In the beginning, I had a blog. As a Boomer, I was struggling as to my post retirement plans, so I decided to share my issue with like minded folks who also were searching for meaning, passion, or just a few time wasters before their meaning of life kicked in. Over the 75 blogs I published, I attracted no interest. As I have learned, my social media skills were non-existent. My re-Blog activity will need an upgrade.
To start, my targeted audience needs to have certain characteristics. First, they need to be readers. A weekly blog published each Friday allows for weekend reading. This eliminates the Tik-Tok crowd. Trying to stay focused for the 10 minutes it takes to peruse a 1,000 word opinion piece would be impossible for most of the younger generations. While there may be a picture or table of facts, there is no video, which automatically kills any remaining kids from visiting my site.
My pursued audience will also need to be interested in the same topics I am. Politics, economics, and cultural changes will be front and centre. Probably from all the available cable news channels, most of my generation share these interests. Agreeing with diversity, probably middle class from an economic perspective, and enjoying a little humor should also describe most of my readers. This is a huge target audience.
The trick will be to interest them. I will use Facebook and X to advertise my content. Facebook is also used by an older cohort, so that will maximize the width of the potential audience. X will be used as its the new app, attracting lots of publicity, and did pull in many Tweet-ites !
To attract them, I need to read daily to understand what is trending, Google Trends will help here. Being stale, unless using old data proves a point, would be an interest killer. A potential role model would be a New York Times columnist, a writer allowed free reign to juxtapose different thoughts and opinions so as to garner clicks. Hopefully that attention, a difficult objective to achieve in our billions of eyeballs media universe, will expose readers to my brand of facts and fun as I paint a vision, a funnel to bring people into my storytelling.
Using WordPress, I will have some available analytics. Google also provides analytics, so I can validate my readership with my content. Also, hash-tags should provide a roadmap of where my audience is, and what is forming their opinions. My goal is to entice, berate, or otherwise motivate my fellow Boomers to stop navel glazing, and find something to do that had meaning for them. My worry is that I am building a blog for me, that will not find a target audience that will enjoy the content. Is it wrong to start with your own interests first, then see where the comments take me ? What do you think? Let me know in the comments below, and I will respond to your advice.
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 