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.

If you love a blog and keep reading it, you’re bound to sooner or later find out where else the blogger spends his/her online time. Is it Twitter? Then get an account and see what microblogging holds for you. Is it LinkedIn? Start building your business profile and connect. Is it Mixx, StumbleUpon or some other, more specialized news or bookmarking site?

Join the conversation over there. But make sure wherever you follow those you want to build a relationship with, make sure you take the time to learn what works and what doesn’t. This applies to both the social media site in general and to the specific behavior of those you want to get to know better.

For example, if you’re planning to become friends with Tad Chef, don’t join his SEO 2.0 group on Mixx and then submit your own stuff.

Some bloggers, from A to lower lists, also make their email address public. When your comment is one among a few hundreds, taking your effort further by writing an email might just do the trick. If you write and send that email, make sure you don’t sound like a stalker and don’t forget to use your comment posting name and add a link to your blog. Just because you remember the bloggers name and know his blog address by heart, doesn’t mean he or she remembers all the people who ever commented on his/her posts in the past year.

Linking to your favorite blogger’s posts is also a good idea. You can either add them to your blogroll, write an entire post about something they’ve published and your take on it or add a post you found extraordinary to a regularly link love list, like my very own Monday Reading Roundup.

And remember, linking and sending emails are life savers when the blogger you’re interested in networking with does not allow comments.

Writing guest posts is also an excellent idea. If the bloggers you want to befriend accept guest posts, that’s a great way to get noticed. Write something that fits the general focus of the blog, spice it up with your own style and experiences and submit it, along with a short intro of yourself and your blog. If what you send is quality content, it will most surely get published and the blog owner will surely analyze your blogging activity more carefully.

You might even follow up with a request for them to author a guest entry on your site. There might be some delays as the famous the blogger is, the less time they have to also handle other writing assignments. But if they thought you were worthy of being features as a guest writer, they might also thing your own blog is a great place for them to expand their audience.

It doesn’t work like magic!

Networking takes time and effort. Ongoing effort! You can’t just take a day to spread comments around, add some people to your social media profile, send out a dozen of emails and then that’s it, those folks will be your friends for life. Contacting someone is easy, turning a onetime deal into a lasting relationship takes a lot more work on both sides.

The trick is not to get impatient. There are dozens of comments to be read and replied to, there are flooded inboxes and incoming links are not scarce for some. It takes time to be recognize as a valuable contributor to one’s blog and a little more to discover what you’re posting on your own blog is worth the same attention as your comments or your other social activities.

It doesn’t take decades either! If what you publish is interesting, has a unique approach and is supported by effective networking, you might get the results you wished for and much more in a couple of months.

There’s no fixed recipe! Some approaches might work for you, others might not. Your unique blend of networking skills will be shaped by trial and error and a lot of passion and determination to achieve your goals.

About the Author

This is a guest post by Alina Popescu, PR Consultant. If you’re looking for a fresh voice, balancing unique views on life with original PR and marketing tips, head over to her blog at WordsOfABrokenMirror.com, or better yet, subscribe to her RSS feed.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

With blogging turning into such an amazingly popular activity, it was only the next logical step that some people would position themselves as tutors for the blogging novices. Internet marketing blogs, SEO blogs, design, writing and blogging tips blogs emerged and some of them became leaders of opinion in the blogosphere.

The advantage they had over other blog was their information. The quality, the relevance and the applicability of their guidelines finally secured their path to world wide awareness, authority and eventually success.

But, while everything works well from their point of view, readers trying to implement their guides and tips might encounter a few problems, or might have a hard time deciding on the most viable solution for their blog.

We need to dig deeper

How many times have you encountered this advice?

Comment on other blogs in your niche.

I’d say that you’ve seen it on probably every single blog tips blog. But how many of them go deeper, telling readers how to select those blogs that will deliver the best results? How many will tell them what to stay away from and what kind of discussion to engage in?

How many blogs talk about branding yourself and your blog without explaining to the common user what branding means and a difference between a poor logo, for example, that will most definitely position you as a “wanna be”, instead of a professional?

I’m not trying to point fingers here! I’m just saying that we need to go deeper when approaching certain topics, and not expect our users to be internet savvy people. We have the advantage of years of experience behind, so the best thing to do is to put that experience to use for those that need it the most.

Now, let me share my point of view over a few commonly misunderstood blog tactics, and I’m not talking from a “tips” blogger’s perspective, but from the reader’s side. From that side where I’ve been and where I had to learn things by the “trial and error” method.

Commonly Misunderstood Blog Tactics

1. Using Social Media

One of the most common advice you’re bound to find on blogs is to build an active social media profile. Some will tell you how well Digg works for blogs, or StumbleUpon, or Reddit, or Facebook.

There’s no general rule here. What works for a user, might not work for another. Also, being an “active user” on social media, might affect the quality or the posting schedule of some bloggers.

It’s not an easy task building a strong social media profile, without exposing yourself to risks like:

• Being considered a spammer of a specific service (due to a high number of submissions);
• Wasting time that you should be using for growing your blog;
• Positioning yourself as a Social Media Marketer, rather than a blogger.

From where I stand, the most important thing is NOT the volume of your submissions, but rather their quality and the quality of your network. Since most services don’t encourage submitting your own works, or even if they do, users tend to skip those entries, the best idea is to focus on building a strong relationship with your network.

For that, you have a few options:

• Find those highly ranked user profiles that focus on the same niche you’re interested in, or activate in and start building strong relationships with them. It’s not easy, it will take time, but it’s worth it. Help them, and in time, they’ll start to help you.
• Focus on delivering high quality content and encourage your readers to share it over their social media profiles. Most of your readers are also present on these services. Use that to yuor advantage and build up a network around your reader base.

If you’re interested in maintaining a traffic level based on social media usage, the best results come from loyal network users and readers. They are the one most interested in your content, thus being more willing to submit, re-share and vote on it. So, the majority of the incoming traffic will not be based on your own submissions, but on submissions of your content, made by users in your network.

2. Commenting on Other Blogs

This is one of those tactics that can have either positive or negative effects, all depending on how you apply your strategy.

Of course, the first thing you need to do is to focus on your niche. Commenting on high traffic blogs, may not always turn out to be efficient, due to the high number of comments they receive. In this situation, your comment might get lost in between many more other comments.

Still, you have two options to make you comment stand out (best results being delivered when combined):

1. Be among the first to comment;
2. Have a strong opinion on the matter and express it in larger comment. The majority of comments that high traffic blogs received are those “Great post!” or “Thanks for the tips!” type of comments. A more elaborate opinion is bound to stand out between those.

High traffic blogs are not always the best solution. Readers are constantly on the lookout for new blogs, written by not-so-famous individuals with fresh ideas and fresh content. By commenting on these blogs you expose your self to a whole new audience, an audience eager to discover new things and easier to engage in communication and to attract to your blog.

Do not over-promote your blog through your comments. Allow the community to base its decision on the quality of your opinions. If it’s top notch, they’ll want to click you name and thus visit your blog.

Also, one time comments will have no positive effect. Actually, they’ll have no effect at all. Why? Because making a user click you link is a matter of trust, and trust is not gained with one comment. Make a habit of commenting on those blogs from time to time, in order to gain their audience’s trust.

The negative effects of a commenting strategy come from poor quality comment repeated over long periods of time. This will affect both your online image – your brand – and your schedule, as you’re wasting time that you should dedicate to research and publishing.

I recommend that you read this excellent post on how to develop and maintain a good commenting strategy, by Caroline Middlebrook.

3. Networking With Other Bloggers

Link to other blogs. Email other bloggers. Subscribe to their social media profiles. Comment on their blogs. I’m sure you’ve read all these tips. But, do they actually work? Or, better said, in which conditions do they actually deliver results?

Linking it’s nice. It’s a sign of blogger appreciation. But to be true, linking can develop into a relationship only if it’s a repetitive process. You have to be ready to put out a lot of links to the same blog. Would you do that?

Commenting works too, but mostly on small sized blogs. Only because you risk being one of the 200 hundred people using the same commenting strategy, when it comes to big blogs. You’ll only be a small fish in a big sea, trying to generate some waves. It’s hard.

Following bloggers on social media could work too, but again, it they are high profile bloggers, chances are you’ll be just one of another 2000 or more followers. no much of an exposure there, right?

So, we’re left with emails. Networking through emails has its own set of rules, that most people tend to ignore.

I’ve been getting non-spam emails on my private address (which contains my real name) starting with: “Hi Blogsessive”. Is it really that hard to use the name? That’s a mistake that many people make.

Also, I’ve been getting emails being asked to read a certain post, or exchange links with different blogs, based on this sentence “I’ve been a long time reader of Blogsessive.” OK, that’s cool, and thank you for that. Sometimes, I’ll take time to read those posts, sometimes I won’t. But surely not because I’ve got an email from someone claiming he/she is an avid reader, that I’ve never even seen commenting on the blog.

My readers can confirm that their emails are responded, mostly quite fast. But the ones that get responded have the decency of reading my about page, using my name, not asking me to do things in exchange for their loyalty. Networking is not “emotional blackmailing”.

The best way to network with a blogger is to be the first to offer help, instead of asking for. I can assure you that help will come back 10 times more quick and efficient. Also, try and build a strategy by combining most of these networking tactics to support your main networking strategy.

Over to You

As I said before, these are things I had to learn in time from experimenting. From making mistakes and fixing them. You’ve certainly been in the same position, so I’d love to read your opinion on the above matters and how you’ve dealt with similar situations and blog tactics.

And remember that everything you do contributes to your online image, you brand.

Photo credits to Rodolfo Clix & channah.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Over the years, experience has thought bloggers how to define their online personality, writing skills and furthermore use these skills to help less-experienced bloggers evolve. This is a hand-picked collection of the best blogging tips from the world’s top bloggers.

From ‘Lorelle on WordPress’

“Bloggers love to have other bloggers link to their sites”
Lorelle looks at linking as a strategy. Not only a strategy to exchange links and increase traffic, but as a strategy to reach people and build relationships. In the long run, this strategy would bring more traffic to your blog than those shameless self-promoting comments and posts!

“Give without expectation of return”
From Lorelle’s point of view, linking or positive writing about someone / something else should be done without expecting positive feedback, comments or backlinks. Write or link only because you like that someone, or their articles and don’t ask to get the same in return. It’s not a negotiation!

From ‘Problogger’

“Prove yourself first”
Darren Rowse, the man behind Problogger.com comments on how to build a good reputation inside a network. “There’s nothing more frustrating that networking with someone who disappears a couple of weeks later”, says Darren. The best thing you can do is to prove that you’re here to stay. Be constant and contribute to the network!

“Give your best content away”
If you want to build a solid base of readers, there is nothing better than constantly providing great content. Don’t save your best posts for later, or it might be too late. “The best way [...] to convince people that you’ll write great content in future is to show them great content now”, says Darren.

From ‘Copyblogger’

“Taking time to think”
While many wish to become successful bloggers, only a few manage to do so. Why? James Chartrand has found the secret key: “we don’t take the time”. In his opinion, the best thing you can do when writing a new article is to sit down and think about every possible way to present the story, as well as taking time to find the best informational resources.

“Personal branding”
“The key to effectively building your profile is the value you provide to others and what they say in result, not what you say about yourself”, stated Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger.

More blogging tips…

Next week, in the second part of this series, Blogsessive will bring you more high-quality blogging tips from the world’s top bloggers. Stay tuned!

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive