There are tons of bloggers who start out with a great idea for a blog, decent writing skills, and yet never make it past the first few blog posts.

After posting a few times, sharing with their friends and family, and maybe getting a few likes and comments here and there, they eventually fizzle out.

Does this sound familiar?

Well, it’s a darn shame that for so many this sad saga isn’t a hypothetical, but the good news is that story is totally redeemable, or even avoidable for those who haven’t started their blogs yet!

Laptop Empires was co-founded by a successful professional blogger. We mean a legit, works-from-home, retired-with-his-wife-at-30 kind of blogger. We are pretty passionate about watching other bloggers achieve their blogging goals around here. We’ve seen it happen. We know it’s totally possible!

In reality, there are a couple of ways you can grow your blog for the long-game, but if you’re looking to gain a devoted, invested readership quickly, the best strategy is promoting your blog on Facebook with ads.

Before we talk about why that works best, let’s take a look at the most common growth strategies used by new bloggers, and why they just don’t work as well as ours.

Common Facebook Blog Promotion Strategies

The Social Sharer
We all know about this strategy. Write a blog, share it to your social media circles, get a couple dozen reads. It’s exhausting, and quite frankly, ineffective.

The reason this doesn’t work is two-fold: everyone on your friends’ list isn’t interested in what you have to say, and everyone on your friends’ list isn’t seeing everything you post.

Not only will this strategy burn you out creatively, likely leading to a blog fizzle, but it will also burn out the friends who do try to support you by reading and sharing.

The Aspiring Influencer
The idea of gaining tons of followers can be luring. A lot of people think that if they focus on getting followers they will automatically gain more income, and unfortunately, that isn’t always the case.

These bloggers will put a lot of effort into getting headshots, trendy photos to share on Instagram and Facebook, and dive deep into the “brand development” world. Many will even spend money on having a logo created and website professionally developed, all for the prospect of having the perfect image to present to…a hypothetical audience.

Hashtags and color schemes are great, but the problem with this approach is that it won’t get you devoted readers. Gaining tons of followers a mile wide but an inch deep is not a good long-game strategy!

The Almost There Marketer
This blogger understands that there are opportunities to utilize in terms of promoting a blog on Facebook, but doesn’t have the technical know-how. They fall prey to the “boost this post” button and put some skin in the game.

This is super well-meaning, and a step in the right direction, but again, ineffective.

Facebook isn’t dumb, and they know that there are bloggers that want to promote a blog on Facebook. However, they are a business, and their primary goal isn’t to help you promote your blog with Facebook ads successfully, it’s to make money!

The “boost” button may feel like you’re doing something, but unless you utilize our method of using Facebook ads to promote your blog, you’ll just be feeding money to Facebook in exchange for a few likes.

With all of this in mind, how can you post on Facebook in a way that will actually promote your blog?

How to promote your blog on Facebook with ads

The fastest, most effective way to create an invested, loyal, and growing readership is by promoting your best-performing posts to well-crafted, well-targeted custom audiences.

Doing this, however, isn’t intuitive. Here are some steps you can take to start promoting your blog with Facebook ads.

Niche down

A lot of fizzle-out bloggers have a similar problem of not finding their niche audience from the get go. Blogging about whatever is going to get you stale results. If you have a particular topic of interest, find a way to speak to their questions. Stick to your niche, whether that is parenting tips for pre-school age children, restoring antique cars, or reducing waste around the home.

Do not fall for the trap in thinking that you have to talk about more things to gain more followers! Become an expert (or demonstrate your expertise) and talk to your target audience.

Post regularly

We recommend that you try to post once a week at minimum to start. If that seems like an impossible task, consider building out a topical content calendar in advance.

If you need ideas, put yourself in the shoes of people in your niche. Think about what questions they might google, and write to address and answer those problems. While you’re at it, work on search engine optimizing your posts. A great resource for search engine optimization, or SEO, is SEO for Bloggers, check out the course.

A great tool for staying ahead is a content scheduler. Take the burden off of yourself and put them into a content scheduler like Buffer, or use the post scheduler on Facebook to have content posted to your Facebook page.

Once your posts go live, make sure you engage with people who like and comment!

Posting regularly is important because it gives you a better chance of finding a post that resonates with your audience and performs well.  And, of course, it gives you a better fighting chance at playing the Facebook algorithm game, which helps your posts to be organically seen, engaged with, and shared.

To get ahead of the curve for the next tip, read more in Your 7-Step Facebook Ad Manager Training Guide

Find your top-performing post

Once you have built up a presence on your blog Facebook page with a consistent posting schedule, it’s time to look for the top-performing post. In the Laptop Empires Facebook Ads for Bloggers Course you get all the details on how to analyze your posts and find what we call the Unicorns: magical, engaging posts that perform like gems.

Look for a post that gets a lot of engagement. Comments and likes are ok metrics, but you want to pay the most attention to the number of people who interacted with the post.

If you think you have found a good candidate for an ad (one that is getting a lot of engagement, comments, and shares organically), then it’s time to create an ad that will draw in new eyes and grow your readership. Bobby likes to call these posts “Unicorns” because they are unique and rare. These are your money makers!

Want to know the exact strategy and formula Bobby uses to find Unicorns? Purchase the Facebook Ads for Bloggers Course!

Create a killer ad

Good ad creation isn’t rocket science, but it does take attention to detail, and a willingness to play within the guidelines Facebook has established. For the most part, you will be pulling content directly from your top-performing post already on your timeline.

A good ad will have the following:

• An attention-grabbing headline
• An eye-catching image
• Copy that sparks interest
• A clear and compelling Call to Action

Attention-grabbing headline

Headlines are the large text right under the image in an ad. You need to have a copy there that gets attention right away. This is where you explain your image and spark curiosity about the contents of the post.

Eye-catching image

It pays off to be choosey when you select your featured image, as this automatically becomes the image of your ad. If you choose a quality image that tells a story and relates with your audience, and with limited or no text in the image, you can use it for your ad.

Copy that sparks interest

With the combination of a great headline and a scroll-stopping image, the next area of focus is the quality copy. As a blogger, you may want to borrow ideas from the post. Or you might want to ask questions to get engagement. Perhaps play with thought-provoking or controversial statements that spark discussion.

A note on custom audiences

This is a major benefit for using Facebook ads for promoting your blog: with paid ads, you can put your content in front of a targeted audience that wants to read your posts. This means more engagement, more traffic to your blog, and more devoted readers.

This requires you to have insight into your audience. You need to know your demographic and know how to target them!

For more information on audiences, check out How to Build an Audience From Scratch.

That said, you need to make sure that you are running an actual ad campaign, not just boosting the post. If you’re after likes on your individual posts, keep boosting posts as boosted posts. If you want traffic to your site and an engaged readership, stick with an ad campaign.

A bonus tip: Unicorn campaigns are always traffic campaigns. Never, ever, ever press that “boost post” button. Just don’t do it.

For more examples of winning ads, read 7 Examples of Great Facebook Ads and Why They Work

A quick recap

It’s possible to grow your blog in a variety of ways. You can drain the patience of your friends and family as a Social Sharer, strive for the perfect image as an Aspiring Influencer, or throw money at Facebook as an Almost-There Marketer.

None of these options are as quick, efficient, or long-lasting as the method taught in the Facebook Ads for Bloggers course. By using Facebook ads to promote your blog you can generate a solid audience that propels your blog into monetization.