A Flipboard Power User Shares How She Found Success With A “Niche” Topic.
I met Jennifer Petoff through The Flipboard User Group about a year ago. We got to chatting about travel. I was going to Ireland that year and she gave me some tips for our trip. It’s a common practice in our community to meet and support our members when they need assistance.
Besides being a Flipboard Power Curator, Jennifer has a very unique interest:
Doors!! And guess what? So do I!
I follow Jennifer’s beautiful door photographs from all over the world on Flipboard. They are magical and beautiful. In this article, she shares her tips to drive traffic from Flipboard with a niche keyword.
How I Use Flipboard to Build a Community of Door Lovers
I’m a long-time travel blogger who started in 2009. Earlier this year, I spun up a new website dedicated to “my weird hobby”: Doors, Glorious Doors by Sidewalk Safari. There are not that many people searching for keywords related to door photography so I have been using Flipboard to raise awareness of the site and grow my community of door lovers. Thanks to Flipboard, my traffic has been up over 100% month over month for the past two months.
What’s my Approach to Building Community on Flipboard?
As soon as I publish a new post or gallery, I immediately flip it into relevant magazines like Doors, Glorious Doors (personal magazine), and Doors of the World (a collaboration with Salvo Micciché). I also selectively post to larger group magazines like The Travel Exchange since all my door photos were taken on my various trips around the world.
I’ve gotten great engagement from the community on Flipboard on my weekly vote to select the door of the week. I’ve found that the Flipboard community also loves a good teaser. I allow the community to guess where the door of the month was taken and then click through to my website to see if they are right.
I’ve also found that I can combine my two passions, doors and travel, using Flipboard Storyboards which I take time to batch schedule once a month and then publish one per day. You can see an example here: Knock on the Door to Central Portugal.
How Much Traffic Does Flipboard Drive?
Over 50% of the traffic I’ve gotten since launching Doors, Glorious Doors by Sidewalk Safari has come from Flipboard including a small amount thanks to federation (<1% but growing).
While Storyboards don’t bring me as much traffic as flips to freshly published articles linking directly to my site, I do think the quality of the engagement is higher and people stay on the site longer when they get there via a Storyboard. Also, scheduling and posting Storyboards means I am consistently visible on Flipboard every day every day. I recently discovered that Storyboards are responsible for about 25% of my followers which are growing at a rate of between 10–20 per day.
How Long Does It Take To Grow A Community on Flipboard?
I created my Flipboard account several years ago but hadn’t invested in the platform. About a year ago, I gave Flipboard another look. I’ve gone from less than 100 followers to more than 5000 followers over the past 12 months.
We’ve already talked about how Flipboard was instrumental in driving traffic to my new door photography website. Flipboard has also been a major lifeline for my main travel blog with Flipboard traffic growing by 10x in the last year.
Open the Door to Flipboard
Based on my experience, I recommend opening the door to the world of Flipboard! With consistency and patience, Flipboard represents a new and engaged source of traffic to really seed and grow niche communities.
– Jennifer Petoff
Jennifer Petoff (aka Dr. J), is the voice and photographer behind Sidewalk Safari travel blog. She’s an American-Irish expat and part-time travel blogger living in Lisbon, Portugal with a busy full-time ‘day job’ as a project manager in the Tech industry. Dr. J has been blogging on Sidewalk Safari since 2008.
Happy Flipping!
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