The Reader Appreciation Project

Did it ever happen that you had something so important to say, that you felt the urge to go comment about it on other blogs, even though they were not at all related to your issue, only to direct people’s attention towards yourself?

If you did, then welcome to the world of trolls! Maybe we all want a bit more attention from time to time, but this does not mean that we have to intrude in other people’s lives (or blogs) and become a real plague in our desire to capture some audience. There are other ways to get people to listen to you than behaving like a little, dirty troll.

Trolls can be existing members of a community that contribute no useful information to the topics, but instead make argumentative comments in an attempt to discredit another person. They concentrate almost exclusively on facts irrelevant to the point of the conversation, with the intent of provoking a reaction from others. Read more…

How did you get to read this article?

• If you are new to this site and you care for your readers, then you have landed in the most appropriate place, because here “it’s all about the readers”.
• If you are new here, but you don’t give a damn about your readers, again this is a good place to see the importance of fulfilling the promises you make to readers, or to find out how it feels to be lost in the conversation. If you are not so convinced readers matter, then please take a look to see what this Readers Appreciation Project is all about. And be aware that traffic consists of readers, adding up one at a time.
• If you are a regular reader (thank you very much), then you know by now that this is the second article of the mini series Increasing Readership and Community, following up The Six Shapes And Colors Of Blog Readers.

Do you keep the dialogue alive?

Back on topic, let’s see if and how we can get the lurkers involve in the conversation and become loyal readers. Read more…

This is the first post of a mini series aiming to help you get more loyal readers and increase your community.

You are a blogger. Chances are you employ some statistics programs on your blog. So, you must know by now that there are people reading it. If it happens that you use FeedBurner (or something similar), you are aware that some of those people are loyal readers.

You may be satisfied with the knowledge you get from such programs. However, there is another kind of classification which could help you adjust your writing according to the category of readers you wish to target.

1. The Lurker

The lurker is the quiet reader of your blog. Interested in the topics you write about, he comes back often (maybe he bookmarked your site). He seeks and maybe follows your advice, but he seldom leaves a comment.

Possible lurker profiles:

• Beginner bloggers, looking for tips on how to run a blog, overwhelmed by the huge quantity of information available, not perceiving yet that there is a dialog going on out there.
• People from outside the blogosphere who find your site interesting and keep on coming back, but do not know they are allowed (and even encouraged) to leave comments.
• Advanced bloggers (is this where the “A” may be coming from?), in search of interesting material for their blogs, busy and focused to get the latest news before others do.
• Stumblers (a.k.a. StumbleUpon members), who press a button and abandon themselves to the odds that bring them food for their thoughts. Usually they don’t even stop by enough to read a full post (not to mention commenting). However, if something on your page attracts their interest, they would bookmark you, give you a thumb up or even write a review about your site.

Read more…