10 tips for transforming your blog into a community

Blogging is a lot more enjoyable when you interact with other people. Those people may be bloggers too, but they don't have to be. There are some really simple ways to significantly enhance the community aspect of your blog - and it's not all about installing loads of new software. Allow me to explain.

1. Ask questions.

Your views aren't the be all and end all. Accept this, and invite your readers to comment by ask questions at the end of your post. Great questions will push people to air their dirty laundry - or maybe just their thoughts. Feedback is a good thing - just be ready for disagreement. My favourite comments are the ones that make me think of something I hadn't even considered. They can be very enlightening.

2. Reply to comments.

A blogger writes a post. Other people add comments. Where's the discussion? Although I don't reply to every comment, I do try to reply to every comment if I feel it's necessary to do so. In some cases, other people reply to each other, but I think it's important to establish an ongoing dialogue between writer and reader. This is the beauty of blogging: you get a far greater degree of interactivity that you don't get from printed media, such as newspapers or books. Take advantage of it. Ignoring comments is akin to talking to your friends, then walking off as soon as they reply.

3. Comment on other blogs.

This tip is pushed by a lot of other bloggers, but they don't really tell you how to go about it. When you're getting started, you'll need to look around for blogs that interest you, and post comments if you have something to say. As you start to attract comments on your own blog, you'll see that other bloggers will usually include their URL. Go and look at their blog.
If someone takes the time to comment on my blog, I don't feel obligated to comment on theirs in return, but I do feel that I should at least visit their blog to see if I like it. If I comment on a post, that person is a lot less likely to be a one-off commenter on my blog. It's not all about me and my blog - it's about establishing a connection, then keeping that interactivity going.
It's like making a new friend, then arranging to meet up with them every so often. Commenting on someone's blog is a method of creating dialogue between two people, and can be the basis for a great friendship. It's nice when it goes that way.

4. Follow your commenters on Twitter.

Once I've gone to one of your blogs, I'll look around to see if you have a Twitter profile. if you do, I'll check it out. I don't follow everyone - and unfortunately I've only recently started clicking through to the Twitter profiles of my readers - so I may have missed a few.
If I see a profile that only has links to your latest posts with no conversation, or your latest Twitter posts are full of affiliate links, I probably won't follow you. I like to follow people who I can actually connect with.

5. Use comments to write new posts.

Did someone write a really thoughtful comment on your blog? Do you think your reply would be fairly lengthy? Or would it be of interest to your readers?
This is a perfect opportunity to write a new blog post. Sometimes, people give me a new post idea when I specifically ask for ideas - but it's much more common for me to read a comment and have a sudden brainwave.
If you do this, remember to thank the person who gave you the idea.

6. Link to the forums you use.

I'm not going to suggest you should run a forum as part of your blog. Forums take an incredible amount of effort along with a lot of dedicated participants before they can even start to take off. You then need to sustain the effort. I've seen a lot of people try and set up their own forum, and it's rare to find someone who's set up a forum that's still active after more than a few months.
With that in mind, I suggest you join one or two forums and get your friends to come along too, instead of trying to set up your own forum. Blogging takes a lot of dedication - forums are probably even harder, as there's this bizarre notion that forums aren't worth using anymore. With the right group of people, they're absolutely awesome - but very, very few people can get a forum off the ground. I'll follow my own advice and recommend the CMF Ads forums, which I run with a few other bloggers. We'd love to see you there.

7. Thank people for comments.

Replying to comments is important, but sometimes you don't have anything to say. In that case, it's wise to thank your first-time commenters for stopping by - the long-term readers will probably have got into a discussion with you by now (if not - do something about that!). The first-time commenters are the ones who may post once and then never come back. So take a moment to thank them.
But whatever you do, don't use an automated note. It's horribly impersonal, and smacks of laziness. If you can't keep up with all your new commenters, you could link to a comment policy that explains you can't possibly thank everyone for their comments, but you read and value them all.

8. Run a poll.

Sometimes it's good to simply throw a question out there and see what people have to say. This can be excellent fodder for a future post. What should you ask? Well, that's totally up to you :) It's not essential to use a poll plugin, although it may help to view the results. I prefer to ask a question and read what people have to say, than worry too much about how many people said what. The numbers aren't all that meaningful unless you have a huge readership.

9. Ask offline friends to participate.

These days, my online and offline worlds collide much more heavily than they used to. I've heard some people saying they'd rather not do this, but for me it makes the world a much more vibrant and enjoyable place to be.
Getting your "real life" (i.e. offline) friends to comment on your blog can lead to some very interesting discussions - of course, it depends what you're writing about, but I think it's easier to market your blog to people you already know, assuming you write things that would be of interest to them. For instance, I work with 20 or 30 other developers, some of whom are interested in blogging. I can either show them my blogging tips, or show them my web development blog.
If you don't know anyone who would want to read your blog, who are you writing for? Do it for yourself first - but don't isolate yourself.

10. Use "Subscribe to comments".

Every time I comment on someone's blog, I hope to find a checkbox that says "subscribe to comments" or something similar. Without it, I won't remember to check back if someone replies to me. Allowing people to subscribe to comments on your posts ensures that some people will come back. They won't always comment for a second time, but if they don't know that someone replied to them, they may never comment on the same post twice. Give people an easy way to come back.

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