If there’s one thing bloggers love, it’s having people read their words. After all, none of you are out there banging the keys just because you enjoy the noise it makes, right? When you flip your posts into a Flipboard magazine, your followers will most likely see it in their Cover Stories (home) feed, but there are ways to make it more likely for them to discover more of the posts you’ve written and to strengthen your relationship.
1. Create a Magazine with Your Blog Name
Being overly self-promotional is never recommended, but we’re pretty sure that your Flipboard readers won’t mind in the least if you have an eponymous magazine dedicated to your own blog posts. In fact, there’s a good chance that they’ll be grateful that you took the time to curate the best of what you’ve published on your blog. Be sure to use the magazine description to outline the kinds of posts you share on your blog and to, once again, share the blog URL so that potential readers know exactly what to expect when they pop over for a visit.
2. Add Your URL to Your Bio
When someone comes across a well-written post or an insightful comment, they’re often tempted to check out the bio of the writer. It’s a smart way to find interesting people to follow. While URLs aren’t clickable in a Flipboard bio, it’s always a good idea to list your blog address so that readers can, if they so choose, take their connection with you a step further. Any blogger who doesn’t add their URL to their bio cheats themselves out of an easy way to strengthen their brand awareness and maybe snag themselves a new regular. Yes, it’s possible that a truly determined reader could Google you and find your blog, but why make it harder than necessary?
3. Create Collaborative Magazines With Other Bloggers
We’ve discussed before the advantages to working with other bloggers on collaborative magazines that showcase the best of everyone’s work. It’s a wonderful way to expose new readers to your content and deliver a variety of articles to your existing followers. It’s also a nice way to introduce yourself to people who might never have heard about your blog before. Use the notes section of your flipped article to write a few, carefully selected words to introduce the post to help readers get a sense for what they’re about to read and to help search engines pick up your post more easily.
4. Tag Your Blog Tweets with #FlipBlogger
Want to make sure your blog gets attention from people beyond your regular followers all while broadcasting that you’re active on Flipboard? The easiest way is to share your posts on Twitter with the #FlipBlogger hashtag. This is equally effective when you share magazines you’ve just created in order to draw more readers to them.
5. Use the Compose Feature to Your Advantage
Want more eyeballs on your words? Take advantage of the versatility of the Compose feature to draw attention to more of your posts. One easy way is to publish a “best of the week” month post that includes links to your blogs or to magazines that you’ve recently added posts to. Play around with this and see what fits best with the magazines you’ve already created.
Looking for other ways to grow your Flipboard readership? Check out our post on finding your people.
~JessicaR curates A Few of My Favorite Posts, a magazine of posts from her personal blog