How to be a rockstar blogger – part 6

Share Your Space & Build a Community

If I want to feel comfortable I tend to go where there are other people just like me. That way I won’t stand out so much or feel as if I am too obvious. The Rockstar Blogger understands this implicitly, they don’t need to have it explained to them and they respond to this intrinsic human need to connect with their tribe in a variety of ways.

Firstly, they will create content that is accessible to everyone and secondly they will invite other people, ‘just like you’ to contribute on a regular basis too. By doing this they are demonstrating that anyone can do what they are talking about, thereby removing one of the psychological blocks that people put in their own way by thinking, ‘I can’t possibly do that’.

You can achieve this in many different ways and I use several in my two blogs. On my blog, I regularly host fellow authors to share my space and introduce themselves to a brand new audience. This isn’t a traditional author interview, it’s a slightly sideways look at what makes this author unique, giving them a chance to showcase themselves as well as their book.

When I ran the Hysterectomy Association, I achieved it by giving the women a voice; they shared their highs and their lows on the forum and in the comments on posts I’d written. In fact, if I changed things around too much there was uproar and I would have complaints flooding in – the community had claimed the space as their own and I loved it. I also gave them a chance to share their story, in their own words, through a simple form they could fill in. I never guaranteed to use every story that was shared but I did like to use most of them. The best compliment anyone can pay me was to say that I helped them not to feel so alone, and even now three years on I still receive such messages from my audience, many of whom have been with me for decades.

You can share your space in other ways too. For instance, you could include videos, podcasts or images from others who are at the top of your field; you could invite people to write guest blog posts or to contribute on a more regular basis as well. I used to write for a national networking blog every couple of months or so as one of twelve guest contributors, this gave me exposure I wouldn’t otherwise have received and encouraged people to come and say hello in a different space.

Build a community

Once you have your blog or community up and running you will create information in a variety of formats that people will find eventually, either by recommendation or by searching online. Once they get to your space it behoves you to behave yourself. If they leave a comment and you are moderating them, post it as soon as possible and then say ‘thank you’.

If they have left you a web address, go and pay them a visit (as long as it’s not spam!) and say ‘hello’ back. Keep up with the information they are posting, ask questions about what they would like to see – they may or may not reply but at least you’ve given them the opportunity to do so.

Give away your best content, not just good or quality information, but the best you can produce. Trust me, there is nothing you can say which hasn’t already been said by someone else so don’t keep the ‘secrets’ back; there are no secrets.

If you are writing and sharing really great content, word will spread. Slowly at first but it will gather pace soon enough. Your visitors will tell those they come across who are also looking for the same information; the search engines will love it and you could find yourself sitting at the top of results relating to your subject very quickly.

Please though, don’t give away content that is badly dressed as an advertorial. We see them in the press and skim over them so we’ll recognise them when they come at us in a community space.

One of the fastest ways to build a community is to go out and find other people who are writing, sharing information and content about the same subjects you are interested in. You will pick some of these up through some social networks if you use them, you might spot others through journals and online articles you happen across.

If you are on WordPress.com you can also use the tags that are added to posts to find other posts that have been tagged with the same words. Finally, there’s Freshly Pressed which is a showcase of really great posts that the guys at Automattic (they own WordPress) like too.