How to Harness the Power of the Blog Flywheel

I just realized that I’m morbidly fascinated by failure.

I am the rubbernecker that can’t resist slowing down to 10mph to investigate an accident.  I then spend a few hours pondering what went wrong.

Business failures are like crack cocaine.  I love reading postmortems on what went wrong, who dropped the ball, and how competitors ate a business for lunch.

Recently, blog failures have caught my attention.  Whenever I stumble upon an abandoned blog I will often read a few posts to see if I can pinpoint what went wrong.  Since I have three failed blogs of my own, this little exercise strikes close to home.

One thing  I’ve found is that most failed blogs were doomed to obscurity within their first 3-4 months of life.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t because the bloggers weren’t talented or dedicated.  Most of the best writing on the web is buried in defunct blogs.
The real problem is that the blogger did the right things at the wrong time. If they would have sequenced their steps better their blogs could have caught fire and survived their early life. One glaring example is creating an email newsletter or “product” too late.

On the other hand, Rockstar blogs all share common characteristics.  They do the right things at the right time.  They quickly attract highly engaged audiences and are able to monetize their community effortlessly.

Their secret has to do with a concept I call the “Blog Flywheel”.

A flywheel is an incredibly simple device for storing energy.  It works by harnessing the power of momentum.  Flywheels are incredibly hard to get going but once they are moving they are exponentially more difficult to stop.

A blog flywheel works with the same principles.  At the beginning, the blog gets moving with intense effort and the application of a few important ingredients.  Once the blog is moving, the early work starts to push the blog forward, picking up speed, until success becomes inevitable.

How to Build Your Blog Flywheel

An Engaged Audience

Don’t make the mistake of waiting for your audience to come to you.  You will need to find and attract an audience to your blog.  You won’t have to settle for just anyone, top bloggers work to lure a specific type of reader; someone who likes to comment and share blog posts.

The best way to attract an engaged audience is to hang out on blogs, forums, and chats that are frequented by your ideal reader.  Select these areas as targets for comments, forum posts, and Facebook updates.  Commenters on these blogs are much more likely to exhibit the same behavior on your blog.

Top of Mind Content

Blogging is all about capturing and keeping the attention of your readers.  You must stay top-of-mind to be able to attract repeat visitors and eventually monetize your audience.

Successful bloggers create multiple methods for readers to add themselves to email blog update and newsletter lists. Focusing on building your list early insures that you’ll have a steady flow of readers visiting your site to check out new blog posts.

Podcasts and videos are another way to create content that can be distributed to new audiences via iTunes or YouTube.  Subscribers can choose to be notified every time you post a new video or podcast driving repeat visits.

Bloggers who take advantage of these top-of-mind content options have an easier time attracting a critical mass of readers that power comments, retweets, subscriptions, and twitter followings.

Proof of Life

It’s important to show that your blog has relevant and useful content.  The best way to prove this is to make sure your best posts are front and center.

For example, on Pushing Social, I often will “sticky” a post that has attracted a number of retweets or comments.  I want new visitors to see that the blog is alive and hopping with activity.

Now there is a slight catch-22 here.  In the beginning it’s hard to demonstrate that your posts are popular and shared. So it’s uncomfortable to show Twitter buttons with 0 Retweets.  Be patient, write your heart out, and pick your audience carefully, the proof of your brilliance will come.

Have you built your blog to succeed?  Are you attracting a high-engagement audience?  Let’s talk about it below:

P.S. If you need a little extra coaching on how to create a high-impact blog that get noticed and shared then pop on over to the Pushing Social Bootcamp.

{Image Credit: Newtown grafitti}