brand off of it. You’re still you, just using an avatar to speak to the world. The mysterious element of it is going to help to intrigue people, and that can make you very sought after when it comes to working on the web.
Find the Best Platform
Finding your audience requires finding the best platform for you to host your content on, and more often than not that involves a social media page. This is the first spot most people will find you, and thus you’re going to need it considering the amount of people there are on social media these days.
Find your main spot, and then branch out from there. You can help yourself out by backpacking off of your own success, and then using the different features of each site to your advantage once your audience has found you there as well.
Say you start on Facebook: it’s a good place to share your blog posts in their entire form, along with links, and also means you can interact with people with their most complete online personas. This is different to twitter, where tweets are only a couple hundred characters long and people rarely share the details of their lives. However, it’s a good place to be snappy and sassy with your brand, and that gets people interested.
Follow Up on Any Leads
If you’ve got someone who’s just joined your mailing list, make sure you’ve got an automated email prepared at least to make sure you’re immediately in contact with the person on the other end. Make sure you include some calls to action at the end of this kind of email, and invite the other person to reply to your email to tell you about themselves.
This is any easy way to stay in touch with any new subscribers, and means there’s always someone on hand to talk to when you need it. Feeling supported when you’ve got a whole blog to run and a business to build from the ground up means any efforts you make actually feel like they’re doing something to help.
And there’s nothing like seeing your work paying off, and touching the lives of others, to make you enthusiastic to come back and do the whole process again. So be personal with what you do, and do it for everyone who comes across you; you never know where you might be able to make some real friends.
Don’t Be Afraid to Go Old School
This is especially good if you’re trying to make a business out of your blog efforts, as having a professional side to you is going to work wonders in securing brand deals, getting your own merchandise set up, and simply collaborating with others who have the same interests as you.
Sending emails is something we rely on, and everyone has their own account to make sure they’re receiving all the messages they need to get, but you can go a little more old school than that. You see, emails can be easily dropped or failed to send, and the other person’s inbox might just be full to bursting, meaning you go undetected.
Instead, you can make a real impression by employing some more old school methods. You can pen out letters and invitations to your heart’s content, and these always have more of a personal touch to them. When combined with an email or two, you can be sure you’ve made a responsible impression, as well as good follow up source. At the same time, using a fax online means you’re going to send through any information straight to someone’s inbox in a more secure manner, as well as being more distinct than any other message they get that day.
Hold Meet and Greets
When it comes to staying in touch when you’re online, there’s nothing like stepping away from the screen and meeting people in real life. This works wonders for your persona, and gets people personally invested in your success. And once again, you can use social media to ask if anyone would be interested in such a thing, and then easily advertise the time and place for everyone to see.
This is especially useful if you can secure a collaboration with either another blogger or a brand you’re interested in working with. If you can get their audience there with your own, there’s a good chance to intermingle and impress on an even larger output. It’s simply a good way to expand whilst also appreciating your audience in person; if they came to meet you, you’re going to interact with them as much as you can.
At the same time, make sure you’re taking plenty of photos of the event, and have people post them. It’s a good way to get onto others’ blogs, as well as their social media pages, and thus exposed to everyone they know.
Keep On Researching
If you’re the kind of person who loves to learn, make sure you take that online with you. It’s something that’ll make sure you’re always going to be interested in other people and topics, and on top of the news game. You can make more and more content out of these things, and similarly collaborate with experts in any of the fields you genuinely come to love.
If you’ve got something to say, you use your blog to say it, and you draw like minded people towards you naturally. But if you’re going on a learning process, you can expand the amount of people who are going to be attracted to your content, no matter what it is you’re taking up. Follow the trends you see online to see how they work out for you, and even include a new series on your blog or channel exposing them for what they really are. As long as you’re trying something new, you’re relevant.
So is Staying in Touch Going to Be Hard?
Sometimes it can honestly feel that way, as there’s always going to be yesterday’s news. New things come out every day and people always flock to them, some of them hailing them as the best thing in the world in order to stay as relevant as possible, until the day after that reveals something else.
However, you can easily find your niche by avoiding falling into the same pattern. People like a sense of consistency, and when it comes to the internet that’s a rare commodity. Be the voice of reason a lot of users look for and you’re going to go far. Follow any of the tips above if you believe they have some real substance to them, and feel free to leave your comments below. It’s always useful to know other people’s thoughts after all!
Founder Dinis Guarda
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