I was talking with author Lois Roelofs about her newly released book, Marv Taking Charge, and she made the comment that she started blogging back in the day because she was told she needed a platform. As an aside, she said, “Whatever a platform is.”
Right – whatever a platform is. Presumably, some sort of online presence so that we can meet and share what we create with others outside our immediate circle. But aside from creating a blog, how do we build a platform?
- Serve your readers: One of the most memorable remarks I’ve heard about growing an audience is from blogger, activist, and author, Glennon Doyle, who created the Momastery.com blog. She said she repeatedly has people asking her how to grow their following and her advice, “serve your readers.” She elaborated by saying something like if you have 10 followers, serve those readers and the number will grow.
- Give it time: I’ve heard it said that it takes at least a year to build a blog audience. That matches my experience and also my observation that there’s a high correlation between number of years blogging and number of followers.
- Show interest: Of course, the time spent factor also extends to the time spent interacting with other people. Whether it be answering comments or commenting on other people’s blogs, the interest shown in others seems to help. It wasn’t obvious to me when I started that many long-term bloggers turn off their like notifications so they are not automatically seeing when you like their blog. It may take several thoughtful comments for someone to reciprocate interest, especially on shared blogs where the comments or pingbacks may not automatically notify the author.
Lois’ book is about her husband, Marv, and his decision not to seek treatment when he was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer and the very intentional way they were able to spend the last few months of his life saying good-bye to the people he loved. Lois posted on her blog throughout the journey. I’ve heard this from several people. We may come to blogging for the platform but often stay for the friendship.
I’ve posted a companion piece to this one on my personal blog about what we practice comes together to serve us: The Usefulness of Play.
Please check out these other items of interest:
More about Wynne Leon and the personal journey to become a single mom, writer and speaker
Workshop about cultivating resilience through creativity that I delivered with Dr. Vicki Atkinson
Speaking and workshops on how to use creativity to spark innovation, problem-solving and strong teams
Podcast about the how and why of creativity
Resources for corporate creativity
Corporate needs assessment for cultivating team creativity
Individual survey for stoking the creative fire
You can find me on Instagram and Twitter @wynneleon
(featured photo from Pexels)