One of the important lessons any blogger has to learn is that they need to make the best use of the assets that they have. This might include using your own experience and expertise for your blog content ideas, your sense of aesthetic, and perhaps even your connections to monetise it. However, one of the important assets you should never overlook is your community, and how they can help you build your blog. Here are some of the ways you can build the community that will help your blog move from strength to strength.
Find the shared perspective or idea
First of all, your blog should be based around a specific idea or perspective that is so strong that anyone who shares it will be able to immediately plug into it. Finding your niche is also going to help you better come up with content ideas since you can apply the lens of that single strong idea to anything that falls in your realm of interest.
Include them
You should make sure that your blog feels like a community space, rather than just a place where you talk about what interests you. As such, you can ask people to contribute by asking them a question, or encourage them to ask you questions for “Ask Me Anything” posts, or run campaigns that encourage them to share photos or other creations. It creates visible proof that there is a community at the beating heart of the blog, keeping it alive.
Keep actively engaging with them
Engagement cannot be an occasional or rare thing for your blog. You need to make sure that you’re keeping in touch with them consistently and some of the tools found in Disciple’s features can be excellent for that. For instance, you can make better use of push notifications, set up discussion groups and polls more easily, and even use live streams to connect with them in new and more direct ways. Finding new and ongoing ways to engage your community is going to help foster much closer bonds with them.
Give some real value
Don’t underestimate the power of something a little more tangible than support and engagement, either. Sometimes, real prizes and real rewards will foster a lot of support, not to mention giving you the opportunity to thank your community for all of their support. Running a giveaway now and then is great for maintaining visibility as well as positive relationships with your community.
Expand beyond your blog
This isn’t just about social media. Of course, you need to be engaged on social media. They’re one of the most important platforms for discoverability. However, you should also be looking at other bloggers and their communities and start building your networks through them. Blogger networking events like the Wonderful Wanderings conferences can be an excellent way to meet people with shared interests or perspectives that could have a lot of audience crossover.
If you want a strong blog, then you need to foster a strong community. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Note: This is a collaborative post
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