5 Ways to Increase Engagement on Your Blog, Podcast, or Video Show

Have you spent a lot of time creating great content for your blog, podcast, or video show, but no one’s engaging? With literally millions of new pieces of content being shared every day, it’s not enough to just hit publish. You have to actively, intentionally seek out people to read, listen to, or watch your stuff. Here are 5 things you can do to help your ideal customer group find you online.

Creating content for your blog, podcast, or video show takes time, energy, and mental bandwidth, but it’s totally worth it, right?

Yes! As long as your content is getting found and people are engaging with it.

Oh.

Yeah.

About that.

Getting discovered online is not as easy as it used to be. There are billions of websites up and running now – with more going live every day – and you can’t just hit publish and hope people stumble on it. Because they won’t.

But don’t worry. If you are intentional about how you create and share your content your ideal customer group will find you.

Before we get started let’s clarify what we mean by engagement.

For today’s purposes engagement refers to how people interact with your content. If you write a blog post, people engage by reading it. For a podcast episode, by listening. And a video show, by watching.

But there are other types of engagement we can consider, too.

If someone leaves a comment on your post, that’s engagement.

If someone shares your content with another person, that’s engagement.

Social media likes, shares, comments… all engagement.

Engagement is important because, well, what’s the point of creating content if no one’s going to read it, listen to it, or watch it?

But getting people’s attention can be tough. There’s a lot of competition out there, and it includes cats who make friends with llamas.

So how do you get more people to engage with your content?

There are any number of things you can do, some of them stranger than others. But today I’m sharing 5 tried and true ways to increase engagement for your blog, podcast, or video show.

Email Your Audience

Someone who has already read your blog, listened to your podcast, or watched your video show and opted in to your email list is obviously someone who’s interested in what you have to say. But many new entrepreneurs make the mistake of assuming that those people will keep coming back on their own.

Not true.

Life is busy.

I don’t know about you, but there are times I forget why I walked into a room only seconds before, nevermind remembering to go check someone’s website!

Email your list every week. Each week when you publish your new content send an email to your list letting them know so they can check it out. This will not only let them know to go to your site, but an email is also something that can be forwarded – people have definitely found Side Hustle Teachers that way!

Continue to grow your email list. Make sure you’re collecting email addresses in ConvertKit (or whichever email provider you use) so that the list of people you email each week grows.

Connect with Other Creators

No matter your platform or topic, there are others who do what you do (or something close to what you do), and building relationships with them is not only great for your bottom line, it can help you grow as a content creator and business owner, too.

Find others who share your area of interest and/or audience. Get to know other creators in your space, and the peripheral spaces (i.e. graphic designers can get to know web designers) and you can support each other’s efforts.

Some ways you can start conversations:

Leave comments on their content
Engage with them on social media
Attend summits or conventions

Optimize your relationship so it’s beneficial to both of you. Bloggers, podcasters, and YouTubers can all benefit from building relationships. You can be a guest on each other’s sites, and link to each other within your posts.

Optimize Your Content for Search Engines

Search engines, like Google, have a massive impact on whether or not our content gets found. Literally the first thing people do when they want to learn about something is to Google it. So it’s important to craft your content with this in mind and help Google help you.

Do your keyword research. When you know what people are searching for, you can create content that specifically addresses it. Use a tool like Keywords Everywhere to find out search volume, related search terms, and long-tail keywords so you can create content that will show up in searches.

Optimize your back end. Once you know your keyword or phrase you need to include that exact word or phrase in your content, the url for the post, the image title and descriptions, and the meta description. A tool like Yoast keeps all this organized on WordPress sites.

Link to your own content. When relevant, create links to other posts, podcasts, or videos you’ve created. This not only keeps people on your site longer, but it also builds your SEO authority.

Pro Tip: Your SEO authority is also boosted when links to your site appear on other people’s sites (as mentioned above).

Plan, Craft, and Distribute Great Content Weekly

No amount of optimization or connection is going to help if you don’t create great content consistently, people won’t engage with it.

Put content creation on your calendar. In my house, if it’s not on the calendar it doesn’t get done. Because of this I actually block off time on my calendar to work on my weekly posts. I even make it a recurring appointment so I won’t forget when things get busy (like when report cards are due) or when my schedule changes (like during summer vacation).

Create a system. Blogs, podcasts, and video shows have a lot of moving pieces, so it’s essential to have a system in place to make sure you take care of everything. In my courses I teach my students a 3-step process to plan, craft, and distribute their content. You can even create content in batches to save time and get ahead.

Harness the Power of Social Media

Let’s face it, social media is essential for businesses these days. On the plus side, it’s also an amazing tool that can help you reach more people, connect with your audience in a more authentic way, and increase your influence.

Pick your platforms. Rather than trying to be on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tik Tok, and whatever else is out there, your energy is better spent focusing on 1-2 platforms where you can share your content.

Post and engage. While social media is great for spreading the word about your business, what it’s AMAZING for is connecting with people. It’s not enough to just share links and wait for people to share them. When you start to engage with the people who are commenting on your work, you can form relationships, which are of course, the basis of business. Save time by using a tool like CinchShare to post, and then use that time to respond to comments and connect with your audience.

In the end, there are a number of ways to increase engagement for your content, however you produce it, and you want to try a few of them to see what works for you and your audience. An effective content marketing plan is going to include multiple channels so people can discover your content across the internet.

Of course, you can always start with just one thing, like creating great content, then add pieces as you get more confident and build your systems.

Join me on Tuesday at 7:30 pm (EDT) in the Side Hustle Teachers Facebook Group for a LIVE recap, answers to your questions, and my recommendation for which of these steps to follow, in which order, and why! A replay of the video will be posted below the Friday after the live. ↓↓↓