The Reader Appreciation Project

There’s no secret that many bloggers measure online success beyond dollars and cents. I suppose that even those ones who are measuring success in money are happy to see that their blog attracts loyal readers.

What does a blogger do after he gets his loyal readers?

Well, a piece of advice which is frequently encountered is to “make a list”. So people follow the trend and make a list out of their readers, either by bribing them into subscribing, or simply by the interesting things they write.

What does a blogger do with his list?

Once the readers are not readers anymore, but “the list”, the blogger starts sending them emails. He has their permission, so he feels free to communicate with his list as frequently as he feels like.

What does a blogger communicate to his list?

This is the sad part of the story: once you turned from reader into “part of a list”, you start getting advice about what is the next thing you need to buy in order to … (to whatever the blog you subscribed to was about), or about how lots of people are so cool and you are not, because you don’t have Y product, or because you haven’t read Z book.

The funniest thing is that most of the times, those bloggers get their offers from affiliate networks, and you find yourself every morning flooded with offers to buy the same product, but from a dozen of guys who all want your attention.

Do you want to be “a list”?

I don’t want to be “a list”, and despise the fact that I receive maybe hundreds of offers every day. I have never bought anything as a consequence of getting those messages. Am I a bad reader because I don’t make those bloggers happy and buy their stuff? Actually it happened only once that I bought something only because I wanted to reward a blogger for his efforts. I already had a cracked version of that stuff, but I felt good when thinking that the guy would smile when he sees that he’s got a commission, consequent to my purchase.

But you know what? That blogger never put me on “a list” and never sent me one email to sell me something.

Do you share my feelings against such lists? Let’s all have our say as readers, maybe internet marketers would end up listening.

While shopping at my local grocery store, I noticed that my store now offers financial services. Within the advertisement is a quotation: “What a great idea!”

When I first saw the advertisement, I just mumbled to myself some expletives and continued my shopping. The quotation reminded me of Sony when they made up a quote from a fake critic. The key word here is fabricated quotes.

Another example of this is at a chain restaurant. The restaurant is hiring, and on the advertisement is the quote, “A great place to work.” I was half expecting an asterisk with some small print adding, “…for some people.”

I suppose the addition of these quotations is just a decent attempt at self-marketing. Adding in these quotes perhaps is trying to reproduce the word-of-mouth effect that works so well. The problem is, I don’t know the people behind the quotes, so I could care less who said what.

The beauty about a blog is that there is usually a decent person behind it. And from this blog, we can get a feel for who you are, what you like, and whether we can trust you.

It’s one thing to have a nameless recommendation, it’s another to have a recommendation from a trusted friend.

I’ll conclude with a quote from Liz Strauss’s transcript from WordCamp:

So if you go to a website, or you’ve got a product, bring your experience to it.

I want to know how you felt using it. I may not feel the same way, but if I’ve been reading you, I can extrapolate from your experience whether I like it or not.

If you’re a friend of mine, I can extrapolate from your taste in music whether I like it or not.

So blog your experience. It makes you more real.

Think about the last time you had excellent service at a restaurant, store, or hotel. What made the service so excellent?

Perhaps it was the small details. The place may have smelled nice. The bathroom was clean. The staff were friendly.

These small details can come back as a negative as well. What about staying in a hotel where the room thermostat didn’t function? Or perhaps Wi-Fi happened to be down that day.

Small details usually only matter when there is something wrong. These small details, however, can make or break what is a good experience.

Blogs are no exception, and paying attention to certain small details can allow your readers to have a good experience on your website. Your readers probably won’t notice, but that is likely a good thing.

1. Turn on Full Feeds

There are many arguments for turning on full feeds. One is from an analytical content standpoint, and the other is from an aggravated reader.

I’ll make it simple: from a reader’s perspective, full feeds need to be on.

One extra thing you can do here is increase the number of posts showing in your feed.

2. Don’t Force Readers to Register to Comment

In the words of Liz Strauss, forcing (yes, I said forcing) readers to login is the equivalent of this analogy:

To me, that’s like putting a sign on the mailbox that says, “Excuse me, please. If you want to deliver mail to me, come up, knock on my door, ring my doorbell, and then wait for me to answer. And maybe I will.”

Again, from a reader’s perspective, there shouldn’t be a required registration to comment. Readers simply don’t have time to register for each blog they want to comment on.

3. Allow Comment Subscriptions

Another easy way to add convenience to readers is to allow readers to subscribe to comments.

If I go to a blog and leave a comment, I’d like to know if somebody replied. Typically if a blog doesn’t have a way to subscribe, I won’t be back. It’s nothing personal, but there are too many blogs to keep track of.

For WordPress users, there is the invaluable Subscribe to Comments plugin, which easily allows readers to receive e-mails whenever there are additional comments.

4. Remove that CAPTCHA

From a blogger’s perspective, CAPTCHAs can seem necessary. Many are overwhelmed with spam, and CAPTCHAs are a quick way to stop spam in its tracks.

However, CAPTCHAs are often defeated, and accessibility takes a nose dive.

One thing I’ve been trying out here is a WordPress Plugin called WP-SpamFree. The plugin has actually worked quite well when used in conjunction with Akismet. And the best part is, no CAPTCHA.

5…

Here’s where you come in. As a reader, what conveniences you when visiting a blog?

What lacking feature causes you to scream into the heavens, “WHY???!!!”

Unbeknownst to me, April 16th was Reader Appreciation Day. Last year we held something rather similar, which was Reader Appreciation Week (this year’s has yet to be scheduled).

I’d like to highlight several of the posts I found around this Blogger Reader Appreciation Day (
BRAD?) as an example of reader appreciation.

Readers Provide a Connection

Lori Hahn expresses her reasons for celebrating reader appreciation day.

Somehow, with some of you, I’ve felt as though I’ve become part of your lives in some small way. I revel in your own triumphs and successes and bemoan your upsets and setbacks. I know a piece of you and don’t even know the names of my next door neighbors. It’s not that I don’t want to know my neighbors – okay, I really don’t want to know my neighbors, have you met them? I like spending my time with people who connect with me like I connect with them.

Appreciate Through a Video

Christine Swint shares a video blog of her reader appreciation.

Readers Provide That Foundation…

Shakadoo gets why readers matter:

A lot of bloggers would blog for free (and most of us do blog for free), but without people reading it then the whole process and point of blogging is meaningless.

Appreciate Through Prizes and Gratitude

Long Relationships announces some prizes that were given away for their celebration of Reader Appreciation Day.

Spirituality Guide shows an example of gratitude towards readers:

I am a big fan of gratitude and I think it is something many of us don’t have enough of and a state of being many of us don’t spend enough time in. It is truly amazing how much gratitude, even in the simple gesture of saying ‘thank you’, can make another person’s day that much better.

Reader Appreciation Day Conclusion

I think it’s fantastic that a group of bloggers took it upon themselves to appreciate readers. And quite likely, it was independent of this project, which is even a better sign that all is not lost in the blogosphere.

As for our own Reader Appreciation Week… any suggestions on a date?

Today is Earth Day 2008. I’ve seen it celebrated at first in Google (and I didn’t get the reason for shaping letters like trees) and later on, in many blogs who wrote about it, or celebrated it by changing their usual header to a “greener” one.

Have you thought that the more readers we can get, the better the Earth can become? Do you remember, in the age before internet, how many books were you buying and reading every year? Hard copy books are eating the forest. Printing houses are polluting (I never understood how printing house workers don’t faint because of the smell inside). Or how many newspapers you used to read and send to the garbage the next day. Other trees, other forests gone for good.

The better a blog is, the most readers it attracts, the more trees are saved, simply because those readers take from their books reading time, in order to read your blogs. The days have still 24 hours each, while the things we want to do in those 24 hours are maybe ten times more. The result? We cut on books reading time, then we buy less and less books, as the ones we’ve already bought over the past five years are still waiting to be read.

How is it? Can you believe that your blogging can save a few trees every year?

One of the techniques to get readers to comment is to ask a question at the end of the post. This doesn’t work every time, however.

While going over Liz Strauss’s transcript, I came across yet another ounce of wisdom. Sometimes, the readers don’t respond because they don’t know how to answer the question.

So why not show ‘em? Just jump right out of the blog post and go in the comment box and answer it. Here’s my answer. Here’s the way I would answer this. This is what I would say.

I’ve been experimenting with this a bit here and I have to say that so far it’s worked out fairly well. So if you see me as the first comment to my own post, you know what I’m up to .

But Liz brings up an good point. Sometimes the questions we pose at the end of our posts are vague. Sometimes (and I’ll be honest here), we don’t really care what others think, but we still want to invite them in to have their say.

Liz says she she spends more time on her ending question than on the rest of her post. Don’t take my word for it:

I spend more time on my ending question than almost any other part of my blog post. And the time I spend is like writing the question and going, “Ok, how would I answer it?”

I can sum up the genius Liz Strauss advice into three steps:

1. Spend a generous amount of time on your end question.
2. Ask a question you would answer.
3. Then, answer it.

As Liz puts it, why wait for the readers? You can comment first and lead by example.

I just spent an amazing two hours listening to Jeffr0 and Lorelle talk about WordPress on WordPress Weekly.

If you are able (and have a few hours of spare time), please listen to the podcast below:

I quit!

Ok, not really. But how many times have you told yourself that when it comes to blogging?

If you’ve been in the blogging game long enough, you probably know quite a few bloggers who have quit.

Some quit because:

• Subscribers weren’t growing
• Traffic wasn’t increasing
• No money was coming in
• Their page rank took a hit or was too low
• Their site was blacklisted by Google
• They received too many negative comments
• They didn’t receive enough comments
• They were burnt out
• They were too busy (school, work)
• They had personal obligations (child, spouse, parents)
• And more…

Within the past two weeks I’ve read a few posts that I consider rather thought-provoking. One was about a blogger’s responsibility to the readers, and the other was about blogging pains. Both expressed confusion for what the future held for their blog and their readership. And believe me, I share the same thoughts constantly.

And confusion over the future, or lack of purpose, is intimidating. Even Lorelle VanFossen says it’s a good reason to stop blogging:

Stop blogging if you don’t have a purpose: Honestly, you don’t have to blog if you don’t want to, and if you don’t know what to blog about, don’t. If your blog has no purpose, stop blogging.

You can probably relate to Lorelle’s quote. It’s hard to find purpose on a blog. And it’s demoralizing when a purpose can’t be found.

While at WordCamp, one phrase from Liz Strauss was a huge motivator. The phrase? “They come for you.”

You are the one unique value on your blog.

The information is everywhere. But you are the one who molds it, shapes it, and brings your experience to it.

As Liz puts it, readers come to a blog to read your stuff. And if it’s a multi-author blog such as this one, readers come for your writing, and perhaps others’.

Because, as Liz puts it, “Information — straight, clear information — is all over the Internet. But you aren’t.”

Conclusion

People will quit blogging. It’s a fact of life. Some blogs have just run their course.

But for those questioning why they should keep going, perhaps it’s for those readers that are coming just for you.

I’ve thought about quitting many times. But it’s often the readers that keep me going.

When we talk about Reader Appreciation we generally mean appreciating the people who read, and comment, on our own blogs. In much the same way as a parent knows his or her child to be gifted, I am sure we all consider our own readers to be intelligent, personable, and much like ourselves, but what about the readers of other blogs?

The Bad

I’ve lost count of the number of sites I have stopped visiting because of the readers. I’m sure you can think of several sites off the top of your head where the readers routinely indulge in OS flame wars, sexism, racism, stupidity, or are generally unable to string together enough words to form a cohesive, or rational, argument.

So if readers can make such a negative difference can they also make a positive difference and turn their comments into an essential part of a site? I think they can, and I have a site in mind.

The Good

I am a big fan of Formula 1 motor racing. I never miss a race or a qualifying session, and there is so much to discuss that I talk about it, read about it, or think about it every day. A significant amount of this discussion happens at F1 Fanatic

When you open your feed list I imagine you do the same thing as I do: go straight to your favourite blogs and check out their content, leaving the rest for later, or at least after you have read the favourites. Am I right?

With F1 Fanatic, however, I found that I actually lose out by doing this.

If I come to a post late in the day I find between ten and twenty comments featuring extra thoughts, more information, and different viewpoints. If I get there first I miss all of that. The readers provide so much added value that it is better to wait.

For me this blog stands out for me as a prime example of how a blogger and their readers can work together to create something larger than the sum of its parts, how great the conversation with a blogger can be, and how a reader focussed blog can prosper.

The Contributory

Blog communities like these probably owe as much to the blogger for fostering the relationship as they do to the readers for coming back and commenting in the spirit that was intended. It may be that this is the natural result of great content, a great subject, and great reader appreciation.

As a reader in these communities, which sites do you value more because of the contributions of other readers? How much of this effect do you think is down to the blogger, and how much to the reader? And do you think it is possible for a blogger to achieve this without appreciating his readers?

As I read ProBlogger once in a few weeks or so, I found out about the Blogger Appreciation Day directly from bloggers who linked to my blog on April 13th or 14th as a sign of appreciation. The funniest thing is that they diverted a bit from the purpose of this celebration, and appreciated those bloggers for being readers rather than for being bloggers.

Nevertheless, appreciation is supposed to make people feel good, isn’t it?

Most of the times, it works that way. But, as in my case here, it can make you feel a bit embarrassed. The reason I felt that way was that I haven’t visited those two blogs since a couple of months ago and now they were appreciating me as a reader.

So, the reader appreciation resulted in getting one reader back, acting like a boomerang. For myself, and probably for many other readers. And because I didn’t stop reading those blogs on purpose, but I just got caught in some projects, you can be sure that at least for a while I’ll remember to check on those two blogs every other day and become again the reader they used to like. And this was due to one single reminder link.

Can you see how powerful linking to your readers’ blogs from time to time can be? How often do you remember to link to them?