Building community is more than you and me
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Guest post by: Valerie Merahn Simon serves as a Senior Vice President at BurrellesLuce media monitoring and measurement, and writes a national public relations column for examiner.com. She is also co-founder and host of #PRStudChat, a monthly twitter chat between PR professionals and students moderated by Deirdre Breakenridge. She can be found on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Like PR practitioners, the best bloggers understand. Readers don’t care about you. Readers don’t care about your client. They don’t even care about the event or product or service you are eager to share. What do they care about? Themselves. Period. Readers don’t care about you, your client, or your clients products or services… unless it relates to them. Do I sound too harsh?
I do not mean to say that readers are selfish. On the contrary, I believe most readers want very much to become a member of the community and to share their opinions. But many bloggers talk AT their readers, not to the community. A blog is not an article, but it is not social media either if there is no conversation. So how can you transition from posting articles, to creating a community?
- Include members of your community. Interview your readers, reference their posts, highlight their accomplishments, include their blogs in your blog roll, or even invite a guest blogger over. Arik Hanson does a fabulous job of this. Check out his PR Rock Stars Series, the guests he invites on for his “rants and raves” section, or his Reader’s Choice Blog Awards for tremendous examples of how to include members of your community. I think this also goes a long way in helping you to be “Valuable not Voluable”. As Todd Defren points out, “No one wants to hear from you that much.”
- Ask questions, or better yet ask for help. Sounds simple doesn’t it? If you want conversation, ask a question. Ask a question that your community is qualified to answer. Let them show off their expertise. You will all be smarter for their participation! I love how Danny Brown is always reaching out to his community. The attitude of his blog is summed up by the quote, “If there’s something you’d like to read about and you can’t find it here, please feel free to contact me and ask me to look at it for you. I may not always have the answer, but I’ll try my best – after all, this is as much your blog as it is mine. Community is everything.”
- When you write about a product or service, go light on features, heavy on benefits. Make it easy for folks to understand why they should care…why they should be excited. Features are nice to know. Benefits warrant conversation!
- Spend some time with your community offline! Tweetups, tradeshows, conferences, seminars, lectures. Yes, get to know your community “in real life”, and make it easy for them to meet you! Shel Holtz does an excellent job of this. A quick look at the front page of his blog and you can get an overview of “what Shel’s up to,” with a quick link to a full calendar. Of course, you need not be the special guest of honor or speaker to promote your attendance at these events (or attempt Shel’s ambitious travel schedule). But do make an effort to make the most of opportunities to shake hands with some of your virtual friends.
- Be relatable. I love that Chris Brogan, shares his experiences as a parent and that Jeremiah Owyang shares up his personal family history. It seems that although the brilliant may be different than you or I, the truly brilliant will have you believe they are just like you and me!
How do your favorite bloggers make you feel “at home” on their blog? If you blog, what do you do to engage readers?
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of upcoming guest posts from those in my community. If you have an idea for a post about the communications, public relations or journalism industries, email me at prsarahevans@gmail.com.
36 Comments on this post
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Lindsey Thomas said:
Valerie – you’re exactly right on this. Readers want to feel like they are involved in the blogs they read. It shouldn’t be all about the blogger. Asking questions as well as highlighting people in the industry & community are great ways to involve readers. It also helps to share personal stories, as you mentioned. (By the way, love seeing your daughter’s photo in this post!)
It’s also great to show that as a blogger, you don’t know everything, and there are things that you want to learn – perhaps from your audience. Great post!
September 1st, 2009 at 7:40 am -
Valerie said:
Thanks Lindsay! And you are right– those who blog, comment and read share a tremendous resource in the “community” With so many different opinions and areas of expertise, even (especially?) the most thoughtful blogger will find takeaways in a good conversation!
September 1st, 2009 at 8:16 am -
Danny Brown said:
So this is how many guest posts this week? Sheesh, you’re worse than that John Haydon dude…
I think you sum it up perfectly, Valerie, when you say “It’s not about you.” We know that it still is to some degree, but at the end of the day, people get to know you more when you share as opposed to when you just shout.
I’m more interested in bloggers that don’t know it all; that want to learn from their readers as much as they can teach their readers something; and who’re open to the fact that while it may be their home, very often it’s house guests liven the place up.
Cheers!
September 1st, 2009 at 8:36 am -
Keith Trivitt said:
Valerie – You make an excellent point that I believe is quickly becoming difficult for many to understand: a blog is not a personal column. It’s not your time to divulge to the world about your latest person belief or personal dislike. It’s an open forum: a chance to provide your audience with some insight into an idea, a provocative solution or a new way of thinking about something, that hopefully, will spark conversation, and in the end, a learning process for everyone.
I, too, am a big fan of the many bloggers you mention in your post, mostly because each of them finds a unique way to connect all of their posts – no matter what the subject is on – back to each individual reader. That’s an amazing feat to accomplish, because many of the bloggers you mention have an enormous following. I wrote Chris Brogan a note yesterday thanking him for his great content in his latest e-mail newsletter. What really struck me is that even with his big book success and huge Twitter/blog following, I really felt like the post was written with me in mind. That’s great.
So far, from all of the guest posts I have read of yours, you are doing a great job of this same thing, Valerie. Keep up the great work.
Keith Trivitt
@KeithTrivittSeptember 1st, 2009 at 5:12 pm -
Buy PSP Go said:
Asking your readers direct questions is a great way to get more of a community feel – also commenting back to readers and getting a debate going (like your recent twitter conversation).
September 3rd, 2009 at 7:17 am -
Love Graphics said:
I agree, if you ask your readers questions that relate to them they will follow you and your blog will grow.
September 5th, 2009 at 11:09 am -
links of london said:
That’s an amazing feat to accomplish, because many of the blogers have an enormous following. I am thanking him for his great content in his latest e-mail newsletter. most blogger will find takeaways in a good conversation!!!!
September 5th, 2009 at 8:26 pm -
Cartoon Bears said:
What is a good software for building a community website?10pts?
September 7th, 2009 at 9:48 am -
Office Space Los Angeles said:
Real readers never cares that’s true weather what ever you written or what ever your position, blogging being part of social media Readers everything for any community or blogger, Readers more than our selves.
September 7th, 2009 at 10:00 am -
Gothic lolita said:
I can’t agree with you any more. Not easy to write what reader like to read.
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:28 pm -
Filipina Heart said:
Great guess post Valerie, very well written. I hope to read more from your work in the future.
October 7th, 2009 at 4:12 am -
Filipina Heart said:
And the girl in the picture is adorable!
October 7th, 2009 at 4:13 am -
Generic said:
Hi, I’m far more interested in bloggers that don’t know it all; that want to learn from their readers as much as they can teach their readers something; and who’re open to the fact that while it may be their home, very often it’s house guests liven the place up.
October 9th, 2009 at 2:52 pm -
Cheap said:
I have to agree, if you ask your readers questions that relate to them they will follow you and your blog will grow.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:24 pm -
Generic said:
Yes! That’s an amazing feat to accomplish, because many of the blogers have an enormous following. I am thanking him for his great content in his latest e-mail newsletter.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:37 pm -
Generic Online said:
I also can’t agree with you any more. Not easy to write what reader like to read.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:38 pm -
Cartoon Bears said:
you need a web host that can keep the site available at all times. The programming skills I mentioned earlier are dependent on the web host. Not all web hosts support all languages..
November 9th, 2009 at 3:47 pm -
Cartoon Bears said:
It does NOT matter what you use, just that you know someone who can do it. Also, that the web host can support whichever one you choose..
November 9th, 2009 at 3:48 pm -
sarkilari indir said:
I am agree with you. Asking readers direct questions is a good way to get attention of the community. Great post. thanks
November 26th, 2009 at 1:50 am -
Cartoon Bears said:
Maybe the poor should start planting food to take care of themselves. Maybe it is not the job of the city. Besides, do you think the poor are actually going to care for the gardens?
December 1st, 2009 at 2:30 pm -
sarki ara said:
I agree with love graphics. if you ask your readers questions that relate to them they will follow you and your blog will grow.
December 1st, 2009 at 8:36 pm -
Saglik Sayfasi said:
I can’t agree with you any more. Not easy to write what reader like to read.
December 9th, 2009 at 7:02 am -
Cartoon Bears said:
Should cities start building community gardens to feed the poor?
December 14th, 2009 at 2:10 pm -
cash back with credit said:
I would agree 100% make sure that you ask real and good questions to get the best feedback as possible though. The more you interact and get great feedback the better you can deliver what they are wanting to learn more about. Making things a win win situation is the best and really listening to completely understand people are keys.
December 14th, 2009 at 8:57 pm -
Antalya evden eve nakliyat said:
The more you interact and get great feedback the better you can deliver what they are wanting to learn more about.
December 28th, 2009 at 11:22 am -
sarki sozu said:
Hey Sarah, thank you so much for this excellent post.
January 4th, 2010 at 9:21 am -
resimleri said:
nice post. thank you for sharing.
January 4th, 2010 at 9:22 am -
printing said:
Besides, do you think the poor are actually going to care for the gardens? Have you ever tried to get an entitled person to volunteer? Aint gonna happen.
January 4th, 2010 at 9:31 am -
textbook rental said:
such great insite into how to deal with prospects
January 15th, 2010 at 4:36 pm -
printing said:
very reliable posting…
January 19th, 2010 at 2:56 pm -
calivita.com said:
what a sweet thing
February 2nd, 2010 at 7:39 am -
calivita.com said:
thanks for this sharing
February 2nd, 2010 at 7:40 am -
kelowna mortgages said:
I think that, if you ask your readers questions that relate to them they will follow you and your blog will grow.
February 5th, 2010 at 3:54 pm -
resimler said:
wow so much comments;) thank you for sharing
February 15th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
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