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Home » The Famous Blog » 8 Steps to Boost Audience Engagement – The Social and Engaging Blog

8 Steps to Boost Audience Engagement – The Social and Engaging Blog

March 1, 2011 - Last Modified: March 1, 2011 by Lorna Li 1,991

Boost Audience Engagement

Do you ever wonder why some blogs are widely successful, attract a massive following, and magnetize reader comments, while other blogs resound in the sound of their own silence? I’ve been on a personal quest to understand the secrets of successful bloggers, because, face it, the more traffic your blog gets, the more influence you have and the more money making potential there is.

What I found was that the most successful bloggers posted excellent content. It didn’t even matter that they posted infrequently, or that their blog posts were magnum opuses and not the recommended short attention span 200-500 words. The moment they hit publish, readers swarmed to their site and devoured every word.

Want to be a top blogger?

Here are eight ways you can magnetize readers and encourage engagement on your blog.

grow blog audience

One: Post Excellent Content

There are plenty of bloggers who post entries that are comprised of regurgitated information, useless conjecture, or angsty rants. By providing valuable information and including links to other useful sites, you will build trust and give users an incentive to add useful information of their own.

How do you define excellent? Excellent content is content that inspires, like Chris Guillebeau’s Art of NonConformity blog. It’s content that solves a problem, answers a complex question, or provides valuable insight, such as this well organized, thoughtful blog post on Thesis Theme versus the Genesis Framework. It’s content that has value that will stand the test of time, such as this ultimate guide to social entrepreneur funding. Or it’s controversial, which incites the participation of ardent believers representing both sides of the fence.

Two: Post Consistently

If you create scintillating content, you don’t have to post every day or even the recommended minimum of twice a week. But a one hit wonder will not keep readers coming back. If your content quality tends to vary, then by all means, try to post twice a week. I know it’s tough – having a website is like having a kid – it’s another mouth to feed. One of my favorite, moderately updated blogs is Glen Allsopp’s ViperChill, whose long, detailed, but easily scannable blog posts provide valuable insight to complex activities such as his in-depth guide to the art of buying and selling websites on Flippa.

Three: Use an Engaging Voice

Most of us learned how to write in college, and most of us were trained to write long, dry, academic research papers citing tons of trusted resources. Blogging, however, is a conversation. The blogs that receive the most interaction aren’t the stuffy, academic blogs. Rather, they’re the ones that use an authentic, interesting, and humorous voice that invite you to participate in discussion. This makes it seem like you’re a real person (you are — remember that), and makes it less intimidating for readers to speak up. Check out this woman’s rant on privacy issues with the now defunct Google Wave for inspiration. Google Wave, RIP.

Four: Post a Question

Many blog entries don’t get a response simply because they don’t invite interaction. Inviting participation can be as easy as adding a question to the end of each post. However, you can take audience participation to the next level by seeking audience engagement proactively. Hosts of the highly addictive Lifestyle Business Podcast, Dan Andrews and Ian of the Tropical MBA program are masters of audience engagement. They invite their audience to get in touch with them, ask them questions, and recommend show topics at the beginning, middle, and end of every podcast. Listeners can contact them by phone, email, comments, or Twitter. Dan and Ian answer listener questions, use feedback to develop future podcasts, and even include message sound bytes from their audience on their shows. Listeners become fans, because they know the hosts care about what they have to say and this increases participation.

Five: Make it Easy for People to Contact You

Beyond simply allowing comments, allow users to get in touch with you in other ways, such as by email, phone, Twitter, or Facebook. And, rather than burying the contact link deep into your website in the hopes that no one will actually get in touch, make communication visually prominent using attractive icons. If you are concerned about privacy, then use a contact form plugin that will route the message to your email inbox or to your CRM, if you require a plugin for WordPress lead capture instead.

Six: Interact With Your Audience

When people comment, comment back. And comment back immediately. This can be hard to do if you are busy, get a lot of emails, or, like me, have a day job on top of your blogging activities. However, people have short attention spans on the web, so the longer you wait to comment, the harder it will be to continue the dialogue. Commenting right away shows readers that you care about their feedback, and allows you to develop a relationship with your blog commenters, which has side benefits like turning them into fans who will promote your content or link back to you down the road.

Seven: Reward Commenting

Coming up with a thoughtful response takes time. You can make that time worthwhile to your commenters by using CommentLuv, a WordPress plugin that gives commenters a do-follow link back to their website and leaves behind a link to their latest post. The out of the box WordPress comments feature assigns no follow attributes to blog comment links, which is meant to discourage spam. Using Akismet with CommentLuv, you can easily manage spam, identify the good comments, and reward participation. Check out this great post on Kikolani on Reasons to Love CommentLuv.

Eight: Actively Participate in the Blog Community

Some of the top bloggers I follow say that the most effective strategy they used to build up their reader base is to read, comment, and guest post on other blogs. Read other blogs and leave relevant comments that link back to your blog or profile. Further, guest blogging or posting response entries can be a great way to both expand your audience, invite interaction and strengthen your personal online networks. As more people discover you, they will also discover, subscribe to, and participate on your blog, as well as mention you on their blogs. Giving to the blog community creates social capital -coined the Whuffie factor by community marketing maven Tara Hunt– which is the currency of the web.

By following these simple steps, you will open the floodgates to interaction and communication on your blog. Before you know it, your blog will successfully have evolved to the level of “community,” and readers will be as much a part of the experience as your writers are.

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Filed Under: Blog Comments, Blogging, How To Blog

About Lorna Li

Follow @lornali

Lorna Li is Editor in Chief of Green Marketing TV and Entrepreneurs For a Change, where she enjoys writing about green business and green marketing.

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{ 37 Responses }

  1. Brock Blohm says:
    "Interact With Your Audience" This is my favorite. If you truly want to build relationships (which is the key to a successful business) you must be interacting with your audience. Whether through social media, blogging, commenting, phone calls, or email - it doesn't matter. Just do it. The audience will remember this and be more willing to come back! :)
  2. Mark says:
    Hi Lorna, Number Six: Interact With Your Audience is a great rule. The reason is because when they receive an email saying that you responded to their comment, they are more likely to come back and comment. This can be habit forming and that is a great thing. Great post and great list...:) Mark
  3. Shadab says:
    Post consistently is the harder part for blogger specially by newbies who want to create the original source and make the blog SEO friendly so for that reason blogger have to be search the targeted keywords and writing content with the phrases including main keywords and including in url structure and titles and H1, H2 tags. So some times it is easy to write and some times to hard. So in my case my major time be spend to researching the right keywords and optimize the post but I try to update my blogs as I could. Thanks for the great information listed here.
  4. Daniel Snyder says:
    Eight fundamental tips that EVERY blogger must have and know. These are the kind of articles that new bloggers need to get their hands on, BEFORE they start blogging. Thanks, I wish I had this information 'back then'... ;-)
  5. Sathish says:
    Right now, I am missing the actively participating in all blogging community point. Will take care of that area from today and I hope that it will help me to increase my readers engagement. Thanks for your tips. Sathish
  6. Erwin Tan says:
    Great tips Lorna.. Especially tip#3 - Using an engaging voice. Cheers!
  7. Anne Sales says:
    Another informative list. I like it when you say: “use an engaging voice”. Words are not as one-dimensional as most people think. When used creatively, it draws people in – often without them realizing it. And of course, asking a good question makes people want to be involved.
  8. Aurelius Tjin says:
    Thank you for posting this tips. You have great ideas here. It really helps a lot. Thanks a lot. :)
  9. Mavis Nong says:
    Hi Lorna,Thanks for sharing your insights. These are the exact strategies that transformed my blog. I followed and studied successful bloggers and implemented what they were doing.So, these strategies do work :)All the best, Mavis
  10. Keith says:
    Thanks for the great post. I am just learning about blogging and comment luv sites. Your tips will help a lot to get started. I have two blogs and ok traffic but no one ever comments on them. I like your idea of using the links to reward good comments made to the blog. I also like your idea of commenting back. It is nice to know that the people that write articles and posts are actively involved with their work. It adds to credibility and accessibility. Thanks again! Keith
  11. Wasim Ismail says:
    Great eight points, especially when it comes to interacting with your audience, as this will make them feel welcomed and comfortable with your site, as they can relate to you, and will remember what you have said. This will also make you more approachable by others who don't know you.
  12. Mani Viswanathan says:
    Rewarding Commentators is pretty Essentials. That's the reason I've planned Banner Slots for the Top 2 Commentators / month. Also, I wanted to ask you one Question : Don't you sense a negative impact on SEO with CommentLuv on ?
  13. Nick B. says:
    Nice to know about CommentLuv, I do like seeing the link backs and was wondering what that app was. I'm also impressed with bloggers that thoroughly interact with the community. Comments can pile up, but ones that consistently reply and continue to post great content seem to be the most successful.
  14. Lorna Li says:
    @ Hesham - That's great to know! CommentLuv on Blogger.
    • Hesham says:
      Sure it's working on Blogger :) Thanks for the good article, very informative!
  15. Kristi says:
    Great tips Lorna, and welcome to the Famous Bloggers community! :) And thanks for linking to my post on CommentLuv - that's a plugin that rewards everyone. Not just the commenter, but the blog owner and their audience as well!
    • Lorna Li says:
      @ kristi I've thought loooong & hard about commenting plugins. Intense Debate vs Disqus vs CommentLuv. Oh the plugin anxiety.... After reading your post, I think I am going to go with CommentLuv. Have you ever tried Disqus? Why did you choose CommentLuv over Disqus? Traffic? More engagement?
      • Darren Scott Monroe says:
        Lorn great article boy you can write LOL hey forgive the delay. I also chose Comment Luv because of the people more so than the links etc. Also another way to be engaging is to compliment people on their blogs when they comment. Shows you actually went to their blogs and connected....of course this is if you actually DID connect LOL
    • Michael Aulia says:
      Going to read your (Kristi's) post on the Reasons to love CommentLuv :) Might learn a few new things there
  16. Nikoya says:
    great clear and concise tips. I really like The Art of NonConformity.. That is a perfect example of a very engaging, vivid blog.
    • Lorna Li says:
      @ Nikoya - I bought the book. It's fantastic. It made me want to MMO and run off to volunteer in a 3rd World country. I just need to figure out the MMO part first : P
  17. The Bad Blogger says:
    Awesome 8 points in gaining audience, I especially like rewarding commentator, because till now I still have not yet done that, I think I will have to think of a unique idea to reward them, and lastly thanks for sharing and you forgot to ask a question at the end of the post... hehe...
    • Lorna Li says:
      @ thebadblogger Ha! You are right! My bad. Those college thesis writing habits are hard to break.
      • The Bad Blogger says:
        Well, I too sometime forgot to ask question and worst... I even forgot to put my post in category... but anyway... I was wondering why you call it "green marketing", because when I saw the URL, I thought you were in the clean and green environment niche... I know asking you this question may seem stupid, but I'm just curious to know.... hope you don't mind...
        • Lorna Li says:
          @thebadblogger Well, my blog is about green marketing, green business and social entrepreneurs.
  18. TJ McDowell says:
    Great job putting a lot of these tips together. I'm not sure I've seen all these tips in a single blog post before. I've definitely seen them in action though, and try to use them on my own blog. I don't get hundreds of comments on every post yet, but I do get at least a few comments on most posts. From what I've been hearing from other bloggers, the whole process takes time, and it requires a lot of patience too. Just keep posting, right? :)
    • Lorna Li says:
      @ TJ From what I've been able to gather, it's the commenting & guest blogging that really takes it to a higher level. If you keep posting to your blog alone, you are in a silo. But yes, it takes time. Guest blogging, finding, reading, commenting on other blogs is as time consuming as coming up with a great, original blog post.
  19. Jeevan Jacob John says:
    Hey Lorna, All of your tips are great and I agree with you on each of them. The main focus should be about writing high quality articles, promoting them and engaging with other bloggers. I think the most important of all is having a good attitude. If you have a good attitude, then you will surely achieve great things, in the blogging world. Thank you for the post ! Jeevan Jacob John
  20. Naufil Siddiqui says:
    Being on a Blogger blog, I can't use CommentLuv as it isn't supported by the default commenting system. As my blog is on the iPhone niche. I don't see any importance of using CommentLuv.
    • Hesham says:
      Hi Naufil, You can use commentluv on Blogger, here is information at comluv.com site CommentLuv for Blogger, good luck!
      • Naufil Siddiqui says:
        Hello Hesham, I know that it supports the Blogger platform but in that case I need to use Intense Debate Commenting System which I don't want to use.
        • Hesham says:
          Oh! ok, anyways.. It's the only way!

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