This is Day 22 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, a group project 60+ of us bloggers are doing together in an effort to help each other become better bloggers.
One of the really cool paradoxes of life is the more you give the more you receive. This is true in just about every facet of life. Those who are generous with money find that when they’re in need more people are willing to help them out. Those who are generous with praise and encouragement find when they’re down they have no shortage of people encouraging them. Those who are generous with their time find others offering to give them their time as well.
This is true with blogging as well. While some bloggers do all they can to hype their own blogs, those who help their readers will find no shortage of people willing to help them.
9 Ways to Give a Reader Attention
- Use a comment as the basis for a new post. I did this last week when Chris Branscome posted a comment asking “How often should you post to your blog?” and I wrote a new post to discuss it (and cited both Chris and Erica in the post by name)
- Ask readers to introduce themselves in the comments. We did this on Day 1 of 31DBBB.
- Ask readers to promote their relevant resources. For example, if you’re doing a post on Facebook Pages for churches, ask people to post a link to their church’s Facebook page so other readers can see examples.
- Invite guest posts. Something we’ve been doing all series long here. I think it’s particularly helpful to include an image, short bio, and link their blog.
- Write about a person and their organization/website/blog.
- Interview a reader. This not only promotes that person’s organization or website, but helps people make a personal connection with them.
- Top commenters plugin. There are WordPress plugins that display the names of the readers who have commented most often.
- Tweet about your readers. Tweet a thank you or #FollowFriday tweet about one or more readers.
- Tweet about a comment. Instead of just retweeting a link to your blog post, if someone makes an insightful comment you could tweet something like, “Great comment by @whoever about xyz http://shortened-link.com/directly-to-the-the-comment”
Of course, there are additional suggestions in today’s lesson in the 31 Days ebook.
One other thing to note, don’t limit your attention only to readers who have their own blogs. Give some love to your non-blogging readers too.
Discussion
- In what ways have you given readers attention in the past? Which things did readers seem most appreciative of?
- Do you have something that gives attention to readers as a regular feature of your blog? Like a monthly reader interview? Or weekly #FollowFriday? Are you considering starting a regular feature?
The Extra Mile
A few other things you can do to take your blog, other bloggers, and this project even further today…
- Reply & give other bloggers feedback on the little things they do.
- When other bloggers include a link to a new article they’ve posted today, click, read, and comment on it.
- Tweet, share, & bookmark this post.
- Please review Kevin Weatherby’s blog, Campfire Cowboy Ministries, and give him some feedback.
33 Comments
I read the 31DBBB lesson, and I read the blog post here. I have some ideas, but I haven't exactly decided how I'm going to highlight readers. I went through my comments last night and noted several people who read and comment faithfully, so that's where I'm going to start. I've just got to figure out what I want to do!
Today's blog post: Small Things http://jenniferjanes.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/sma…
Cool post, Stuart. You have inspired me. It's so great to learn about another brother out there in our big, big, wonderful family. 🙂
Off to check out his site . . .
Blessings, Cindy
Oh man, I am having so much trouble with this response system. It's always telling me I'm timed out even when I've just logged in. And then if I try to log in again, it won't let me. So I have to cut and paste my posts back in after I've logged out! Anyway, this last one was supposed to go to Stuart (obviously!)
What I wanted to say here was that I've done a number of these things and people did seem to like them. There are other ideas here that I hadn't thought of, and I look forward to trying some of them. Thanks for a great reminder. 🙂
I have the same problems with the comment system. It is frustrating! Like you, I always copy my response in case it doesn't go through!
~Jennifer
This whole challenge has centered on this aspect, because we have all come to this blog, Paul has given us opportunities to guest write for the challenges on certain days he has called our attention to a specific blog.
Obviously, some of this requires that you know more about your readers. It's easy to take a comment and build a post off of it. One my blog today I tried to leave a question that would spark some discussion about running plans: http://trainingcrucible.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-… . My plan is that the comments will provide me with some information about other plans that people have used so that I can review them and write a post about it later. I could also talk in more detail with the person who suggested the plan.
Like a few of the challenges in this series, this one may be a little harder for new bloggers to use because we are still trying to build a readership. My take on today's assignment was to try to lay a foundation so that I can actually do it at a later point.
I found a widget at wordpress.com, and I now have a "Recent Comments" widget on my sidebar. It's not everything I'd like to do to recognize my readers, but it's a start! I'm still brainstorming about the rest.
~Jennifer
I like your idea of adding the "recent comments" widget, didn't realize that was a widget. Found it and added to mine too. Thanks for talking about it.
You're welcome! I'm glad I was able to help!
~Jennifer
I did this lesson last night w/o even realizing it! I have been unable to spend much time on my blog, here at 31DBBB, (or anything else that doesn't involve my kids lately) so I used Twitter's Direct Message to let some of those who left comments on my last post that I appreciated their comment, and for others I went to their blogs and either left a comment or I tweeted about something on their blog. I ended up getting a great response quickly from almost everyone and they seemed really appreciative of my little DM note or that I can advertised their blog via a tweet.
Just thanking Darren in advance for his secret plan to make me famous…
http://greeninventionscentral.blogspot.com/2010/0…
This is really useful Paul … and now i have nothing more to say.
This is a great idea and one I have not incorporated into my blog in the past. Ironically, however, I have participated in such things on other blogs, including guest posting one time for Jonathan Pearson, who has a significant following on his blog. I will seek to give this a try and hope it yields some great results.
It's nice to be back in the saddle again after a few weeks somewhat "unplugged."
Glad to be back at 31DBBB. Been away from the computer for the long weekend. Drove to Kansas to see my girls.
The recent comment gadget is useful on my blog. It highlights those that are commenting. I have had several great comments from readers in 31DBBB and plan to reference them in some upcoming posts.
You all have some great ideas for highlighting readers.