Does Your Blog Community Begin at Home?
If your blog is struggling to get more than one or two comments, perhaps you can look around you for the answer?
Consider how many multi-author blogs are out there now. How many of those bloggers take time to read each-others posts and comment on them?
One of the great things about Performancing for me is no matter who has been in charge, the blog has been run and populated by people who like and support each other. I believe this comes through to the audience.
It’s not about in-jokes and banter. Just fostering the community feeling starting with your own bloggers and friends. Readers will then take that as a lead. Providing the inter-blogger discussions are inclusive and encourage others to provide their point of view, I can only think the conversation would grow.
What if you are not a multi-author blog?
- Encourage your online friends and contacts to drop by and comment.
- Perhaps trade comments with another blogger in your niche?
- Put out a call for comments on your Twitter feed
- Encourage your forum and Facebook contacts to take part.
Wherever you go and whatever you do online, you should be making friends. Those friends could be valuable allies in growing a sense of community on your blog.
Do your fellow bloggers and friends support your comment area? Should multi-author bloggers comment on each others posts? Please share your thoughts in the comments …
Chris is a professional blogger and internet marketing consultant. You can get more of his blogging tips, internet marketing advice and copywriting articles and a FREE ebook just by subscribing at chrisg.com
Ahh… hmmm… well…
I’m definitely guilty of not commenting on the articles of fellow Blog Herald authors as much as I should, or used to. In fact, the same is true on other multi-author blogs I write for.
Then again, I’ve got stuck in a rut whereby I’m not commenting as much on any blogs as I used to. I need to pull myself out — I’ll have ago once I perfect the 40 hour day… :)
Heheh, yeah it is often the case that we get so focused on putting together our own content that we forget to comment on the others. We just have to make an effort when we remember. If all of us just try when we can then it should become easier :)
I always try to comment after reading a post because I know the author would appreciate it, and because I’m a “communicator”, so communicating with other bloggers is something that comes naturally to me.
I’m always glad to see a comment from you Pelf :)
There is a time factor when your feedreader is full. If I commented on everything I would like to, sometimes it could take up half the day so I guess I have a filter system.
1. I try to comment on the blogs of those who comment for me. Each relationship finds it’s own balance though, and some of them only require an occasional “I’m still here.”
2. I try to comment frequently on blogs with few readers, where every comment counts.
3. I try to restrict commenting to those times when I really feel I can add something to the subject.
4. If I have a post in a carnival, I make sure I participate fully, reading and commenting on the other contributions, not just expecting them to come to me.
4. I try to de-lurk every now and then.
This last one has been really interesting. I read quite a few specialist blogs outside my area of expertise so often I can’t contribute much that is worthwhile and the link to my blog would be completely inappropriate. However, when the opportunity presents itself to let them know I’m there, the reactions have been wonderful.
I have to say, I was never very comfortable asking for people to participate, but recently a blog I read nicely requested a click on his “hopeful button” (ie; Technorati favorites) and it didn’t seem rude or demanding to me. I was happy to do it. So I have to rethink and presume my readers wouldn’t be offended by it either.
Overall, I don’t think you can overestimate the value of the community feeling created by the blogosphere. It didn’t take very long for antisocial me to discover how valuable participating was.
Multi-author blogs are always growing faster than a blog with just an admin/author. But doing this, an admin should always be vigilant to watch posts…for most of the posts are spam.