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Are You Building a Blogging Community?

by Scott Bishop on February 27, 2010


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How Are You Building A Comminty Around Your Blog?

Your blog posts are great, but are you building a loyal readership by adding community aspects to your blog.  I have the availability for my readers to consume my posts in a variety of formats.  RSS Subscriptions, Email Subscriptions, and of course direct traffic.  But in order to really establish a loyal user base, you need to be able to connect with your readers.

Blog posts are static, they are information I distribute and push out.  Blog posts are not personal, they cannot interact, they do not engage.  But just because a blog post is limited in forms of engagement, it doesn’t mean that your blog “Brand” has to be.

Create a community around your blog to really take it to the next level.

When I speak in terms of “Community” I specifically mean an opportunity to offer readers additional places to connect and interact with you, but also an opportunity for your readers to interact with other readers.

Participation Projects

I created the 28 Day Challenge out of spontaneous reactions from readers.  Great folks like Tyler Hurst , Ross Simmonds, Matt Stratton, and many many others jumped on board, and off we went.  It was and because it’s ongoing, still is a great chance for people to participate in a common goal or project.

The 28 Day Challenge has definitely added a great sense of community for me and brought together some great connections with people I wouldn’t have otherwise met.  I’m excited to see where this takes me and the participants.

Another great example of Participation Projects is Matt Cheuvront’s Inconvenience of Change project.  Eventually he offered an ebook about what transpired and it’s a solid source of content.

You don’t need a monumental idea.  You just need something that brings good folks together.

Facebook Page

Many blogs also have a Facebook Page dedicated to them…I do not.  If you do decide to create a Facebook Page, or already have one for your blog, make sure you’re adding new content and creating engagement opportunities that do not happen on the original blog.

A Facebook Page doesn’t add value if you’re simply posting articles from the blog.

You need to create extra content specific to Facebook Fans, or at least generate dialogues you can’t have at your blog.  I am a fan of a few different blogs on Facebook…but I don’t think I’ve seen 90% of their updates in my feed.  Not because I’m not interested, but because they just don’t show up.  Is that because they’re not updating the Page?  No, it means that the interaction of fans is small.

Because of Facebook’s new updated algorithm, if you don’t have several people engaging on your posts…very few of your fans will see the updates.  Have a different dialogue on your page to give some real value.

Email Lists

Build a sense of community through content you distribute via email.  Tim Jahn of Beyond the Pedway sends me and his other subscribers a weekly newsletter regarding the state of video content and video marketing tips.

This information is only available via his newsletter.  His blog is strictly video interviews, so his newsletter is valuable to his viewers because it offers new content that’s not available any other way.

This is an option I am in the process of creating.  You can currently get my updates via email, but I didn’t want to offer a newsletter without the proper thought into what new and different content I would distribute.  If you do have a newsletter, make sure it’s original content not found in any other place on your blog.

I use Aweber because it’s very inexpensive and I can use it across multiple websites and clients to manage different lists.  If you just use your own blog, Mail Chimp is FREE for the first 500 subscribers.

LinkedIn Group

LinkedIn Groups are a great place to gather like minded folks interested in a similar topic.  If you decide to create your own group, I strongly recommend revolving it around your topic / industry and not your individual blog name.

Unless you’re Mashable or Techcrunch, you’re going to have a difficult time making people care enough about your specific blog to join up and participate.  I manage Chicago Twitter & Social Media, but do not have a group revolved around this blog.  I’m looking into that option but currently investing time in other areas like an email list group. (see above).

LinkedIn groups are fantastic for generating discussions and distributing other sources of news content.  If you are not 100% invested in managing your own group, join a similar group and become a valued member.

Comments

The fastest and easiest place to connect with your blog readers is through comments.  Blog post comments are a terrific place for your readers to engage with you, but also with other readers.

I use Disqus to manage comments on my blog.  I’ve found it very useful and and easy to manage.  There are several other plugins or options for comments, but Disqus works fine for me…so I’ll stick with them for a while.

Getting readers to actually post comments is a challenge in itself, and we’ll talk about that in another post.  But making comments easy to post and well structured is where you start.

Connect with readers beyond your posts.  Create a dynamic and engaging atmosphere for your blog.  Not only will you gain more loyal readers, but you’ll also become a better writer.

A community allows a look into your readers and a sense of what information they’re hungry for.  Your readers are anxious to tell you what they like and offer opinions, but it’s up to you to provide the right atmosphere.

This is DAY 27 of my “28 Day Blogging Challenge“

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Scott S. Bishop is editor for Real Time Marketer and a marketing strategist with a specialty in social media.  He is an avid blogger and active across the net.  He is @thescottbishop on Twitter

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Tagged as: blog community, blogs, comminty building, community, community aspects, engagement opportunities, loyal readership, matt stratton, participation projects, ross simmonds, subscriptions

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  • CSS-TRICKS is a site that has a great community following. All thanks to their built in FORUM and great content.
  • sbishop
    I haven't checked out that site before...the site Forum is a great way to bring back readers and really get a following, good call. It's a brilliant strategy for continuous traffic...but the platform has to be right to get the initial users interested with interacting with the platform.
  • Thanks for the mention, Scott! You're right on with the purpose behind my newsletter - it's a conversation, separate from the weekly interviews I do, that aims to share the ideas and techniques behind what I do with readers and viewers to help them apply the ideas to their own endeavors.

    Great ideas listed here. I think the key is to find a combination of these tools that works best for you, and not try to worry about harnessing everything under the sun.

    Good stuff man!
  • sbishop
    I think the shotgun approach will almost guarantee failure. You need to find what your audience wants, where they want it...and give THAT to them. Better to be great and laser focused than everything to everyone. If you offer to many options I think you get spread to thin and end up moving nothing forward. Def a lesson I've learned the hard way too many times...but it seems to remain true. Keep proving the great content!
  • Scott, this is a pretty great list of building community on a blog. But I think one thing to especially consider in the comments assessment is that a large part of a blog's community are NOT social media/networking aficionado's. I used to get REALLY worked up about the lack of comments on my blog.

    Now don't get me wrong, I love comments and engaging in discussion with people. BUT I also get a lot of emails, Facebook messages, IRL conversations and mentions from people who read and loved a particular post but would never comment. In fact one of the nicest I ever got was from a young woman I didn't know who really got something out of a particular post and emailed me to let me know that she had sent it to her whole family.

    So yes, comments on a blog are awesome. We all want to figure out how to get more of them. But we need to also remember that we who are "fluent" in social networking think nothing of hitting "reply" on a website. Others would never, but may be some of our most devoted followers.
  • sbishop
    Thanks for weighing Elisa. Agreed, a lot of the types of opportunities to connect with your audience depends on the audience. On one hand I think it could be a good opportunity to educate them. On the other hand, prob better to offer and communicate where they're most comfortable.

    With so many options for communication...I feel like I'm herding cats sometimes. There are def some posts that are designed to get more comments than others...but at the end of the day as long as you're involved in the dialogue, what's the difference where it takes place. I appreciate your opinion, thanks for joining the convo.
  • To play devil's advocate, why is building a community a desired outcome for a blog? I blog (infrequently) to give a place for my opinions and voice. Community building is actually the LAST thing I'm interested in building, at least via my blog. I'd rather develop connections as an individual, and my blog can act as an extension of that.
  • sbishop
    Great question. These concepts are only appropriate for a brand or individual who is looking to utilize their blog as the front for distributing content and center piece for connecting thru them.

    Agreed, if your blog is not constantly on the top of your "to do" list and update frequently, none of these will work. But if it is, then finding ways to connect and interact with folks will help to advance the base and loyalty of your readers.
  • Great post, btw. Just read it in a bar at the period break of the US/Canada hockey game.

    Blogging communities are the future:)
  • sbishop
    You being an expert in community building, I really appreciate that comment and I couldn't agree more with you. BTW, I'm watching the game now.
  • Agreed, I just read this during a commercial break and must agree that blogging communities are the future. (Go Canada!)

    @Scott Thanks for setting up such a solid challenge - It was tough but worth it...
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