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The Relationship Conference: Building Blogs Through Interaction

The Relationship Conference: Building Blogs Through Interaction

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been sharing tips and techniques with you about expanding your blogging relationships. This is the theme of the upcoming Successful and Outstanding Blogger Conference in Chicago, May 11-12, 2007, and the Blog Herald is one of the sponsors.

In my announcement of the Successful and Outstanding Blogger Conference (SOBCon2007), I spoke about the many relationships a blogger has with the act of blogging:

  • SOBCon07 Register Now for the eventThe relationship between you and your blog.
  • The relationship between you and your blog’s content.
  • The relationship between you and your blog’s looks and design.
  • The relationship between you and your blog’s statistics.
  • The relationship between you and other bloggers.
  • The relationship between you and your blogging goals.
  • The relationship between you and your blog brand.
  • The relationship between you and your readers.
  • The relationship between you and your potential readers.

Pounding away at your keyboard, you start to slow down and raise your eyes up a little. Oh, look. Someone’s looking. Oh, wow. Someone’s reading. You almost faint. A comment! Two comments. And it happens to be from the same someone.

You now have a relationship with a reader.

Things change. You start to write for them, not at them. You start to think about the things your reader, soon readers, might want to know. Slowly, you ask them what they want to know, and now they are part of the conversation. Within time, and with the tools of blog community building under your belt, you learn how to let them guide your blog through their interaction and comments.

They start telling others that you are listening and responding, and word spreads. Not the Digg kind of “one-shot-and-gone” traffic, but an audience. A fan club. You start needing them, and they start needing you. Together, your blog becomes a family. In time, it builds into a community of loyal fans and supporters.

During the series on building blogging relationships, I covered the issues of connecting with your readers by giving of yourself in your blog writing, building relationships through links and popular posts which draw in new readers, making a good first impression from the many ways your blog posts get a chance to make a good first impression, turning visitors into readers with good lures and bait in the form of focused, well-written content, and how to interactively listen to your readers to encourage the conversations on your blog.

SOBCon07
Successful and Outstanding Blogger Conference 2007
Theme: Developing Your Blog Relationships

May 11-12, 2007
Chicago O’Hare Sofitel Hotel
Registration: USD $350
Register Now

You know you will be in good company at the SOBCon07 with these outstanding sponsors: Blog Herald, Blog Talk Radio, Evoca, Podblaze, MyBlogLog, TheGoodBlogs, Haneberg Management, among others.

The conference will focus on building relationships with your blog with some very exciting bloggers and experts on the subject.

Phil Gerbyshak: Called the “Relationship Geek”, Phil Gerbyshak of Make It Great! will present his expert relationship program for bloggers, focusing on blog branding and recognition.

When you understand how the relationship between you and your blog works, how your relationship with your blog’s purpose, content and identity aligns, your choices are easier and smarter. With focused energies, you can blog faster, have more fun, see the bigger picture, and spend more time working on the things that work for your blog and less on the stuff that wears you down and doesn’t work. Blogging takes a lot of time, and he will cover time management and how to increase your blogging passion, developing your blogging community, and grow with your blog and readers over time.

David Armano: Armano’s blog, Logic + Emotion, covers the marketing, design, and advertising communities. He will be talking about “Designing Conversations”, a study on the “Conversation Architecture” to strengthen your blogging community, find your blogging voice, develop your blog’s brand, and find a place in your blogging market to reach the right readers.

Andy Sernovitz: Andy Sernovitz, author of Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, will share how to get people to stand up and take notice, and start talking about your blog, generating interest the old fashioned method: word of mouth.

Liz Strauss: Popular contributor to the Blog Herald and blog relationship diva and developer of the SOB program which celebrates “Successful and Outstanding Bloggers”, Liz Strauss will talk about “Blog Community Building”, how to develop a “high-trust environment” on your blog, moving from “teacher” to fellow student and guide.

There is a big shift in the relationship from teacher to fellow student. When you are the lecturer, students do as they are told. When you change the relationship and learn along with your fellow students, you build a support networking, helping each other along the path. Your readers become your friends, eager to join the party, and comments turn into conversation. It’s a fascinating role to play as a blogger, turning your classroom into a BarCamp.

Mike Sansone: The Conversation’s Mike Sansone calls himself a “Blog Coach”, well known in the blogosphere for starting conversations. His popular ConverStations Workshop Podcast, also known as “Blog Talk Radio”, features the top notch bloggers and podcasters from around the world. His program, which includes some of his partners, includes spreading the enthusiasm contagion on your blog, creating a fun, childlike atmosphere of discovering and sharing on your blog, and building a blog community through joyous interaction and conversations. What amazing things we can learn from someone who knows how to start a virtual conversation.

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He will be joined by DrewMcLellan of Drew’s Marketing Minute and Mike Wagner of Own Your Brand to take the blog conversation to the next level with brand contagion and customer-centered business blogging.

Building an Audience: Blog Coach, Wendy Piersall of eMoms at Home, will discuss how to attract and keep visitors on your blog, turning visitors into readers, returning for more.

Blog Communication Tools: Blogging is about writing, your thoughts, feelings, sharing knowledge, and teaching lessons. It’s about communicating with words, but modern bloggers don’t limit themselves to the words for their communication. Rodney Rumford of PodBlaze and Ben Yoskovitz of Instigator Blog will present a program on Video Blogging and Podcasting, using multimedia to expand the ways your blog communicates with the world.

Social networking has changed the face of the web and blogging, turning blog conversations into communities. Chris Cree of Success CREEations, Scott Rafer of MyBlogLog, Vernon Lun of The Good Blogs, and Diego Orjuela of Evoca will be on a panel discussing the new social networking media and blog conversation tools, building relationships with other blogs.

What is a Successful and Outstanding Blog: We throw the term around, but what really defines a successful and outstanding blog? Terry Starbucker of Ramblings from a Glass Half Full and Liz Strauss of Successful and Outstanding Blogs will lead a program which helps you to define the term and understand what it is that makes a blog stand out from the crowd and get noticed.

The program includes opening ceremony festivities, including Christine Kane, songwriter, performer, and blogger, and an Open Mic Cocktail Party, and catered lunch and refreshments during the day long event filled with powerful workshops.

If you are serious about the relationship aspect of your blog, then make a point of attending this workshop. Space is limited and filling fast. I’m planning to be there with a few surprises of my own, so get your registration in now.


Lorelle VanFossen blogs about blogging and WordPress on .

Article Series on Blog Relationships

View Comments (10)
  • Hey Lorelle, You’ll be there!
    Tony’s coming too!
    We should have a Blog Herald table!

    You’ll have surprises. . . . Did you think about the surprises I might have too?

  • You are going to have surprises! Just meeting you will be the best surprise of all. It’s going to be so exciting, I can’t stop talking about it. Obviously. ;-)

    Will Tony be bringing a surprise?

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