Blogging

How to Build a Community Around Your Blog – [4 Ways]

build a community

Build a community around your blog. Gently push readers to comment on your blog. blah blah blah.

Have you heard all that?

Me too.

So, I’ll skip past the cliché, and get to the good stuff that really works.

Not too fast. Let’s take 12 seconds to understand the blog community.

What really is a blog community?

It’s a bunch of loyal readers that discovered profound solutions, sincerity, and dedication in your content, and therefore, they become the regular readers of your blog.

Notice something important here: they show up on a regular basis isn’t the point, in fact, they trust you with your ideas and suggestions, is what matters.

So, how can you build that sort of community?

I’m going to share what exactly I’m doing to make that happen.

I’m grateful to all readers and subscribers who support my blog and take my point of view seriously.

Here are the things you should do to build a community around your blog:

#1: Comment on your commenters’ blogs

You got to reciprocate the favor. Someone is actually taking some time out to read your content and being kind enough to write down a few nice words about your blog post, you have to do this.

commenting-on-commenters-blogs

It does build a connection with the other blogger when he or she thinks that you care about the other person.

I literally take comments seriously — in fact, I do my best to help out the people who comment on my blog. You’ll see me writing in-depth comments; it shows that you genuinely believe in giving something away.

Moreover, if you’re being someone who doesn’t read the blog post properly and just pushing the words to leave the name and link on someone else’s blog, then it’s not cool.

Seriously, though!

Anybody can skim through the post and make a comment about it.

But when you genuinely read the blog post, and sit back to leave your feedback, it does make an impact.

This is it. I’m sharing it with you. It’s on the table, pick it or walk away.

#2: Share useful content in your Facebook group

First off, build a Facebook group. It’s super important. Don’t be so aggressive with that. You don’t need 300 Facebook groups of your own. Just start patiently with the one related to your blog.

Secondly, invite people to your group. Ask your friends to join in.

Add people with their permission.

And, more important, I won’t invite or add people to the group who have no interest in blogging, neither should you.

Once you see a few faces around in the group; start sharing the content that helps the community. People initially go after setting group rules, which I won’t do, because I would let the community evolve a bit. Another mistake people make in the beginning is that they restrict blog post sharing, which kills the interest of the members who are newbie bloggers.

Make a simple pinned note that which type of blog posts members can share in the group.

Furthermore, it’s about doing the real communication rather than hanging notes everywhere in the group. Talk to people in the comments; discuss what should be done; listen to their advice, then you’ll see the community would start to become a great place to hangout.

I share others’ blog posts in my Facebook group all the time. The group is called ‘Bloggers‘.

Share-useful-content-in-Facebook-group

I recently shared Sue Dunlevie‘s blog post in that group. Whenever I read a useful blog post, I try to share in that group, and the members really appreciate that.

#3: Share the best content in your niche

Whenever you stumble upon the best content from your friend bloggers and experts in your niche, go share on Twitter and Facebook. Do mention them along with it. I don’t recommend tagging, though. I don’t hate when my friends tag me on Facebook just to let me know about the awesome blog posts. I don’t tag people but rather mention them. It’s gentle and sophisticated. And, above of all, it’s a nice way to put those bloggers in front of your friends and following. It sends a real kind message across. Do it.

share-the-best-content-in-your-niche

I often share content from bloggers I never interacted with. I happen to follow a lot of top bloggers who perhaps don’t know me much, but I love sharing useful content with my audience. That’s it.

#4: Engage with others’ live video

One of the best tips I could ever give on building a community around your blog is to engage with your friend bloggers while they’re live on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or Periscope. There are many perks of doing that:

  • They appreciate that you’re taking your time out to join them
  • It helps them make their live stream successful
  • Your engagement puts you in front of other people
  • It strengthens your relation with friend bloggers who are live streaming

The upside of the doing so is that you also introduce yourself to a bunch of new faces that could potentially check out your blog someday — once they do, they might recall you that you’re friends with their friend. It does nothing but solidifies the community you’re trying to build around your blog.

For example, I try to join Ryan Biddulph‘s Facebook live stream whenever I come across it.

engage-with-others-live-video

I also try to catch up on other Pro-bloggers’ live streams. Not everyone does live streaming on the internet, though, but you should start looking at the live streams from bloggers you’re connected with. Maybe, you should activate the notification from their live stream, so that whenever they go live, you get the notification on Facebook instantaneously.

Let’s Wrap up

I shared the snippets of a few things that I learned along the way.

I’m pretty sure there is a lot more to be talked about on this topic.

Perhaps, my blogger friends would step up in the comment section and share their views on building a community, later on. After all, we’re talking about the community here.

Moreover, if you ever did something fascinating about building a community around your website or blog, please feel free to share your experience with us.

I’ll see you in the comments section.

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13 Comments

  1. Wow, sir . Such great helpful blog. Your Blog is helping newbies likes us to learn and earn from online marketing. Keep it up

  2. creating groups and pages in Facebook will be really great to create or build a community, where you can share content related to same topic…videos might be tough to create and make friends…great post buddy…!!!

    1. Hi, Arvind!
      I won’t compare Pages to Groups. Both are different things. They play out differently. The group is more of a community thing.

      Secondly, I discussed the engagement in the live video of other bloggers. It doesn’t necessarily mean everyone should start a live video. Although, it’s super important these days if you want to crush it on social media.

      Thanks for the comment.

  3. Hi Hassaan,

    Excellent advice dude and thanks for the shout out too 😉 You are always there, like every time I create a live video on Facebook. Sleep is not in your schedule LOL because I know it must be late over there when I go Live with these videos. Well done! You are indeed all over which is why you have a thriving community and prospering business.

    Ryan

    1. Hi, Ryan!

      Thanks for stopping by.

      You’re welcome. I love to feature your example in my content. As far as your live video is concerned, it’s my go-to resource to learn a thing or two. Unfortunately, I couldn’t join you this week, but hopefully, I’ll catch you live very soon.

      Keep up the good work!

  4. Blog commenting is an interesting point Hassaan, I am trying to learn this and use it to steadily increase my community. I have noticed that it a good way to make some friends and it creates a positive circle of reciprocity. It is also very possible that you may find genuine and long term friends in this exercise.

    1. Blog commenting is a great strategy, but we need to be careful. A lot of people use it the wrong way. I believe it requires more giving than taking.

      I’m glad you came over and left a comment.

      THANK YOU!

  5. Hello, Hassaan bhai!

    A comment is a blessing.

    And I am not so good at it…

    I do comment on other blogs but so missing on replying to the comments I get on my posts…

    Comment is the best thing that introduced me with the great bloggers like you! And I seriously have to take the firm step in replying back to each and everyone.

    Sharing is the giving. And it so works great.

    You have to make a mention of the blogger so that he’s actually notified you shared as well as jumpstart the relationship if that person is new to you.

    After all, we have to virtually expand our relations with the people working in our niche.

    And that’s so awesome that you hop onto the live video by Ryan! I do try my best to get on his live session as well. 🙂

    Giving is the key! Try it to its maximum and reap the fruits!

    Great content you have for us, Hassaan bhai!

    ~ Adeel

    1. Adeel Sir,

      I learned the social interaction and communication from you. The way you do networking with the bloggers around the world is exemplary.

      I would say that you must try to reply to all comments. Not only does it strengthens the relation but it also gives out the impression that the blogger responds to the people.

      Thank you so much for responding to my blog post.

  6. Big thanks to sharing such nice post.
    I would like to ask you, please visit my website thehotskills.com and take a look overall website.

    The problem is that I’m trying the make all possible engagements with readers through social media and other marking sources but I’m not getting that much traffic as much I’m expecting.

    I’m a web designer by profession and also blogging from last few months. Maybe I’m making mistakes but not sure where.

    Could you please help me out?

    Many thanks,
    Rajinder

    1. Hi, Rajinder!

      I’ll check out your site.

      Let me know how you found out about your blog.

      Thanks for the comment!

      1. Hi Hassaan,

        My most trusted and the favorite tool to check out my blog performance is Google Webmaster Tool and I’m also using Semrush. With these tools, I can see that how much traffic I’m getting from social media and others.

        My another question is, how I can get noticed on social media?

        Many thanks?
        Rajinder

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