During many of these Blog Exercises I’ve talked about the power of linking across the web, especially with bloggers. This blog exercise is dedicated to helping you make the connection you want and need come true.
Do you have a blogging mentor, a blogger you wish to get to know better, feel a connection with, want to learn more from? Today’s blog exercise is to become that blogger’s new best friend.
This is not the time to turn into a stalker, and best friend is a lot to ask. Your challenge is to become visible to that person, let them know that you know they exist, and that you are proud of their work and participation on the web, and how they give so much of themselves to others, including yourself.
Blog about them. Learn as much as you can about who they are, what they do, and how they do it, and brag on them on your site. Share how their online work has influenced you and your site. Compliment the content they’ve published, the stands they’ve taken, the lives they’ve changed, including your own.
The links to the posts they’ve written will generate trackbacks, an invitation to visit your post about them, to which they should leave a comment thanking you for your kindness and attention.
At this point, you may have their email address. Send a polite private note thanking them for their comment and again telling them, in very few words, how you appreciate what they do and how you are influenced by their work.
If you do not hear back from them, leave it. You’ve done your bloggy etiquette for the month. You’ve said thank you and that’s enough.
If they do respond, see how far the conversation goes. Remember, bloggers are busy. They have full lives, often one or two “day” jobs in addition to friends, family, hobbies, and blogging.
Here are some articles that might help you during this blog exercise:
- Rules on How to Email a Blogger
- I Love It When You Say Nice Things About Me
- Blogging Yourself Into a Job: Is Your Blog Your Resume?
- Building Blog Relationships: Reaching Out
- Linking Relationships
- Building Relationships With Your Most Popular Posts
- Building Blog Relationships: Making a Good First Impression
- Blog Relationships: Fishing With Lures and Bait
- Blog Relationships: Are You Listening To Your Readers?
- The Relationship Conference: Building Blogs Through Interaction
Your blog exercise today is to find a blogger and begin the process of befriending them. It’s relationship building time.
Use the tips above to help you start the process. Know that any time they can stop the process. It’s not an automatic two-way street. Both must benefit from the relationship. Find a way to help them and they will be more willing to help you along the way.
If you blog about this, remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.
You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.
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14 Comments
Thanks for this post! Every once in a while I’ll run across a blog that seems to have a lot in common with mine. Oftentimes, I’ll notice the blogger is an empty-nester, as I am, and since we have sewing in common, I’ll send a note since it seems so many bloggers are mommy bloggers in their 30s. I even ran across a blogger who mentioned in their About Me section that they created their blog for the purpose of meeting other bloggers with like interests and wanted to hear from them. Why is it when I try to make an effort I don’t get an acknowledgment? So frustrating when I read about all these wonderful blogger relationships that are formed.
I’m really enjoying your series and appreciate the time and effort you put in every day!
Ellen
Glad you are enjoying the series, Ellen.
Remember, bloggers are busy people. They have full lives. That’s why you have to keep coming back, assuring them that you aren’t a spammer or one-off visitor. It takes time to get to know these people online.
Start by getting to know bloggers closer to you. There are all types of meetups and social gatherings that bring bloggers together, even like-minded bloggers. Join the local WordPress Meetup Group and attend a WordCamp. There are empty-nester, volunteer, sewing, crafting, and all kinds of groups that gather near you, I’m sure, and some of those will be bloggers. Find them and get to know them personally as well as virtually.
It starts with one. You now know me and I responded, we’re on our way to a relationship. 😀 I sew, have an empty-nest (that keeps filling with family and friends visiting all the time), so we have that in common as well. Never know! Keep trying.
Thanks for the encouraging words, Lorelle. I see there is a Word Camp coming to Grand Rapids, MI. I may just have to see what all the fuss is about! I’m anxiously awaiting the registration information on the website. 🙂
Please let me know how the WordCamp event goes. I sure wish I was going to that one as I have family roots there that I need to spend more time exploring. How wonderful to combine WordPress and Genealogy together…hmmm, maybe next year!
Have too much fun! Meet everyone. Introduce yourself. Ask them about their sites. Ask about how they are using WordPress, what works and doesn’t work for them. Learn, learn, learn! Share and learn more! And report back!
Hi Ellen,
Can you tell me more about WordCamp? Would there be an online version of this event?
WordCamps are annual events that are specific to WordPress fans and experts. They are regional and local events and are open to anyone and the ticket price is very inexpensive for an entire day to weekend event. Ellen has provided a link to the main site for WordCamp information. And you can watch many videos after the event on WordPress.tv. Why not find one local to you and go check it out. You will find many wonderful new friends from all walks of life and business, and all fans WordPress. Thanks.
Here’s a link to the WordCamp site. I haven’t been myself so I really can’t say anything more than what is on the site.
Absolutely. But I am waiting for myself to rise first with blogging so that I can make posts on my website and thank you lovely people.
I still can thank you for your bit in adding to my pool of knowledge about blogging.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Cheers
Thanks for sharing this post and i am trying my best to learn with blogging and to write post like this!
anyway thanks again !!
You are welcome. It is so important that we make bloggy friends to help us through the tough times as well as the good.
Hi Lorelle, I’ve just come across your blog and I must say I am very impressed. I would consider myself an experienced WP user but there’s a whole load of content, and questions you pose, that I would never have thought about. You’ve certainly made me think.
Anyway, on the subject of comments I’d like to add something. I have noticed recently that more sites are emailing me after I have left a comment, thanking me for my comment and offering to help/subscribe to their newsletter/free product, etc. What a great idea! I’m a reasonably experienced blogger/marketer but I found myself subscribing to a couple of newsletters that I wouldn’t have done otherwise. I’ll be implementing the same system across my blogs.
Regards
The automated email “thank you” is a nice idea, and an old one. Well tried, and found lacking by many. There are wiser methods to acknowledging a comment on your site such as responding to the comment.
Some bloggers (not bloggers so much as marketers and sales people using such WordPress Plugins to help generate leads) have reported having their email account marked as spam when commenters, not recognizing the “sincerity” of these automatically generated emails, report these as spam emails. They may work but you must take care and alert those who comment that they may be getting an email thanking them for their comment by adding some text to the submit comment area of the comment form. It’s a bit of an invasion of their private space and inappropriate response, so say those I’ve talked to that have been unhappy with such experiences.
Blog comments are where the conversation should take place. Maybe after two or three comments and a sense of a relationship is established, such an email may be more welcome. Use these tools carefully. People see through them.
It’s a careful path we have to walk when using our sites as lead generators.
And glad you have come to learn so much about WordPress. I can’t believe it’s been only 10 years that WordPress has invaded our lives. It’s been an amazing ride and I look forward to another 10 and more. Did you attend a WordPress Anniversary event on Monday? The one in Portland, Oregon, was a bit low-key but fun to catch up with so many people from within the local WordPress Community. Beautiful cake with the W logo. Nice.
Hi, I just read your article that you mention here – ‘Linking Relationships’ that you wrote in 2007 in Blog Herald. Everything in your article seems to me to be as relevant today as it was then, human nature being human nature.
Just a heads up that the image in the article – a sobcon register badge, I think – is dead.
(By the way, I came here from TimeThief’s article on creating an effective blog description)
Thanks for the nice comments. You are right. Relationships will always be relevant and timeless.
SOBCon, the Successful Online Business Conference, continues to this very day. They just celebrated a big milestone event in Chicago last month. I’ll check the link as we’ve made changes to the site. Thanks for the tip.
And thanks to my dear friend, timethief. She’s amazing!
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