Understanding Community – Succeeding in the Virtual World
Posted by kexbrown on January 11, 2009
This is a strange title for an article by an advertising firm don’t you think? Understanding community? What does that mean? The blogosphere is a huge world with millions of blogs. You can find articles on basketball, politics, crafts, personal fitness, gardening, cars, keeping the planet green, and thousands of subjects. But, is that your world? Is it really? Are you constantly checking and reading blogs on all those subjects or others?
I would be willing to bet that you aren’t looking and reading everything out there. You are probably interested in a few (maybe 5) subjects that you kind of keep up on. There is one subject that you are passionate about and is the reason you became a blogger. You have a message to tell the world.
Nourish Your Community
How does that fit in with community? Your world community is really quite small. I would say it is like a small midwestern city with anywhere from 50 to 5,000 members. It isn’t a large audience. But, it does represent people from all over the world. Do you have readers in Nigeria, Columbia, Russia and Canada? Your readers are your community.
Just like a real city you need to nourish your community. You share your thoughts on your blog and people come and extract nuggets of information they deem important. But, there is more to a community than just throwing food at people. We are a species of communication. Despite many different languages, the internet puts us together to share information and learn from each other.
Here are a few hints to help you succeed in this virtual world of communication and community.
- Write articles of interest and stay on topic
- Have a comment section or forum for your visitors
- Visit other Blogs and comment or participate in forums
Write Articles of Interest and Stay on Topic
Successful blogs choose a subject and then strive to stay consistent with that topic. If you write about health tips then be regular and dependable about writing on that subject. It is easy to become distracted and veer off into other themes unrelated to your first ten posts.
Why is this important? Your visitor’s first impression when they come to your site will determine if they will ever return. So, they land on your blog and you have an article about a recipe for homemade grits, an article about bowling, another writing on dating and pictures of your child’s trip to Chucky Cheese. To the visitor expecting another issue about quantum physics they become confused and justifiably angry. It’s like there is a bait and switch going on with your writing. You promised them articles on gardening and they see articles on making money online. They are hurt. Your community suffers.
Have a Comment Section or Forum for Your Visitors
Do you ever go outside and talk with your neighbors over the fence or in the driveways? They ask you questions or check on something important to you and you get in a dialogue with them.
Your blog should be that little backyard fence with your neighbor. An opportunity to talk with your readers, get feedback about your articles and maybe learn a little more based on the experiences of others. You talk, you listen, you communicate, and you build community.
Visit Other Blogs and Comment or Participate in Forums
When you are building community you don’t just sit at home and wait for all your community members to come calling at your door. You open the door, walk outside and check on your neighbors. You attend the ball games, backyard barbecues, church meetings, political discussions, book clubs at the library and go to the local swimming pool. You get out of the house and you mingle with others.
As a blogger you need to do the same things. You need to virtually leave your house (your blog) and enter the scary blogosphere and meet others. You meet others by visiting blogs and …. commenting and leaving messages on forums. You communicate with others either in the same blog subject area or a related blog subject area. You will learn and have more fodder for your own blog.
Maybe you ask, “What would I say on a blog comment?” Well, let me start by telling you what not to say, “Great article dude.” This serves no useful purpose and on this blog would be labeled spam. What you want to do is to actually read the article. Leaving comments can be a very useful device which I will reveal in a moment. But, the first and most important step is to read the article.
Did the Author Forget Something?
Then ask yourself some questions. Do I agree with this article or disagree? Why? Did the author forget something that you feel is important to the discussion? Is the author relating old information that isn’t relevant anymore? Have you ever experienced a similar event in your life? How did you handle it? Is there someone else the blogger should know about because of this experience?
After asking those questions then write a response to the article with at least 3 paragraphs. Why 3 paragraphs? Because by the 3rd paragraph you will finally have found your voice and will say something of value to the audience of that blog.
Finally – A Secret about Community
Here is the little secret about community. When you build your own community for your blog and participate in other communities your world gets bigger. If you comment sincerely, openly and with comments that add value to the conversation your personal community will become larger. This is a little known blogger secret and can be quite successful in attracting new traffic to your blog.
ahynes1 said,
A Differing View
While I generally agree with most of what you’ve written, I feel compelled to present a differing view on the issue of staying on topic.
I write a decidedly eclectic blog, covering topics that are of interest to me. This include technology, politics, media, psychology, and anything else that catches my fancy. My readers have come to expect a diverse set of topics, just as readers of newspapers expect to find article about a wide variety of topics in the local newspaper.
Just like a local newspaper, however, I do have sections, and people can look at the Connecticut section, the Politics section or the Technology section. Nonetheless, the front page has articles from every section.
There are some good reasons to approach things this way. It broadens my potential audience. Instead of getting just geeks or politicos, I get both, and much more as well. Likewise, it helps with my incoming links. All kinds of different people link to my site.
Perhaps more importantly, it fosters something special in my community. In social network theory, people talk about ‘bonding capital’ and ‘bridging capital’. Bonding capital are those ties that get strengthened by a common view point. Bridging capital are those ties where you make connections between different people.
I write, and I live my life, in an effort to build more bridges between people. So, I hope that some geek will read my blog and become more politically involved. I hope that some politico will read my blog and learn something about how technology and social networks can help them. I hope that someone, whether they are interested in technology, politics, psychology, or whatever, will see a picture of a helpless dog in a pound and decide to give the dog a good home.
Yes, there are places for niche blogs, but don’t write off the general purpose eclectic blog either.
kexbrown said,
@aldon – It was funny, because shortly after posting this I remember visiting your blog and reading an article you wrote similar to your response here. And you are absolutely right. Different topics on a blog can be beneficial in many ways.
If you look at my blog site, You Can Learn Series, you will see that I have written on many different subjects and the site is quite successful especially in getting visitors from links in and from the search engines.
I don’t think my blog was created with a purpose like yours, more just following my interests over the years. I suspect there aren’t a lot of my computer programming readers jumping over and reading the articles on landscaping and gardening.
I think you have done well in transitioning topics with your readers. The average blogger may have trouble being as successful as you with many different topics. Your long time readers still have certain expectations when they visit your blog and if you were to change radically I suspect you would lose that following.
But, you certainly have an excellent blog, one that I enjoy reading and I think your points here are right on target.
Grandy said,
Now I know what my trouble is. There’s no theme. I’m eclectic, random, and all over the map. My blog never really started out with a theme. In fact when I signed up for entrecard, I had to go into the mixed bag category because I was secretly afraid I would be kicked out of their groups.
Oh well…guess I should work on the comment thing.
therealshari said,
When I chose to begin a serious blogging regimen, I began with “Shari’s Gone Country!” to cover a completely new life chapter. I soon found that as part of that new life chapter, there were several things going on (Internet marketing AGAIN) that weren’t exactly related to my new desert/country lifestyle.
So, I began writing different, highly targeted blogs. There are now a total of six blogs to maintain on a regular basis.
In keeping with the ideas of bonding capital and bridging capital, I tend to refer to my other blogs frequently and keep them closely linked. It’s as if there are several different “magazines” all owned by the same publisher, all written in a similar, friendly style but with highly targeted points of view for each blog.
I will say it creates a considerable burden to manage six blogs. Each time there are script or plugin updates, each blog must be “managed”. As for keeping them fresh, Adgitize has helped me create a schedule… at least one blog gets a new post each day (I’m addicted to the points already).
I think once you’ve determined your “why” for writing, then your “why” for writing about certain topics, you can begin to sort out whether you can successfully build an eclectic blog (using a section-style theme), or whether you must write individual highly-targeted blogs.
Aldon Hynes said,
A couple follow up comments…
Ken, thanks for your kind words. However, I should note that my blog was not created with the sense of purpose that it now has. Initially, it was a place for me to play with blogging software and consolidate stuff I was writing online. My blog, and it’s purpose has evolved overtime.
I guess this takes me to Grandy’s comment. I’m not sure I had a theme initially. It has been emerging over time and continues to emerge. I think this is a good way to go for new bloggers, unless you are trying to start right off as a money making pro-blogger.
With that, I do think Shari has done a good job of linking her related blogs together. I like that. I think it is valuable to let all the aspects of our lives shine through in our blogs, while at the same time finding ways to make it easier for people to find the content specific to what they are looking for. It seems like Shari and I are both trying to do that, and simply having differences in the technology about how best to achieve it.
My comments for now,
Aldon
fedhz said,
Hi, all!
It’s pretty amazing reading your comments. I have learned a lot not only from the article per se. It really pays to read comments as well.
My first blog was about personal, my experiences and rants. Boyfriend said if I want to earn through my blog, I should write what people want to know, in short INFORMATION. One of the most searched/demanded is about Technology. I’m no techie so it would be very hard for me to write a convincing article about new stuff and such.
I tried to be informative as possible, incorporating my experiences to whatever topic comes to my mind. Even though boyfriend keeps on telling me to do niche blogging, I still end up blogging about anything.
I’m glad that there are readers who find my blog INFORMATIVE. I don’t want to sound as if I’m blabbing so I don’t just post. I’m a fast talker and very opinionated, but in my blog, I try to be level-headed as much as possible.
When I visit other Mommy Blogger’s Site, I realized I found my niche. They say, write what you know. And what I know is about being a Parent. Maybe I’ll stick to that first before I branch out.
I have found interesting blogs through Adgitize and I’m glad I’ve been a part of it. (this should be a testimonial).
^^v be back soon!
Tomas said,
I just joined the Adgitize. The first impression was: “Wow, that’s grand!” Thus the hearty thank you for all your precious insights is my response.
I think that the gratitude is the main tool that build up the long-lived communities. It’s not the goods we promote but our approach towards other that puts indeed the durable foundation and is a secret of the community.