How to Successfully Promote a Non-Business Blog?

I am thinking about starting up a blog with a proper domain name (e.g. www.myblog.com rather than www.myblog.wordpress.com) and its own web server.

I’m also stuck with Niche ideas? I don’t want to sell anything and bear in mind I work full-time, this blog is merely a hobby to pass my spare time I’ve looked on Google but everything can be so vague like ‘write about your hobbies’. I don’t really want to write a blog about writing a blog ideas are welcomed!

All the ‘how to promote your blog’ guides I have come across have all been related to web stores or businesses, or something that makes money. Does anyone know how you’d promote?

I have less than 100 friends on Facebook/Twitter (as they are all family/good friends, not ‘networking’ people) and have discovered from experience that asking them to share links and retweet links never works; if I am lucky I’ll have one person do it, but that’s it.

Any other suggestions? I know about meta tagging and adding to search engines, but how do I really drive traffic in?

Thanks

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