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Advice For Growing Online Community Offline

by amcg
3 replies
Hey all,

I've been working on Most Valuable Pro, a Sports news website and community for a few months now. Really enjoying writing about sports and being part of a small team however I'm struggling to grow the community engagement.

My main effort at the moment is basically reaching out to people in person and asking them to take part. I've also added a store with merch.

Have you got any advice regarding Marketing a blog/community offline? Had similar experience or success?
#advice #community #growing #online
  • Profile picture of the author Aaron Doud
    Offline vs. Online doesn't matter this you figure out WHY.

    Why would I want to visit your site vs. the more popular sports sites? What is your niche or angle?

    Once you know that then identify your target audience based on that. Now how do you vocalize your WHY to your WHO?

    Now you have your message. So where will you be able to best reach your WHO? Now you have your WHERE.

    Remember you need the right message (WHY) to the right people (WHO) in the right media (WHERE).

    The right media may be online or offline. In fact the right media might be multiple media in both offline and online. But till you have or at least you tell us your WHY & WHO we really can't tell you the perfect WHERE.

    If you were targeting Seniors the WHERE would be totally different vs. targeting Teens.

    So I guess WHO are you targeting?
    And WHY would they want to use your site?
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    Aaron Doud - Sales & Success
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    • Profile picture of the author amcg
      Great stuff Aaron - really helpful information. Especially this:

      Remember you need the right message (WHY) to the right people (WHO) in the right media (WHERE).
      This is interesting. I know that I can't cover every sport and break news 24/7 like the bigger networks. Our focus has been on relevancy and community, maybe we need to define this better.

      We're also trying to appeal to a global audience, maybe this is a mistake out of the gate.

      The 'Where' question is also interesting, we probably need to figure this out as right now, we don't have a focus.
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  • Profile picture of the author Aaron Doud
    I've had this same conversation with friends in the video game niche. Too many think the only two options are get hired by the big boys like IGN or emulate the big boys. This is that same idea.

    You can't beat the big sites by being the same as the big sites.

    Find your core audience and provide for them what the big sites can not. Once you have that it's just a matter of getting the right people to find you.
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    Aaron Doud - Sales & Success
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