One of the ways to appreciate people more is to know more about them. The more you know about a user, the more you can realize how your behavior on your blog, both written and other, will be perceived by someone. The more you know about your current readers, the more appreciate you are.
Take extra steps to find out more about commentors
Knowing more about a current reader means that you can find out more than just the username of a commentor. One way to do that is to actually read comments by people and relate them to the associating username. Another way to appreciate a commentor is to actually contact and ask them more questions, or to visit their site, if they have one.
Avoid giving the illusion of knowing your readers
One of the biggest mistakes on your blog that you can make is to tell someone for a long time commentor on your blog that you appreciate them, and then not knowing something about them. Such a mistake can result in your commentor feeling used, for that is probably what you intend to do: use people by luring them in, and then not appreciating them.
So, the next time you see an opportunity to know a reader, you can try to know more about them outside of your blog.
...paul (5)
Mark (5)
The Nerdy Nurse (4)
Dave from HootSuite (3)
agen888 (2)
Andrew Escar (2)
Anthony (2)
brad barfield (2)
Chris L (2)
dave (2)
Bes,
I agree that one should know more about the readers, but it’s a two way street. Sometimes readers want to remain anonymous, and some other times, readers are simply too busy to respond. It’s impossible to get to know anyone, but I did start a meme a while back that tried to address the issue by pointing out things I knew about my readers.