Every blogger has a reason for the time they spend blogging. It could be to express their personal thoughts and opinions, invest in others, or even to build an income. For me personally, it’s about building influence — so I can invest in others. I’m not bashful about saying that. I feel God has called me to invest in the next generation of church leaders and my blog is the front door to that opportunity. The more influence I build through my blog, the more people who read, the more I can fulfill one of God’s calls on my life.
Regardless of the motivation, the reaction every blogger appreciates from his or her reader is the same. All bloggers want to be appreciated for their work, whether an audience is 20 or 200,000 per month.
Here are 7 ways you can show appreciation to your favorite bloggers:
Read it – That’s rather obvious, but one reason bloggers keep track of analytic measures is to track the growth and consistency of readers. When you read a blog, you are paying a blogger the highest compliment. Even bloggers who blog for fun and say that the total number of readers doesn’t matter to them appreciate knowing someone has read what he or she wrote.
Promote it – If you enjoy a blog post, you show appreciation by helping the blogger promote that post. Whether you re-tweet, Stumble, post it on Facebook or forward it in an email, when you pass on the post you are applauding the blogger.
Comment on it – Comments are one of the truest measures of a blog’s impact on readers. It amazes me how engaged some bloggers are with their audience by the number of comments the simplest posts receive. All bloggers who allow comments enjoy reading them. The comments don’t even have to be positive (although they shouldn’t be cruel), but taking the initiative to leave one shows you read the post.
Link to it – The strongest investment you can make in a blogger you enjoy reading is to link to their post or blog on your blog, website or other social media outlet. When one links to a blog it helps build online strength and influence, and helps grow the audience of the blog. If you read the blog daily, linking to it shares that with the rest of the world, which is always appreciated by a blogger.
Implement the thoughts in it – Most bloggers are purposeful in the writing of their posts. When he or she pushes the “publish” button they hope the post will impact someone in some way. Whether the post simply brings a smile to your face or makes you think; or if it inspires you to make changes in how you live your life, if a post or the blog affects you personally, share this with the blogger.
Correct it (gently) – If you see bad links, poor grammar or spelling errors it’s okay to tell the blogger. In fact, it’s appreciated. The best bloggers are blogging frequently and are bound to make some mistakes. Just be gentle. Remember…you like this blogger!
Be loyal to it – Not every post will be a home run. If you like the author, keep reading on a consistent basis, thoroughly digesting the ones that you find the most interesting and skimming the ones that aren’t as appealing. If you enjoy a blog, you further the enjoyment and compliment the author by making sure you never miss a post. The easiest way do this is to add your favorite blogs to an automated reader or email feeder.
That’s some ways you show appreciation to a blogger. These things — that take so little time — keep most bloggers blogging. For those of you reading this blog on a regular basis, or even those who started with this post, thanks for reading. I really do appreciate each of you.
Are you a blogger? Why do you blog? What would you add to my list?
Nice post, great thinking
keep it up bro???
the timing of this post is incredible.
I recently discovered that while I like the blogs and articles of the people I’m interested in.
Twitter and such makes it to easy to miss the forest for the trees. So I just evaluated the. people I “follow” and if available I signed up for email delivery of their blog/ newsletter or general updates.
for me it puts it in a more manageable place, no favorites or bookmarks, or trying to find the article later.
plus it gives me the ” meat and potatoes” of why I was interested in to start with.
Not that the ” personal extras” that come with social media are bad, they’re not, but I’m missing something by just skimming post.
So this article is great, especially for someone like me who is blogs by email exclusive now. Thank you sir
Kramer from Seinfeld wrote a coffee table book about coffee tables…
At work, I recently put together a document about documentation…
And RE has a series of blog posts about blogging, bloggers and blog reading (judging not only from this post, but from the links to related posts)… right on!
Thanks Ron.