A while ago, when Julia Gillard was still PM, the Aussie Labor party was suffering hugely poll-wise. The leadership were looking for excuses. So Gillard and her team took to describing any criticism of her as sexist. This "misogyny" angle was clearly false and seemed to make Gillard's popularity plummet even more. So clearly a lot of people were getting very annoyed by this.
At about that time I noticed a Facebook page making fun of this tendency of hers. It's disappeared now, so I can't be totally sure of the name. But it was called "It's Because I'm a Woman" or something like that. I immediately liked the page even though there was almost no content up there at the time.
It just seemed to nail something that I and a lot of other people found very annoying. And it got me thinking about how bloggers could use this technique in other ways. After all, a Facebook page doesn't always have to relate directly to your blog and its content. You can generate a community around some widely held sentiment, or a meme, then use it to promote your posts.
The example I cited above was political. But you could do something similar with pretty much anything. Maybe you have a blog about beer and there's a popular beer brand that has a cool advertising campaign that everyone's talking about. Maybe you could set up a page for fans of the campaign? Along with direct references to that ad campaign, you could share some of your blog posts. Or you could just have the link to the main URL in the description. You'd be sure to get a fair bit of targeted traffic as a result.
Or perhaps you have a website about entertainment. And there's some celebrity who a lot of people find extremely annoying for some reason or another. You could build a page about that and tap into the traffic that ensues.
The potential is limitless. The key is to find something in the news that is provoking a lot of public sentiment. Then build a page, or even a group, around this.
Of course the benefits may only be temporary, which is a downside. But if the page goes viral to even a mild extent it could be a great way to get lots of new blog readers.
At about that time I noticed a Facebook page making fun of this tendency of hers. It's disappeared now, so I can't be totally sure of the name. But it was called "It's Because I'm a Woman" or something like that. I immediately liked the page even though there was almost no content up there at the time.
It just seemed to nail something that I and a lot of other people found very annoying. And it got me thinking about how bloggers could use this technique in other ways. After all, a Facebook page doesn't always have to relate directly to your blog and its content. You can generate a community around some widely held sentiment, or a meme, then use it to promote your posts.
The example I cited above was political. But you could do something similar with pretty much anything. Maybe you have a blog about beer and there's a popular beer brand that has a cool advertising campaign that everyone's talking about. Maybe you could set up a page for fans of the campaign? Along with direct references to that ad campaign, you could share some of your blog posts. Or you could just have the link to the main URL in the description. You'd be sure to get a fair bit of targeted traffic as a result.
Or perhaps you have a website about entertainment. And there's some celebrity who a lot of people find extremely annoying for some reason or another. You could build a page about that and tap into the traffic that ensues.
The potential is limitless. The key is to find something in the news that is provoking a lot of public sentiment. Then build a page, or even a group, around this.
Of course the benefits may only be temporary, which is a downside. But if the page goes viral to even a mild extent it could be a great way to get lots of new blog readers.
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