Growing an online property has never been an easy task. In fact, getting noticed amongst millions of websites, has always been a challenge. In this post, we take a look at the bigger picture strategy of growing an online show. We will then cover these parts in detail on a later date.
Part 01: Content
First and foremost, content is king. Without content, none of the other factors will matter. Before you start creating content, keep a few things in mind:
- Audience: Determine who’s your audience and what that audience wants.
- Relation: Can the audience relate to the content? If not, make sure that you keep tweaking your content. Often times, when you start out, you will have to be change direction a couple of times until you’re happy and your audience is happy.
- Fresh: Make sure that content is updated at least once a week, preferably once a day. You want people coming back for new content.
- Interviews: Interviews are great — when they’re on topic. Do not make your show an interview-only show.
Part 02: Distribution and Promotion
- Distribution: The web offers dozens of distribution methods. However, for episodic programming, I recommend checking out Blip.tv. If you use their Pro feature, Blip will also create an iTunes compatible feed for you. Also, make sure that you use YouTube as a distribution channel. While the quality may not be the best, it’s still the world’s most visited video website.
- Promotion: Keep promoting your show — online and offline.
- Online
- Newsletter: Create a newsletter for your audience. This will help you know who your audience is, and will also help you with the direction of the show.
- Feed: Most shows offer RSS feeds. If you don’t have an RSS feed, create that feed now. It’s crucial for repeat visitors.
- Forums: Forums take a while to establish and are challenging to maintain. But, once you overcome those hurdles, the forum community will become your most loyal community.
- Offline
- Meet-ups: Attend topic-oriented or “web-tv” meetups in your area. Use something like meetup.org to find out your events.
- Networking events: Similar to meet-ups, networking events are more general. Meetup.org is great to find general networking events as well.
- Speaking events: You don’t have to present at the largest speaking events, but try to speak at as many events as possible. These can be at a school, university, or even your local chamber of commerce.
- Online
Part 03: Monetization
Every content producer will tell you that monetization of online content is a challenging task. Here are some tips that you may use to monetize your content.
- Advertiser: Don’t always go after the largest advertiser possible. While these large advertisers will certainly give you a lot of exposure, getting through to them may be difficult. Determine small businesses that are also advertising and try and target them.
- Packages: Offer variety. People like variety, and advertisers like variety. Make sure you offer custom packages for your advertiser that clearly show the advertiser the advantages. If a client doesn’t know how the advertising would benefit them, then they won’t advertise with you.
Now, some content producers choose to swap part 1 and part 3. While this may work, and has worked for companies — you need to be established or need to have a really strong vision to complete these tasks.
We’ll cover more advanced techniques in future posts. In the meantime, feel free to subscribe to the Digital Media Biz newsletter.
