Building community on your blog is a vital part of any blogger’s success. Whether you’re business blogging or a solo-professional blogging to build authority and credibility, how you facilitate your readers’ ability to form a community on your blog is very important. There are many ways to build community on a blog, this week will cover some basic feature sets that will help you engage your readers and help them build community around your expertise and contributions.
photo credit: ArtemFinland
Embrace Comments to Build Community
One of the easiest ways you can help facilitate community on your blog, is through the commenting that happens on your blog. First and foremost, be an active comment responder – don’t ever let a day go by that you are not responding (with value) to the comments people post on your blog.
The best feature for blog comments is you! Your input, your gratitude, and your appreciation that someone took the time to let you know their feedback.
Yes, you will get tons of bogus, building links only comments and you might even have to deal with negative comments from time to time — but for the most part, your participation in the comments that do occur, can be the MOST IMPORTANT aspect of encouraging comments that lead to discussions that lead to a sense of quality community on your blog.
Secondly, take the conversation you have with each and every commenter off your blog, by contacting them directly. Thank them for their time and feedback, thank them for participating and encourage them to return. This little step can let someone know that you’re actually paying attention and that you truly value their feedback, because you took the time to let them know. Never under estimate the value of the little things on the social web. Because it’s not something that is done too often, you’ll stand out and get their attention in a positive way that has a lasting impression.
A case in point is the first comment I ever left on Liz Strauss’ blog, up to that point, I had never had a successful, buy blogger actually send me an email thanking me for my comment. Her email was the direct contact that led me to subscribing to her blog, then adding her on my Twitter fave peeps list, then leading me back to her blog over and over, because I knew she cared about my feedback.
After all, the woman who runs SOBCon took the time to send me an email, that was profound. Liz has mastered the little things to build one of the best blog communities that exist online today.
The most important part of comments is you and the little things you do to let your readers know you appreciate them.
Blog Comment Tools to Help
Now, before I list my favorite blog commenting tools and additions for Wordpress blogs, let me first say that RULE #1 is to always remember — it’s people first (meaning you and your readers) — technology second. Never in any other order will you find true success in building community on your blog. With that said, there are tools you might want to check out that can help you on your journey to comment heaven.
[Note: These resources are for Wordpress blogs, post a comment if you're looking for other platform tools.]
Top Commentators Plugin
This plugin allows you to add a widget to your sidebar that shows (and provides a backlink to) your most active commentors. Now, in some niches (internet marketing, etc) this might be a great incentive to encourage commentors. In others (as I’ve tested with clients) it really did nothing but bring in SPAM. What works for you will depend on your blog, your audience, and your niche.
Subscribe to Comments Plugin
This plugin allows your commenters to subscribe to the feed of comments on a particular post so that they can get automatic updates when more additions occur in the conversation. This is important a nifty little feature to encourage your readers to return and engage deeper into the discussion.
CommentLuv Plugin
A great plugin to allow your readers to share their latest (or hand-chosen) post from their blog with their comment. One of the keys to encouraging comments is to show that you are collaborative and willing to share the love. This plugin is an easy way to integrate that mindset.
Thank Me Later Plugin
If you are unable to carve in time for personal emails to all blog commenters (say you get way to many to manage), a great plugin to help is the Thank Me Later plugin. It automatically sends an email, that you tailor, to each blog commenter with options that help make the experience more personal for your readers — like being smart enough to recognize a return commenter, being able to schedule when it goes out, and tailoring every aspect of the email.
Recent Comments Plugin
A great way to encourage comments and the interest of your readers, past the post they are on, is to show recent comments. The Recent Comments plugin will allow you to show recent comments and their format as a widget in your sidebar.
@Reply with Comment Preview Plugin
A super groovy plugin that allows you to add @reply Twitter links to comments, including a preview of the comment being replied to. When the link is clicked it adds the author, reply, and link to original comment replying to. A great way to let users interact with Twitter comments linked on your blog.
@Reply w/ Comment Preview Plugin
WP Twitip ID
Great plugin that adds a field to the users comment form for their Twitter ID and actually links to it with no effort on their part but to enter their Twitter username. This originally started on Twitip and is a great way to integrate the activities your readers have on Twitter.
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Remember, you don’t have to have all of these plugins — always, always use what’s best for your blog, your goals, and your audience! After all, those three things are really the only considerations that matter!
Looking forward to connecting with you!
Maria 
This is part one of a 5 part series on how to build a sense of community on your blog.
Part 2: Building Blog Community with Social Media Features
Part 3: Building Blog Community with Social Sharing Features
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