How to drive Traffic to your Blog: Identify Top Influencers and choose the right time.


It's no secret that the right networks will increase your probability of getting new followers. Hub Spot provided some guidelines on their Facebook page on the importance of reaching out to top influencers. Klout revealed to be the new way to conduct research in the attempt to again identify the people who are most influential online. Palms Hotel in Las Vegas is working with Klout to introduce a new concept, "The Klout Klub," which relies on the idea to reward social media top users based on the Klout influential score. A person will show up with an existing reservation, connected to a Klout score. The higher the score the more access to special amenities the person will get during his/her visitation. There is an assumption that if you are a top social media influencer most likely you will tweet or Fb about your experience at the hotel, meaning that the potential reach will be higher. So if you want to understand who your top influencers are in the field of food, fashion, or social media, you can use Klout as a starting point. Once you create a list for your own, start approaching these people, follow their blogs, become friend. A common mistake is visiting random blogs, living a meaningless post and expecting feedback. While it is true that by commenting on other blogs you may receive visits to your blog, these visits will be sporadic and short-term unless you invest in getting to know people. So here few basic rules.
1. Approach your friends. Introduce your blog to your friends. They are your biggest supporters and they can share your passion with their friends. My top influencer for my fashion blog is a girl from my hometown who has a clothing/accessories store. I had been friend with her online because she posted really cute items. Once I created my Fb page she started sharing my photos which resulted in more than 100 followers from her list of friends. We keep in touch almost everyday because we care about what we do.  I am not her friend to take advantage of her and this is why many people fail to reach a stable readership. I have noticed that many bloggers would comment and leave their link. Ok, I do it too, but make sure to provide meaningful feedback. Give the person a reason to wanted to click on the link. You want to be credible and considered an expert in your field. A simple "I love those," won't do it. Think about this: "Among 15 comments with links which one would I most liking click on it?"

2. Approach top influencer outside your circle of friends. This is tricky. Why would 'popular' people want to hear from you? For the simple reason that you write well and the content of your blog is intriguing. Start identifying 3 people and build a long-term relationship. The more you get to know them the more they will want to share your information. I had been a follower of Curly in the City a fashion blog run by this girl I met one time only few years ago in Chicago. She recently posted on her FB page that she was trying to revamp her blog. I volunteered to share the info on my platforms. If I see something I like I have no problems helping out and others will do the same. Just be patient and set long term goals and relationships. 

For today this is all, but there are obviously short term and long term strategies you can follow to increase readership on your blog. I guess more reasons to follow me. 

I do want to mention really quick the importance of selecting a time to post. Look at your readers. Who is your target audience, where are they? Have you ever noticed how Dr. Martens's shoes posts are right on your face when you get up in the morning? Think about your own routine. For example, currently my larger audience is people from Italy, therefore I try to post according to their time zone and habits. They are usually online at midnight and very responsive, which is perfect for me because I finish work at that time;)

If you have questions or want to suggest a topic please let me know by leaving a comment. Dr. Gin

I discussed in my previous post 5 tips on how to generate traffic to your blog. I wrote very generally not really differentiating among amateur bloggers or professional bloggers. Of course if you get paid to blog and drive traffic to your site it means you have time to implement strategies that will help quickly. But even for amateurs you can still follow these 5 tips. 


1.     Write well and write about something useful for the reader.
It seems easy right? But in reality it is the hardest part of blogging. You need to be a storyteller, engage the audience, and write about something that is relevant and meaningful to you and others. For example, I started my fashion blog with a friend out of a challenge. We stopped shopping for 91 days and wore a different outfit each day. We posted a picture each day and discussed how we felt about the lack of shopping, our realization of having too many useless clothes in the closet, and consumerism in general. Our readers were curious to see if we could win the challenge, what we would be wearing the next day. Most importantly the blog made the reader think about their own relationship with clothes, fashion, and consumerism. This is what I meant by providing content that will spike people to react, to relate to their own life. If you blog about food and your journey to losing weight, most likely you will share your successes and failure. It is about emotions. You want to connect with people and you want to help these people with your own experience.

Once we were done with the 91 days we stopped the blog for a year or so (we worked on different projects). It has been only 2 weeks since I relaunched the fashion blog with a new purpose - fashion tips and editorials for the real people. What I mean is that I felt there was a gap between the fashion models and designer pieces and the punctuality of these items on regular people. Nothing new right? And yet I had hard time to find tips on how to dress for interviews without looking like an old day and where to shop in you are not in big cities. So I compiled pictures of what I perceived to be well-dressed women and functional women. However, the blog had a big limitation in terms of driving more traffic: I was posting only pictures. I was lazy. I must admit. Then I had a conversation at the coffee shop with my friend and we talked about business attire, interviews, and sheer hosiery. I thought why not talking about these issues on my blog with a supplemental picture. It worked. That day I had the highest volume in readership and buzz both on the blog and Facebook.

Moral: You need to spend some time to understand what gaps you need to fill in the topic you are blogging enough. Visual pictures are very helpful but should be accompanied by a story- entertain your reader, rewards them with your own anecdote - Be useful and true to yourself.

Next time, we will discuss how to drive traffic by identifying top influencers in your field and choosing the right time to blog.

Thank you,

Dr. Gin