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For our 10:00 session, we’re hearing from Amanda Henson of Feedblitz and Type-A Parent, Kelly Whalen of Centsible Life and Anne Paris of Midlife Boulevard – moderated by David Griner of Adweek.
Blogger Outreach by Generation
Many of us have been in the blogging community for a long time. Lots of hands for 5+ years of blogging. Many fewer hands for 10+ years. (But I was one of them.)
Amanda is at the upper end of the Millennial generation, and she started blogging when she was pregnant and on bedrest. Her readers are much different, which is something many of us can attest to as well.
Kelly started blogging when she was a SAHM with young kids, and her youngest kid is now 9 years old, but her readers are at an earlier stage of life – the part with young kids – having discovered her from Pinterest shares and other social shares. So Kelly is more Gen X but with lots of Millennial readers.
Anne is one of the youngest Boomers, and she’s noticed that newer 40+ bloggers are where younger “mommy bloggers” were 10 years ago. “I can get paid for this?” They may not like SnapChat, but they’re on Periscope. You have to keep learning at every age.
Social media has changed a lot over the years since many of us started blogging. Age distribution over the social networks is interesting. David has a great graph on the screen, and I’ll see if I can snag a digital copy for you after the session.
A lot of people have accounts on all of the social networks, but only use 3 or 4 of them. Parents of tweens and tweens have accounts on social networks they don’t want to use but that their kids are on so they can keep an eye on things. Each platform means something different for wherever you are in life. Some people have accounts to keep up with media personalities without actually broadcasting much of anything themselves.
YOU ARE NOT THE AVERAGE USER.
Experiment to find where your audience is. You may have to suck it up and invest more time and effort where your people are. Twitter may look like a big billboard to use because we follow other bloggers, other marketers, but the average Twitter user is not seeing the same thing. Most people are having conversations. You can to be there to converse with the people you want to reach.
Millennials are more active on Twitter than on Facebook. (Interesting.) They’re also on LinkedIn more than you might think. Millennials will block you if you’re always promoting.
We all have a limited amount of time and energy, so what do we do when new platforms keep cropping up? What do you keep and what do you kill?
“One of the biggest challenges for content creators is time..you need to decide what platforms to keep & what to kill” via @griner #typeanyc
— Susan Pazera (@SusanPazera) August 1, 2015
Ello. We all signed up, and then we all forgot about it. Look at your analytics to see where you’re getting results. Also, people love to answer polls. You can use a three-question poll in your sidebar to ask your audience questions and learn more about them.
“You need to know who your audience is to be successful. You have to be able to tell brands who your community is” @notasupermom #typeanyc
— Susan Pazera (@SusanPazera) August 1, 2015
Try to set aside a little time each day to spend on each platform to see what you like the best. IFTTT can be a useful tool.
95% of your audience is going to miss what you say on Twitter today. You can reuse content to save time in the future.
In order to stay relevant, learn the basics of new platforms to get data. You may find Periscope scary, but you may find a lot of your users there. If you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing. Do uncomfortable things often.
Data is what sells. You need to know it if you want to work with companies. – @notasupermom #TypeANYC
— Amiyrah Martin (@AmiyrahMartin) August 1, 2015
If you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing via @HighImpactMom #TypeANYC
— James & Lisa Cameron (@homeisthemouse) August 1, 2015
Amanda says to use Pocket. I am unfamiliar with this.
.@highimpactmom:You need to use POCKET! Everyone at #TypeANYC: scrambles to the Google
— Ellen Gerstein (@elleinthecity) August 1, 2015
It’s fabulous. Like bookmarking… but synced on all your devices. 🙂 #typeanyc https://t.co/DZkOJXtqwF
— Colleen Bohensky (@AMadisonMom) August 1, 2015
At AdWeek, David has seen a change in the community. Audiences were commoditized, which lost the personal sense of community. Twitter chats are still relevant because media in general is not very transparent. “Periscope is a real…cluster,” he says, but Millennials are hungry for that.
Millennials are wanting to have a conversation with you on social media. #typeanyc
— YourMagicalVacation (@URMagicVacation) August 1, 2015
GenX tends to consume more than they share. Apparently we tend to be more private. (Except for oversharers like me.)
.@centsiblelife I agree with what you say about Gen Xers. I love to read and consume but rarely engage. #typeanyc
— James & Lisa Cameron (@homeisthemouse) August 1, 2015
That’s me: Christina Gleason. I’m a writer, editor, and disability advocate. I'm a multiply disabled autistic lady doing my best in this world built for abled people. I’m a geek for grammar, fantasy, and casual gaming. I hate vegetables. I cannot reliably speak, so I’ll happily conduct business over email or messaging instead.
