The next post in the b5media 12 Days of Christmas Series (I’m keeping a full list of posts there now) has been submitted by Christina Jones, another of our newly merged blogs fom the About Weblogs Network. Christina blogs for us at eBeautyDaily and the Birthday Blog (which will be merged over onto it’s new domain and design shortly). Here’s Christina’s tip on Getting Personal on your Blog
Hi there – I am Christina Jones, from eBeautyDaily, and I want to offer my thoughts to you about the importance of getting to know your readers. One of the joys of reading other peoples blogs is getting a glimpse into their lives and their personalities. For some reason, this is always fascinating to us as humans. I have blogs ranging from the very serious to the very informal (with eBeautyDaily falling somewhere in between), but in all of them, you can see a personal part of me. I try to write from the heart rather than from the wallet. Without the heart, you might as well be writing a press release.
As a Problogger it can be beneficial to you to encourage your readers to interact with you and express their feelings about your topics so that you can gear your writing and your advertising towards things that they might be interested in. I believe this is the reason that blogs have become so very popular as a method of building a business, and as stand alone businesses themselves. Two things that I can’t stand to see on a blog are a lack of ability to leave comments, and no contact information. These are the very first steps to getting personal with your readers – without them I immediately wonder if I can trust any of the information I am reading, and I usually never return to the blog.
Yes, I know, you will get some spam. There are dozens of scripts to cloak your email address that you can look into, and most blogging platforms have options or plugins that can stop comment spam from overtaking your blog. The few moments of time tending your blog comments are nothing compared to the benefits you will receive from interacting with your readers. Also, don’t slack on responding to your comments, this is the interactive part of blogging, and what makes blogging so much fun. This is also the place where you can really reveal your personality, especially if you are blogging about more serious subjects. And don’t forget to thank your readers for reading occasionally. Ideally you are building a community, and if they don’t believe that you care about them, they might forget to care about you.
I hope you have a joyful holiday season, and thanks for reading!
