Online Success = Go to Where Your Tribe Meets Your Passion
Bob and I talk a lot about the importance of blogging your passion. We believe it is one of the core fundamentals of growing a successful blog. You will write more content, be more engaged, and stay with the process longer, when you blog about your passion. Blogging your passion does not have to be this heavy and mysterious thing that takes a lifetime pursuit to discover. Follow your interests and what you love to talk about.
If you have not yet honed in on your passion, sign up for the Blogging Your Passion University 101 course. You get access to the first 5 videos for free (2 of which we help you to find your passion). Once you have a good idea of what your passion is you need to start producing lots and lots of helpful content. Each new article you write gets indexed in the search engine and “like minded” people can begin to find you. Organic search traffic is a winning strategy.
Another blog traffic strategy that I like is to simply “go to where your tribe is.” There are lots of established places online where people gather that have the same passion as yours. This can be an incredibly powerful thing if you put the effort into it. For example, almost 18 months before we launched the Blogging Your Passion Blog, I started a group at 48Days.net called Blogging Your Passion.
48 Days is a wonderful community of like-minded people, who are tired of the rat race and want instead to pursue genuine work that they love. The term 48 days is based from a book called 48 Days to the Work You Love by Dan Miller. It is a book on my “must read” list, and I give it my highest recommendation.
I created a group on the 48 days forum because I knew there had to be people who wanted to discover how to find a voice online through blogging their passion. Before we even wrote our first blog post on this blog, we had 87+ people on our RSS feed and over 50 on our facebook fan page. That is the power of finding your tribe! Below is a simple outline for how you can do the same.
1. Find Your Tribe
You need to discover where the people that share your passion hang out. The best place to find these people is in forums. I recently discovered a “forum job search engine” that makes this process much easier. I like to use a search engine called Board Reader. Below I created a quick video to show you the power of this search engine. Bottom line is this: go join existing communities that surround your passion and share as much knowledge as you can.
2. Become a Trusted Authority
Your goal in joining these forums is not to spam your link all over the place and leave short comments everywhere. That is a short sided approach. Instead, you need to become “the most helpful person” in that forum. Notice, I did not say the expert or the person with the best ideas. You need to be the most helpful person, that at the very least, has a reasonable competence in the niche. Once I started my group on 48Days.net, I created a 10+ video series on how to start blogging your passion. It was free and I tried my best to add as much value as I possibly could. I also tried my best to answer as many questions as I could in order to make my presence known.
3. Develop Lasting Relationships
The last step is to develop lasting relationships. People like to do business with people they like and trust. You need to think about how you can go above and beyond to obtain that level of trust. Before we launched this blog, I had offered free 30 minute blog consultations to my 48days.net group. I was able to spend time with over 30+ bloggers in 30 days. Yes, it took a lot of my time, but looking back it provided so much value for me. I also hope that it added value to those who took advantage of it. What can you do to create lasting relationships with those in your niche? Is it a free monthly webinar? Could it be free phone consultations? I hope this article has your wheels spinning. There is a tribe somewhere waiting for a new leader. Will you take the chance?
If you cannot see the video above, watch Where Your Tribe Meets Your Passion directly on YouTube.
