This is the sixth article in the series Blogging 101 series.
Yesterday, I shared with you about how to incorporate social media with your blog so that you can find like-minded people and market what you have to say or share. But you have to realize that that is only a portion of the ideas of networking with your blog. If you stop at social media, you will not hit the full potential of your blog.
We want to create a community of bloggers and that means networking until we are blue in the face. The effort in networking in the beginning will rival the amount of time that you put into articles. Even now, a couple of years into this blog, we are still dedicating an enormous amount of time and effort into networking. Here are four different ideas of how to begin to build a community of people around your blog.
- Guest Posting Hopefully at this time, you know what you are going to be doing, where your posts will lead, and what you want to happen with the blog. But even before posts are going live on your website, you could be putting together great guest posts for other websites. When your website goes live, it would be great if you had 6-10 posts on other people’s websites that is scheduled for just before you launch will create enormous buzz.
- Comment Elsewhere Read the articles that are similar to what you will write. If you find an article on someone’s blog that is tweetable, that makes you think, or simply love what they share, comment and show them the love. But do not leave a two word “Great article” comment, we are networking. Challenge there thoughts, add to what they have to say, and fully engage with them. You will leave a presence.
- Field of Dreams Is A Lie The saying, if you build it, they will come is a cheesy movie line that can build hopes, but it’s the hard effort of marketing, great content, and having patience that will bring in the views. Put the effort into designing the website and create great posts for your launch, but know that at the same time you need to network to have a great takeoff.
- Be Generous The idea is creating a community. When you move into a new neighborhood, you’d throw a party to meet your neighbors. The same is online, you are in a new neighborhood, so why not create a free eBook on parenting or a 20 page tutorial for Photoshopping.
How are you going to begin networking and what ideas did I miss?
kolby milton says
This is a constant grind. Commenting on sites that backlink is the important part.
seventy8Productions says
That is definitely the networking piece, but quality comments are the enticement that people will want to click that link. If we simple respond “Nice” I am not going to click it. But if I see value in the comment, I will want to check them out.
kolby milton says
I couldn’t agree more. It means the person actually took time to read your post. I love the interaction that comments bring to a website. It builds community!
seventy8Productions says
I LOVE NETWORKING! Had I not, we would never have met… 🙂
Nicole Anderson says
Still haven’t figured out how to do the guest blog thing…how does that work?
seventy8Productions says
As in you want to guest blog for someone or want others to guest blog on your site?
Nicole Anderson says
well, both, I suppose. I have read a lot of places that you should start by guest posting a lot for others, but how do you do that? How do you get them to want you to guest post? Maybe my question sounds silly, but I really am just figuring out some of this stuff…
seventy8Productions says
Love the question (and I really should write an article to go SUPER in depth on it). I think it takes two things: listen for people who want guest posts and simply open yourself up to ask. We are always looking for guest posts on this website (check the details here: http://www.78p.tv/posting-guidelines/ ). At the same time, people who blog are many times bogged down by it that they are looking for a break and would welcome it.
With this in mind (see, the article is writing itself in this comment!) make sure that you have some super high quality articles on your blog that you could point to what you already have written about, what you could offer, and really an example of what your potential is.
Does that help a little?