How to recruit an audience for your service and how much does it cost?

Question

Blogs

Maybe you can advise. I do my own service (writing posts like zhzheshechki). How to recruit initial users in RuNet? What are the methods to increase the audience? Approximately how much does it cost? Maybe there is something to read? I myself have some ideas, but can you suggest something new?
And after that, there is some chart with the cost of advertising in RuNet, depending on the number of visits / users. And methods of searching for advertisers.

Answer 1

Here, in fact, there are several sequential tasks:
1) Initial filling with content.
If we are talking about a content service (for example, a blog farm, like a hard drive), then the user is not interested in an "empty" portal.
Therefore, it is necessary to "pour" the original content.
You can do it yourself, if resources allow, or, which is more optimal, involve third-party authors. Surf portals similar in subject matter, look for authors of interest to you, contact and offer cooperation.
Depending on the author, the amount of content required and the subject matter, prices will vary from minimal to exorbitant.
Many sites abuse cross-posts (pull and re-post posts from other sources), but here you should understand that in the absence of unique content, it will be more difficult to attract an audience.
2) When the initial content is formed - attracting the first circle of the target audience -> pure SMM is already going on here. To help - again, agreements with authors for paid posts, cross-posts in thematic social networks, all kinds of PR. Again, it all depends on the topic.
3) Retention and exaggeration of the audience. When the first wave of the audience is received, the hell begins. It is necessary to keep the audience and stimulate it as much as possible to share with a circle of acquaintances. Plus, of course, attracting new people according to the model from step 2.
It is necessary to monitor indicators and, if necessary, stimulate the generation of content, launch holy wars, and so on.
In general, entire departments of PR and SMM specialists are engaged in this, so it’s impossible to just say “do this and everything will be ok”.
btw, first of all you need to decide on:
1) Target audience. Without understanding the typical target audience, doing a social project is a failed idea in advance.
2) Based on paragraph 1, decide on the main competitors for your target audience, select popular authors and the "heart" of this community in advance. In general, analyze competitors in every possible way.
3) Think, really think about what you can offer your target audience. In my opinion, the blogging platform market is now in a loss. Most blogging platforms have been killed either by social media or industry leaders. In order for users to come to you, they must understand why they need it.
And then you download gigabytes of books on the tags "Project promotion", "SMM" and so on, throw out 90% of the water from there, scoop out 10% of useful thoughts and try to stay afloat after that.

Answer 2

You can read the article that I wrote three months ago on Habré. It describes our experience in great detail. I think you will find a lot of useful information, even though you have a different niche.