I first starting blogging about 11 months ago on my personal blog. I would write a post and wait. Write another post, and wait. I had this illusion of a readership that was reading my stuff, but not acting. Was it their fault? Or, was it mine?
When readers did comment, I was thankful, but didn’t respond to all comments because not all comments merited responding to. There was one crucial thing I was missing out on though: the relational aspect of blogging.
A Retail Analogy
I have about ten year’s worth of retail experience and all the managers I ever had stressed the importance of customer service. If you went out of your way for a particular customer, customers would notice and keep coming back.
One time I walked into Wal-Mart (a retail chain notorious for bad customer service). One of the employees noticed me and asked if I needed help finding anything. I was shocked. I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I thought to myself, “This guy must be new because he’s actually friendly.”
Another example is Best Buy. I approached a Best Buy employee and asked if Best Buy sold a wireless headset for a computer. He said no, but that CompUSA might. He warned, “Don’t expect to be helped though if you go there.” Sure enough, when I went to Comp USA, help was hard to find and I had to hunt down a cashier to check out.
How the Analogy Relates to Me
When readers were commenting on my work, it was as if a customer was walking through my store and making a small purchase. But was I going out of my way to ensure that my “customers” were going to come back? Not really. I would just acknowledge I had a comment and be happy and that’s about it.
However, I have tried to change my approach. It was a mistake to assume that people “should” comment on my work. In reality, I have to “earn” it. A reader’s time is valuable and if that reader takes the time to comment, I should take the time to provide some extra service to my reader. Now I usually do a few things when a reader visits my site and leaves a comment:
I visit their site if available
I like to investigate (err, learn more about) the readers that comment on my blog. It helps me understand who my audience is.
I subscribe to their feed if available
If the reader has a feed, I usually subscribe to skim their content to see if it interests me. If it does, I keep them on my feed list.
I e-mail them personally if there is a question
If the reader poses a question that is better answered through e-mail, I go this route.
I visit their site and comment
If a reader comments on my blog, I usually try to find something to comment on theirs if the content appeals to me. And if the content is extra special, I do my best to promote the reader via links and recommendations.
I’m Still Not Where I Want To Be
I admit I’m still not where I want to be regarding my interaction with my readership. I’d like to have good interaction with all readers on all the blogs I write for. It’s tough when there are different audiences, however. This is why it is important to put a little research into your readers so you can understand who they are and what they want out of you.
Thanks for reading.
This post was written as an entry for a group project by DailyBlogTips. The topic for this group project was blogging mistakes.
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I agree – blogging, as with much in life, is about relationships. Great post!
Thank you Andrea. You had a great post as well. Stop by any time.
Nice to know about the 4 things you try to do to know more about the reader. Contacting a reader through channels other than the commenting channel can show that you are interested in building a relationship instead of increasing your links’ pr value.
Your “Retail Analogy” looks like a very good idea for a post related to existence of business or customer service stereotypes, and how in reality different things may happen at different times.
What an insightful article. I wish I can be better about maintaining my relationship with my readers but sometimes just don’t have time to answer all the questions. Great post!
I agree with you. It’s very important to know the readers (customers) and to build a relationship.
Building relationships is very important, but as Cin77 pointed out, there sometimes isn’t enough hours in the day. As long as an effort is made however, people will notice.
Exellent post. I can already see you practice what you preach.
And here I am, trying to do the same!
I hope you’ve got better on networking!
Cheers!
Really liked your article. I was thinking about the exact same question.
What is the most importance of a successful blog?
Is it SEO? Is it a good searchengine ranking, to get many hits?
For those automated Blogs and SEO hippies – Hell yeah.
But the real thing about blogging – isn’t it sharing your thoughts and interests with other people?
Of cause you have to get your readers, but in a personal way. When the www grows those auto-blogs, it’s up to us, to provide something really unique. An article with love and passion.
That’s why I love the name of your website so much.
Greetings from Munich
Roman
Nice Article. The best thing to build relationship with readers what I think is to comment on the blogs of users who comment on your blog.
The number of comments you post on other’s blogs is proportional to the number of comments users post on your blog.
It’s quite important to outreach and network amongst readers and other bloggers.
We are in the process of changing our site to a blog for this reason, so we can get the readers involved and get to know who they are. Thanks.
I totally agree to this article
, many thanks for sharing this great post.