Networking 101 – Building Relationships with Bloggers

All blogs are written so that others could read them. This statement is true for both personal and business blogs. Otherwise bloggers wouldn’t take their diary online. So from the moment you publish your first post, you’ll be waiting for your soon-to-be readers and their take on what you have to say.

While waiting for readers to discover you might be a choice for some, the more impatient ones of use will approach readers proactively. And by far the most effective way to get them to read your writings is to bond with them, so them you’re worth exploring.

While most of us would like to think we’re great at it, there are quite a few tricks we can and should learn and there’s always room to improve. So what does building relationships (a phrase I actually prefer to “networking”) take?

Who do we bond with?

Both what you write and who you want to network with depend on your intended audience. Besides their interests and background, you need to think of what they like to read. You’d then of course start with blog readers. And where else would you find them if not on other blogs in your niche or on related niches?

Sure, there’s social media, from bookmarking and news sites to forums and everything else out there. There also magazine and portal readers, but all of these are not directly interested in blogs. This is how we bloggers discovered networking with bloggers has the best impact on our own readership.

Consequently, the better known the bloggers we network with are, the more exposure we get. Having your comments seen by a few dozens is not the same as having a few hundred see it. That is why we’re all drawn to those more famous than us, with more readers and more comments. Sure, the competition is tougher, but here’s where the art begins!

Where and how to approach bloggers?

First of all, their blogs. Most bloggers allow comments and that’s the first place to reach out. The idea is to find an angle when commenting that allows you to add something personal and valuable to the conversation. Showing your appreciation for a blogger and his post works once, maybe a couple of times, but if you don’t actively contribute to the conversation, both the author and his/her readers will ignore you.

There are bloggers such as Liz Strauss who place great value on replying to all comments. That will help you get the conversation started and possibly keep it going, as there’s that little option allowing you to get replies to your comment via email.
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Authority Bloggers are Built for Success

These days we keep hearing about authority bloggers, about how they manage to build and maintain successful blogs and aside project, about the massive traffic they receive. Along with them, more and more people start new blogs dreaming of becoming successful and making money blogging.

It’s not an easy task, but if you approach it from the right perspective, you are more likely to achieve your goals.

Your Main Goal is to Make Money Blogging?

That’s alright! As long as it is a legitimate activity, no one will blame your desire to improve your lifestyle. Sure, we’ve talked about how many fail when starting a money making blog, but that’s only because they’ve based their strategy on the wrong premises.

A strategy is like planning a chain reaction towards your ultimate goal. It’s OK to think and dream big, but act in small steps.

So, as you can see, it all starts with the desire to satisfy our needs, but only a few are willing to take the required actions.

Believe it or not, becoming an authority blogger is not that hard, but it starts with really wanting to be one and doing so by respecting 3 basic principles.
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Do You Show Appreciation to Your Favorite Bloggers?

Before being blog writers we are blog readers. We do it daily, searching for news, reviews or other information of interest. For every post that we write, we probably read at least ten times more posts. We enjoy some of them, while others we simply put aside and forget over time.

But how do we show appreciation to those bloggers that maintain our interest high, making us come back for more wonderful posts? It’s easy to simply read a good post and then skip to the next one without taking any action, but most times, it’s not the “polite” thing to do. Here’s a list of ways to show appreciation to your favorite bloggers.

Leave a comment

Did you enjoy his/her latest post? Do you have an opinion on the matter? Why not leave a comment. Sometime, even a simple appreciative comment will make the blogger feel even better. Try it, it’s easy.

Link back to the post

If you read an interesting post, why not considering recommending it to your own readers. You know those “link-sharing” type of posts? You could try to create such a series of posts, publishing one every week or month. If you can also formulate a small opinion with each link it would be even greater.

Write follow-up posts

Was the post you’ve just read interesting enough to make you formulate an opinion of your own? Then, start writing, publish your answer and link it to the original post. This demonstrates that the post that started it is of good quality. Yes, sometimes, follow-up posts are not meant as good idea developments, but let’s simply consider the positive ones.
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The Better Blogger, The Good Listener

When it comes to speaking, there are three types of people:

• those who speak so that other people can listen;
• those who speak only to hear their own voice;
• those who speak because they just can’t shut up.

If you want to be a better blogger, you’d definitely want to be in the first group.

But what does it take to be a good orator? You’d probably say it takes good communication skills, ability to adapt from audience to audience and a spontaneous character.

Some people have these skills written in their DNA, others train them. If you’re looking to speak or write better you should first consider listening and reading more and better.

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak”
Epictetus, Greek philosopher

Advantages of being a good listener

Why and how should listening improve our communication skills? First of all, by paying attention to our audience we can observe and analyze the level of interest, which would make it a lot easier to adapt from a situation to another. Therefore, a better blogger is a blogger who listens to his community is more likely to provide real answers and help to real questions. Solutions make people happy.
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Are Bloggers Hollywood’s Next Big Shots?

Ever since I can remember I’ve been a huge movie fan. No matter the genre, I’ve watched so many movies that would probably take me more than my hosting space just to list and so I came up with this post’s idea.

Are bloggers Hollywood’s next big shots? You never know, but looking back to some of the best movies in Hollywood’s history I can almost see some of them playing the leading characters.

It’s a know fact that bloggers have a rebellious character. They can’t be ordered around, can’t be asked for favorable reviews (at least the respectable ones) and can’t be forced to advertise a company, brand or product against their beliefs. They have their own lifestyle, their own creeds and goals and I can see a “Ronin“ in every single one of them.
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