Maximizing the Reach of a Blog for a Specific Demographic

How to Maximize the Reach of a Blog for a Specific Demographic

            If you find yourself getting serious about blogging, and would like to become a household name like some of the other big bloggers out there, you're going to have to do some research. A very big factor to consider when getting more serious with your blogging is who the target demographic is that you are trying to hit with your blog. How does one find out their target demographic? It can be pretty easy sometimes depending on the topic of your blog. For others, however, you really need to know that demographic to be able to maximize the foot traffic on your blog, as well as to know exactly who is reading your thoughts and opinions in cyberspace.

            If you follow this link https://www.sysomos.com/reports/bloggers/ and read the article, it gives some insight as to the general demographic of blog readers. According to this article, "Bloggers in the 21-to-35 year-old demographic group account for 53.3% of the total blogging population." So, if you aren't trying to hit that demographic, you're going to need to employ specific techniques to reach those outliers. If you are trying to appeal to the older demographic, you'll need to do more work to reach the senior crowd.

            While older people are getting more acclimated to the new technology and social media sites 2014 has to offer, they require a bit more work on the blogger's end to reach. iProspect has a great article about reaching the older demographic, check it out here: http://www.iprospect.com/blog/social-media/reaching-older-demographics-with-social-media.html. This article states that, "Recent studies show that users over 50 are the fastest growing demographic for Facebook and other social media. Additionally, usage among those over the age of 65 grew 100 percent since 2009, while usage of Twitter has more than doubled among those 50 and older since 2009." This means that there is indeed a growing demographic that could perhaps be targeted successfully.

            If you aren't sure what your demographic is, it is extremely important and prudent information to obtain if you are trying to achieve a big time blog. There are websites like https://www.compete.com/ and http://www.comscore.com/ that can provide you with details on who is visiting your site, and it includes age demographics. Once you establish who your target demographic is then you will be able to adjust your tactics to better reach the audience that is frequenting your blog most often.

            Once your target demographic is established you can employ strategies to target those specific audiences. If you want advertising on your blogs, it is imperative to know the demographic your blog appeals to most in order to maximize the effect of those advertisements. It's important because that will affect how much money you could possibly make through those advertisements; more money is always a good thing, right?

            If you are trying to become a big wig blogger it is imperative that you find your target demographic so you know exactly how to rope in more viewers. If you think you appeal to a younger audience but the demographic data supports an older fan base, then you need to change the way you approach blogging. Either you need to completely change your style to appeal to that younger fan base, or you need to employ strategies that will attract even more of the older audience. Figuring out your target demographic is just one of many steps a striving blogger needs to take if they hope to become a name that people come to know and love.

Analysis of Two Vlogs

Two good/popular Vlogs (That I'm into)

            I bet you find yourself wondering, "what are two vlogs Jake Fontana likes to frequent?" right? Well, good news, I'll go ahead and tell you! I don't actively watch many vlogs, but when I do, I tend to watch ones that have no educational value at all! One of my favorite vlogs would have to be "Will It Blend?".

            "Will it Blend?" is hosted by Tom Dickson the CEO of Blendtec. Blendtec is a blender manufacturing company and they crank out one beast of a blender. Every so often Tom Dickson finds himself wondering, "will it blend?". Pitting his powerful blenders against the likes of iPhones, glow sticks and even six Bic lighters, Tom Dickson is ready to throw anything in his super powered blender to answer the question, "will it blend?". As it so often seems to turns out, they do. Blendtec throws together one monster of a blender with blades as sharp as a sword crafted by an ancient Japanese blacksmith with as much horsepower as a '68 Mustang. The thing decimates anything put in its path.

            Every time Dickson blends something its guaranteed to turn into dust. Saying silly lines "Ooooh iPhone dust, don't breathe this in." every time after he blends something. He also always ends the show with a fun freeze frame of him smiling really big with a talk bubble that says, "Yes, it blends!". Totally ridiculous, but they take viewer requests of what they should put in the blender next time, one of my favorites being glow sticks vs. the ever powerful Blendtec blender. Just a fun vlog that I always know the ending to, but it's not the ending that makes it great, it's the high definition slow motion footage of the Samsung Galaxy S5 being turned to dust that makes it great. Check out the iPhone 5 vs. the Galaxy S5 here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rofgMueCOqo. Sporting a pretty swell intro and outro theme, this web series is ridiculous and definitely worth watching. Will it blend? The answer is almost always yes.

            The other vlog I think you should check out is Jenna Marbles. The gal is ridiculous. She uses absurd voices, makes fun of everything and is pretty cute to boot. Between the crazy topics she chooses to talk about and the silly ways she talks about them, I find myself watching her videos every so often when I want a good laugh. One of her more recent videos is just about her telling embarrassing stories that have happened to her, check it out here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pip17S1H3bo. Never very serious, this girl is pretty vulgar and has a whole lot of sarcastic input about what's happening in her life.

            Jenna Marbles puts out videos every Wednesday or Thursday and she does a pretty solid job of getting one out every week and editing them well. Jenna edits the videos so that there's never a break in action. Editing out most breaths she takes I'm not convinced that she breathes ever. She ends every show talking about her upcoming videos while petting her doge Kermit. It's a goofy looking little dog that she constantly talks for in a ridiculously silly voice and usually makes wave goodbye at the camera. She's an interesting gal to say the least.

            So, those are some vlogs I'd recommend checking out if you find yourself bored and next to a computer or on your fancy smart phone. You'd be surprised how long you can watch stuff get turned into dust in a blender; it's addicting to me at least. Don't go sticking stuff in your blender when you get done reading this though, leave that to the professionals.

Analysis of Two Good/Popular Blogs Based on My Interests

Two Great Blogs (That I’m into)

                I don’t always follow blogs, but when I do, they’re usually awesome. Self diagnosed with being “bad at the internet” I’m not the best at surfing the internet for more than like 30 seconds. Unless I’m doing research for a school paper, shopping for musical equipment or watching people failing in various ways on Youtube, I tend to only use the internet when I have a real purpose. For those occasions that I find myself bored enough to mindlessly zone out on a webpage, I prefer it to be a good one though. Occasionally I will find myself on http://www.wwtdd.com.

                This website talks about celebrity gossip and let me be very clear that I totally hate gossip! I don’t care in the least bit what celebrities are doing in their free time, who they’re dating or what they were wearing at the golden globes. I just don’t care, it’s not my business and I got way more important stuff to worry about than who Jodie Foster is getting married to. That being said, when the writer of “What Would Tyler Durden Do” talks about all of these things, I find myself strangely amused. The writer, who remains anonymous, is ridiculous to say the least. He’s rude, extremely witty and will not hesitate to offend anyone and everyone. The things he says about these celebrities and their situations make me laugh out loud constantly. Most of the time he just talks shit about celebrities, occasionally he offers real advice, but every time it’s hilarious. There’s a picture of a crowd in Nigeria gathering around a bunch of armed soldiers and the title of the piece he wrote is called “Nigeria Seems Like a Fun Place to Take the Kids”. Extremely sarcastic and often times offensive, I find myself browsing this website periodically. I bet if you were into celebrity gossip you would love this site far more than I do.

                Another blog that I highly recommend is the blog that Popular Science has. Visit their website http://www.popsci.com/blog-network. I get Popular Science in the mail and always read the magazine from front to back. Their blog has a lot of great information on the internet that they didn’t get a chance to put in print so it’s a great source to become highly enlightened in the scientific world around you. They post a lot of really awesome new inventions as well as articles about advancements in specific scientific fields. One such article talks about one of Land Rover’s new concept cars they are currently working on. This SUV is going to have an “augmented reality heads up display”. We’re talking about road conditions and your current speed being monitored directly on your windshield. Oh, is the sun too bright? Just pass a hand over the windshield to darken it! That’s some future stuff right there. One of the main reasons I love this site is that I find myself jumping from article to article like, “whoa, no way is that real!” If you find yourself wondering what the future will be like, you should hop on Popular Science’s website, it’s seriously awesome.

                Those are two websites that I frequent when I have some time to kill. You might find wwtdd.com to ridiculous for your tastes, but Popular Science’s website is definitely worth checking out. Do it, you’ll thank me later. It’s entertaining and you’ll get smarter, trust me, I’d never steer you wrong. Not on purpose at least.

Where and How Do Consumer Access Blogs?

Where are they?!

                If you’re the average consumer trying to get into the blog scene, you’ve got a whole lot of exploring ahead of you. Unless you know exactly what you’re looking for, you could search blog after blog for hours on end; I’d imagine there are more blogs on the internet than you have time in your life to read. Tumblr alone boasts 182.9 million blogs and 83.1 billion posts, and that has to be more information than one person can soak up in an entire lifetime. That’s why it’s good to know what kind of blog you are looking for. With just a quick Google search of, “where to find blogs” the third site listed was titled “10 ways to find blogs you’ll Love”. If you follow this link, http://mashable.com/2011/04/11/blog-discovery/ you can find a comprehensive list of some solid sites that will take you to exactly what you’re looking for.

The number one website listed is alltop.com. Alltop has an easy to use site that lets you browse a seemingly endless list of blogs as well as search through categories to find exactly what caters to your taste. At the top of the page, the categories are broken up as follows, work, health, culture, interests, tech, people, good, news, geos and sports. If you can’t find something in that list that appeals to you, either you’re a robot or have absolutely no interests! Highly unlikely, so go check out Alltop if you’ve got some time to kill and find yourself extremely bored.

                Another great site for finding your future blogging interests is technorati.com. Technorati is cool because they have a pretty solid search engine that lets you search for blogs or blog posts by keywoards. If you were looking for a blog about food you could search “recipes” for example. Or if you were looking for a specific recipe you could search for “parmesan encrusted tilapia” if you were so inclined (I highly recommend that recipe by the way, who knew that parmesan and tilapia mingled so well? It’s a tango conceived in heaven for sure). With this search function you are bound to find exactly what you’re looking for, or at the very least something directly related to your search. Technorati also has a list of their top blogs, which are generally very well written and have been proven to be a step above the average joe’s home blog. Technorati’s top 100 is something you can use to find the best websites that have the most popular blogs the internet has to offer.

                Another exceptional website to try is blogcatalog.com. I find it to have a more elegant lay out than the previous sites I mentioned. Boasting many pictures, this website is intelligently designed and has a few cool features of its own; one being their VIB posters. I believe VIB stands for Very Important Blogger and these blogs are featured on Blogcatalog’s homepage. This helps the blogger draw more attention to their blog, there are no prerequisites to become a VIB but I would image that since they pay 200 dollars a year or just 25 a month to be recognized as a VIB, their blog is probably a higher quality than the one you’re reading right now.

                Whatever site you settle on, or fall in love with, I have presented some options that should help you take full advantage of the world of blogging. With as many millions of blog on the internet you’re going to need a little help finding exactly what you’re looking for. Utilize those sites and become enamored with your new favorite blogs; you can thank me later.