blog community

On Listening to Those That Make Your Blog What It Is

A couple of weeks back, I sent an email out to my subscribers asking about blog comment systems.

The main gist of the question was centered around which option readers preferred – the WordPress native system, or third-party options like Livefyre and Disqus.

The reasoning was simple – while I might provide the original content, I firmly believe that the real magic of a blog post comes in the comments afterward. It’s where new ideas can be formed; feedback given; and new friendships and relationships forged.

Simply put, content may be king but community is the whole royal courtyard.

The results and feedback from that email showed that, while WordPress native was the simplest option, people did prefer the more social aspects of Livefyre and Disqus.

Out of these two, the majority of votes went to Disqus. Reasons included:

The ability to answer directly from your email notification
Better sign-in experience on mobile browsers
The community aspect of knowing what your commenters were saying elsewhere and the ability to join that conversation
A better way to track all your comments elsewhere

While some answers preferred Livefyre for its ability to integrate social conversations into the comments, there were also concerns re. mobile reading, and a more cliquey feel to Livefyre communities (though personally I would say that’s more down to the blogger and their interactions versus the system itself).

With that feedback, it was clear that – despite my love of Livefyre – readers preferred the approach to comments Disqus takes. Hence the reason it’s back on the blog after a trial run of the new version earlier this year.

Now, you could say that it’s my blog and I can run whatever options I want on here. And that’s true – but it’s also missing the point.

A blog without a community is simply a news channel. A community without interaction is simply a dead zone waiting to go somewhere else. A dead zone is the path to oblivion for a blog.

This blog has always been about your voice and interaction too – you bring different points of view and great ideas all the time. Why would I want to limit that?

So, thanks for being here and thanks for the feedback on how you wish to be here – here’s to continued conversations.

Update 19 March 2013: After experiencing some issues with Disqus – slow load time (particularly on mobile browsers), comments disappearing and filters not working properly – I’ve reinstalled Livefyre, with its new version 4.0.

Quit Treating Your Blog Readers Like Second Class Chumps

Bloggers are a breed apart from many other online outlets. That?s not meant in a grand or condescending way ? just that it takes a very different mindset to be a blogger, and one that stays the course.

Of course, a large part of this success comes from the readers a blogger attracts. These readers turn into subscribers, turn into loyal members of your community, turn into ?brand advocates? for your blog.

Essentially, your readers dictate much of how your blog is viewed by the interactions both on your domain and on their own networks. So why would you want to treat them like chumps?

You?re not treating your readers like chumps? You?re looking after them? Are you sure? Let?s take a quick check.

You?re Killing Their Eyes

Content is King. It?s the rallying cry of many bloggers ? and, for the most part, it can be true. After all, without content, you have no readers, right? But what good is content when it?s surrounded by a craptastic design?

For those of you that were born before 1990, I have one thing to say to you ? GeoCities! Yeah, you know what I?m talking about. For the benefit of our readers who?re not as ancient as me, GeoCities was Yahoo?s website building platform. It was meant to offer an easy option for non-technical people to be able to build their own sites.

The problem was, once you give a non-technical person the key to tech tools, chaos ensues. Cue some of the ugliest pieces of crud ever seen online!

Jump forward to today. With tools like WordPress and Genesis (affiliate link), it?s never been easier to get a professional-looking website or blog up-and-running quickly and without too much hard work.

If you want to encourage readers to enjoy your site and stick around for more, then make your place welcoming. After all, would you go back to a dayglo pink website with yellow font and dancing pixel people? Exactly.

Takeaway. You want to encourage readers to come back? Make your offering an attractive one.

You?re Acting Like a Cheapskate

One of the big trends in blog reader behaviour is the rise of mobile browsing. With the popularity of iPhone, Android and tablets, web browsing behaviour has shifted dramatically in the last 12 months and will continue to move towards mobile.

So why aren?t you looking after your mobile visitors?

If you?re using WordPress, for example, there are a host of themes that are built with a responsive design.

This means no matter what browser display your visitor comes in on, the site will adapt (check For Bloggers By Bloggers out on a tablet or smartphone, and then compare it to the web version). Again, Genesis offers several themes in this area ? check out their Theme Chooser tool and select Mobile Responsive.

If you?re happy with your existing theme, you might be using something like WPtouch to offer a mobile version of your site. But here?s the thing ? why are you using the free version?

As useful as it is, it?s actually very limited ? it doesn?t even support threaded conversations on the comments, for example. Which, if your blog has a lot of comments, can soon lead to an unholy mess where replies to comments aren?t in context, and the conversation can soon become messy and convoluted.

For as little as $49, you can add a whole host of features by upgrading to WPtouch Pro. Dedicated iPad styling, retina support, theme styling, threaded comments and much, much more. That?s got to be worth $49, no?

Takeaway. Your readers add value to your blog. Are you treating them as valuable?

You?ve Joined the Mail Service

Remember when you first started blogging, and your passion was burning to be the best blogger out there? You were going to write the most amazing posts, start the most intense conversations around them, and attract the coolest audience.

And, you kinda achieved that. So you got lazy, and started posting any old stuff. You?d take a picture and write some nonsense about the hidden meaning behind it for small business owners.

Or you?d write a Top 10 list that offered absolutely nothing new to the topic of that list, or the people/services on it.

Or you?d write a post about how awful it is to be you, and that you should be able to write what you want because it?s your blog and your readers should be grateful you?re still churning out content.

Stop this. STOP THIS NOW.

No one cares about bloggers that feel they?ve conquered the market and can do what they want. Readers came to you for a reason ? they don?t want a diluted version of that, because you want to get fat off your affiliate ads and crappy ebooks.

You want to be an awesome blogger that everyone wants to read? Then write epic shit ? every time!

Sure, share your ebooks and premium courses and affiliate ads ? but make sure they offer value to your readers just as much as they offer dollars to your pocket.

Don?t sacrifice what made you great by attaching it to the mundane. Be great the way you aspired to be great.

Takeaway ? the minute you start mailing your content in, stop blogging. It benefits no-one.

These are just three of the ways you?re short-changing your readers. You might not like being told this, especially if you?re guilty of any of the points above.

Then again, doing the right thing doesn?t always come easy. But the results are more than worth the effort.

This post originally appeared on For Bloggers By Bloggers.

Why This Blog’s Community Rocks

A blog’s community can be many things.

It can be long-term subscribers; it can be first time visitors. It can be “only” readers; it can be regular commenters. It can be every day attendees; it can be folks that visit once then read every other post from a feed, never to visit the actual blog again.

One thing that every single member of a blog community has in common, though, is the connection to each other through the blog (and vice versa).

And that connection can be the very heartbeat that keeps a blog alive.

If a blog’s community is the heartbeat then you, the folks that make up this blog’s community, must have one of the strongest communal beats around, because you have some of the biggest hearts.

You showed that yesterday when I asked for a “birthday wish” to celebrate this blog’s two-year anniversary. You showed it when you granted that wish and visited the blog of a girl called Stacey Monk and showed her she wasn’t alone in her sadness, and that you were there with support if and when she needed it.

When people ask why I blog, the answer I give more than any is this: because of the community.

I already considered myself hugely fortunate to have you here, to have you read my thoughts and share yours in the comments afterward.

I can safely replace “hugely fortunate” with “full-on blessed”.

Thank you for being you.

image: himmelskratzer

Community, Loyalty and the Power of Give

Last night on Twitter, I was part of the?#sbt10 chat, part of the Start Blogging Today project (disclosure – I’m a partner in the project). As usual, there were a ton of great topics discussed on how to make your blog work better for you.

One of the conversations that arose was how to reward loyalty – i.e., how to make sure that your blog community knows you appreciate them.

Michael Schechter asked how you’d go about that, and I suggested exclusive content as one option (similar to what I did with my free Facebook marketing ebook).

Of course, that approach on a blog would mean that to really benefit from exclusive content, your readers/community would have to be subscribed to a newsletter or email subscription. Which would then negate the rest of your readers that don’t subscribe this way, but still show loyalty by coming back time and again.

So what ways could you reward on your blog, for both subscribers and everyday visitors/readers?

Loving Your Blog Community

Face it, without a community a blog is nothing more than a broadcast platform. Your community nurtures the growth of your blog; it helps share with others; it defends if needed; and it keeps you growing as a blogger by sharing great insights in the comments.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a personal blog or more business-oriented – community is the real king (sorry, content lovers). For business blogs, community is the relationship to the sale – look after it and look after your business.

So what are some of the ways to reward a loyal blog community?

Exclusive Content

As I mentioned earlier in the post, this would normally be via a newsletter or email subscription, so may negate some of your readers (although it’s a great way to build an even more loyal community on subscription too). Some of the things you could offer could be:

A free ebook;
White papers;
Solid business advice not normally seen on your blog;
Discounted offers on affiliate programs.

There’s a lot you can make exclusive to really say “thanks for being part of my community”. You’ll have a better idea of what would appeal to yours – all you need to do is put that into action.

The Freemium Model

Because exclusive content needs an exclusive outlet to really make it work, you run the risk of excluding the readers that visit every day, comment and are as just as important a part of your community as subscribers.

So how do you make sure that you’re not ignoring them and focusing on your exclusive content?

Episodic content. This can work in two ways. You can either write a series of educational posts on topics your readers would find useful, or you can offer the first chapter of any ebooks that exclusive content subscribers receive. That way, “normal readers” still receive value and can decide whether to expand into the subscription option.
Actionable content. Want to be seen as a thought leader or serious blogger in your space? Then offer action points that anyone visiting your blog can take away and make work for them.?John Haydon does this all the time for Facebook strategies, while CopyBlogger offers solid tips on writing for search engines. Help others; help you.
Highlight your community. Another way to reward your community is to give them some reader love. By coming to your blog every day and commenting or sharing you, your community is helping you grow awareness of you. So do the same for them. Have them guest post on your blog, or post about someone from your community frequently. We all like to feel appreciated; make sure your blog community knows you appreciate them.

Protecting Your Community

Growing your blog community is the first part; but it doesn’t stop there. Just as your community nurtures you and helps you, so you need to do the same in return, but take it to an extra level – by protecting them.

Think about it – if someone’s taking the time out of their life and schedule to read and share their thoughts on your blog, the very least you should be doing is making sure it’s somewhere that they want to hang out, and feel comfortable doing so.

Make it clear you won’t tolerate abuse to your community. One of the best things about any blog is the comments section – so many great thoughts and ideas can come from here, and new friendships can be made. So making it a safe haven is paramount – protect your commenters, protect your blog.
Have a comment policy. Currently I don’t have one, purely because I’ve been really fortunate in having commenters who pretty much respect each other’s point of view. But it’s an idea I’m thinking of, and it can help you set both guidelines for new visitors, as well as assure your current community you have their best interests at heart.?Ari Herzog has an excellent example of how a blog comment policy could look.

These are just some examples of how you can use your blog to reward the people that make it what it is. There are a ton of other things you could do (and we discuss a bunch of them over in the Start Blogging Today forums).

You could use some of them; you could use all of them – the main thing is you’re at least doing something to reward your blog community.

After all, they reward you just by stopping by each time – thanking and looking after them is the least you can do, no?

photo credit:?jammcm
photo credit:?Kelly Schott

The Future of Scribnia

This is a guest post from David Spinks.

David is the Community Manager for Scribnia.? With a passion for the power of social web communities, he has utilized his knowledge of community building to establish a professional career in the social media field.

He authors a blog at www.davidspinks.com and contributes to the Scribnia Blog.

Watching Scribnia develop into a strong and loyal community has been very exciting.

We?ve enjoyed the loyal activity of some very enthusiastic alpha users who have contributed a lot of quality reviews and have been able to find new bloggers in their industries.

I?d like to share with you where we plan on going with Scribnia and how I will play a role as community manager.

We?re looking to continue to develop Scribnia as a valuable tool for bloggers and their communities. By giving the power to the readers, our goal is to really ?level the playing field.? So much focus is placed on Google Pagerank and Alexa rankings. This makes it very hard for the ?little guy? to gain their due recognition.

As many bloggers know, there are so many awesome blogs out there that you rarely hear about unless they pull in loads of links and visitors.

Through Scribnia, we hope that the blogging and online reading communities can really share those blogs that are truly great.

We?d like to continuously refine our discovery engine in order to provide the best possible, personalized recommendations. This is a tough task but one that we?re very committed to. There are a lot of recommendation engines out there but we?re aiming to differentiate ourselves by using author reviews rather than blog reviews, and really taking into account each user?s personal preferences. We take into account a lot more than ?similar content?.

I have a number of roles as Community Manager.

My main role is to bring in users and to get people excited about Scribnia.? So far, this hasn?t been a difficult task as bloggers seem to really appreciate the service.? It?s a benefit for bloggers to get involved early. The more reviews you have the greater chance you have of being featured as a top blogger, or being chosen as an ?Author of the Day?.

We are planning on going public (beta) very soon and hope that our community members will help us get others excited about Scribnia.

The community aspect of Scribnia is one that we?re proud of, and we hope that others will want to be a part of that community.? I will be online pretty much all day everyday talking with users, answering any questions, and staying active on the site. If you know me, you know I love conversation! As Community Manager, I have a lot on my plate, but I?m very excited to help the community grow and to connect with our members.

If you?d like to join Scribnia while we?re in alpha, you can email me any time at DavidSpinks@Scribnia.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at @Scribnia.