Monday, February 16, 2009

Creating a blog community

Blog comment is a very important tool in turning your blog to a meeting place but you also have to do it strategically but let’s see, how valuable is the comment tool?

• Your readers help you build your blog. Their comments are all indexed and become a part of the content on your blog. How many times have you performed a search only to find that the keywords showed up in someone's comments? It happens frequently!
• Your readers even provide you with new content ideas either explicitly or implicitly through their comments and suggestions. They also are responsible for shaping your message and passing it on to others, which is a key component of web 2.0. Your readers initiate discussion, bring new readers on board, and become part of your blog's identity.
• As valuable as your community is, you must do everything in your power to encourage its formation, and some of that responsibility rests directly with your readers' ability to comment and add to the discussion. Once they participate, they have a vested interest in the success of your community. That's why encouraging comments is so essential to your blog's success. Commenting leads to more involved readers, which leads to more referrals and more engaged readers.
• Think about it. If you read a blog post on a random blog, how likely are you to go back and reread that same post? But what if you add a comment to the post -- how likely are you to revisit that post? I would guess that you would be very likely to revisit. After all, you want to see what others said in response to your comment. You want to see what kind of conversation forms.

Here are a few ideas to capture comments:

• Provide a do follow link in return: a very easy way to encourage a comment is to remove the "no follow" attribute from your blog's comments. You'll see an increase in spam attempts, but it's worth it to encourage comments.
• Ask for them: rather than wrapping each post up neatly, leave room for discussion. Ask an open-ended question in closing or ask for comments directly.
• Provide a comment RSS feed: blogs all have RSS feeds associated with them so that readers can keep tabs on your blog through their RSS readers. Why not provide them with a comments feed so that they can easily keep tabs on the conversation? Wordpress bloggers can use the "Subscribe to Comments" plug-in for this.
• Highlight your commenter’s' posts: plug-in like "Comment Luv" provides an automatic link back to the commenter's latest blog post. This is an ethical bribe: by contributing a comment, your readers can publicize their latest blog entry.
• Commenter highlighting: you can use plug-in like "Meet Your Commenter" or "Top Commenter" to provide extra insight and incentive for comment posters.
Since your blog was not created for you, you have to make your readers a part of it.


3 comments:

  1. your idea about the comunity is not bad,,,actually all bloggers with traffic belong and are dependent to a specific comunity. You've chosen a pretty nice template.
    mine is: http://infowebexplore.blogspot.com
    and we will see how it goes, it does not cost anything, is it?
    Greetings.

    ReplyDelete
  2. yea, you are very right, I'll check your blog and I'll follow you as well.

    just checked it and you have a very nice blog with good pictures
    thanks for stopping by.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You have a lot of good points about building a community. I hope to put a few of them to use on my blog.

    ReplyDelete

Monday, February 16, 2009

Creating a blog community

Blog comment is a very important tool in turning your blog to a meeting place but you also have to do it strategically but let’s see, how valuable is the comment tool?

• Your readers help you build your blog. Their comments are all indexed and become a part of the content on your blog. How many times have you performed a search only to find that the keywords showed up in someone's comments? It happens frequently!
• Your readers even provide you with new content ideas either explicitly or implicitly through their comments and suggestions. They also are responsible for shaping your message and passing it on to others, which is a key component of web 2.0. Your readers initiate discussion, bring new readers on board, and become part of your blog's identity.
• As valuable as your community is, you must do everything in your power to encourage its formation, and some of that responsibility rests directly with your readers' ability to comment and add to the discussion. Once they participate, they have a vested interest in the success of your community. That's why encouraging comments is so essential to your blog's success. Commenting leads to more involved readers, which leads to more referrals and more engaged readers.
• Think about it. If you read a blog post on a random blog, how likely are you to go back and reread that same post? But what if you add a comment to the post -- how likely are you to revisit that post? I would guess that you would be very likely to revisit. After all, you want to see what others said in response to your comment. You want to see what kind of conversation forms.

Here are a few ideas to capture comments:

• Provide a do follow link in return: a very easy way to encourage a comment is to remove the "no follow" attribute from your blog's comments. You'll see an increase in spam attempts, but it's worth it to encourage comments.
• Ask for them: rather than wrapping each post up neatly, leave room for discussion. Ask an open-ended question in closing or ask for comments directly.
• Provide a comment RSS feed: blogs all have RSS feeds associated with them so that readers can keep tabs on your blog through their RSS readers. Why not provide them with a comments feed so that they can easily keep tabs on the conversation? Wordpress bloggers can use the "Subscribe to Comments" plug-in for this.
• Highlight your commenter’s' posts: plug-in like "Comment Luv" provides an automatic link back to the commenter's latest blog post. This is an ethical bribe: by contributing a comment, your readers can publicize their latest blog entry.
• Commenter highlighting: you can use plug-in like "Meet Your Commenter" or "Top Commenter" to provide extra insight and incentive for comment posters.
Since your blog was not created for you, you have to make your readers a part of it.


3 comments:

  1. your idea about the comunity is not bad,,,actually all bloggers with traffic belong and are dependent to a specific comunity. You've chosen a pretty nice template.
    mine is: http://infowebexplore.blogspot.com
    and we will see how it goes, it does not cost anything, is it?
    Greetings.

    ReplyDelete
  2. yea, you are very right, I'll check your blog and I'll follow you as well.

    just checked it and you have a very nice blog with good pictures
    thanks for stopping by.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You have a lot of good points about building a community. I hope to put a few of them to use on my blog.

    ReplyDelete