In this article I share with you the results from day two of my experiments with Chris Brogan’s “27 Blogging Secrets to Power Your Community.” I will share my “rubber meets the road” experiences from applying secrets 2, 3, and 7 to my home business blog. See the results of day one at the end of this article to get the whole consumer report on implementing these secrets.
These three secrets suggest using pictures and questions in blog posts, and writing “unfinished” posts to create an online discussion. Applying these three secrets to my home business blog turned out to be a lot easier than the secrets from day one. They will probably be a lot easier for most bloggers as well since they don’t require very much technical expertise or research.
Secret #2: Include a Picture in Your Blog Post
Chris Brogan says that he has been adding a picture to each of his blog posts for a while and that it seems to draw readers in. Being a visual person myself, I can understand how this kind of “eye candy” would be appealing.
I added a picture to my blog today that matches the theme of the post. The picture is one of five that I originally picked out for the concept of “secrets” (to go with the blogging secrets theme). I took a quickie straw poll among my mentors and colleagues to find the best picture. The result was a tie between two little kids whispering secrets and an office spy guy in a ninja suit. I picked the office spy guy because I felt he better expressed the concept of blogging secrets, being both dressed secretively and having a laptop.
I got all of my pictures through one of my photo subscription services. There are thousands on the web, some free and some that require a fee. An inexpensive solution is Big Stock Photos. They have a huge selection and prices are flea-market cheap. All in all, this blogging secret was a cinch, and lots of fun as well. I will definitely be posting a lot more photos to my home business blog for sheer visual appeal.
Time Spent: 20 minutes
Dinero Spent: $0 (I already had a pre-existing subscription to a photo service)
Secret # 3: Open Your Blog Post with a Question
Now this secret was even easier than the photo blogging secret. I’ve looked through Chris Brogan’s posts and, as he says, he does indeed start a lot of his posts with questions. Many of his questions are the exact questions that his readers are probably asking themselves, and some are just humorous and quirky. I use a lot of questions on my home business blog, too.
If it hasn’t already become obvious, opening a blog post with a question is a great way to hit a topic hard or to let your personality show through. Plus, it keeps you from scratching your head and wondering how to dive into your blog post topic. This secret is simple, easy, and priceless.
Time Spent: 5 seconds
Dinero Spent: $0 (It’s priceless, remember?)
Secret # 7: Write Unfinished Posts
This one is easy. The translation of this blogging secret is, “Let others do some of the work for you.” Let’s face it. Writing interesting, informative, useful, addictive, funny, lovable blog posts day in and day out is pretty impossible. So this secret comes in handy on days where you are stumped for a topic, the writing won’t flow, or you are just too plain hung over to write intelligently. This secret also applies to any area you are currently exploring or researching. Chris suggests asking readers for ideas and experiences, or having people add to or improve your posts.
So here is where the rubber meets the road on applying this secret to my home business blog. I’m running this experiment, “The 9 Days of Chris Brogan Blogging Secrets.” Here are the results of day one, where I applied secrets 1, 10, and 14 about titles, themes, and other people reposting your material: traffic increased 328% on the day of this post over the average daily number of unique visitors.
I’m pretty happy with that. Now, to apply Chris Brogan’s blogging secret #7, I asked visitors to my blog to let me know how they feel about this experiment and the blog. Implementing this secret didn’t take much time at all and I’ll look forward to interactions with my readers.
Time Spent: 10 minutes (calculating traffic stats)