There is often:

o too much focus on features and technology – whilst these can be interesting and relevant, they’re not the driving force of a vibrant blog community

o lack of focus on how to get new visitors/members and get dialogue going – again, too much focus on the shape of the site and its clever structure can detract from what’s really important – the community itself

o poor attention to why people would just in the first place – is your community supposed to be cutting edge, information, fun, a mix of things?

Above all else, the community has to have ‘stickability’.  Whilst new visitors and users = great, remember that repeat, loyal visitors are like gold dust to your community.  And to get people to come back, they must get some enjoyment as well as benefit – we really feel that the ‘fun’ piece is crucial.

Do not underestimate that people are generally ‘lazy’ when they use the internet.  I know I am. That comes from the vast number of competing sites/offerings.  E.g., if one forces you to login and share your details, will you use that or will you use the one which has no ‘barriers’ to entry.  Generally, unless the first one has real ‘gravitas’, you’ll go for the second one.

Your target audience – and the real demographics of your traffic – must never be forgotten or confused.  You simply cannot be vague about who you’re trying to reach out to, how old they are, what their interests really are, where they’re based.  To be vague about this is like a business being vague about its core business plan.

Unless you’re a mega-brand (in the world of consumer electronics, Apple would be the obvious example), your products or service offerings are unlikely to have enough kudos for people to want to build a community discussion around them.  Your community must be held together by another type of glue: a common interest which, although it may link in some way to commercial activities (if you’re in this for business), is actually driven by something bigger than that.

You may have an online community in your stable of websites already.  Or you may be nurturing one.  Either way:

o don’t play the big ‘moderator’ and be too restrictive about topics and discussions.  It’s a turn-off for users to be told off – think “school kids”!

o don’t be too restrictive about topics – the best communities set and police their own rules

o invite and maintain the right users, not everyone you encounter or know simply to build the community – otherwise what are you really building? the community, its essence, is its users

Remember, online communities will typically mirror real life.  They won’t be perfect, but very little that’s of interest is perfect.

See you, CB

We’re really excited about this one.  We know, you know, WordPress is a very versatile platform.  Read on to see how it’s taken a huge step forward to keep its head up with the Facebooks and MySpacessss of this world.

Below are some of the options available to you if you want to put some social aspects on your blog and/or grow your own social network.

WordPress themselves have built a plugin buddypress.  This is designed for creation of a social network on/via WordPress. Bear in mind that it does need, however, dedicated hosting.  That’s likely to be an option for most of ClubBlogger’s regulars.

It’s worth taking a look at these:

WP-Polls

This plugin adds AJAX polls to your blog (whether to the posts or to the sidebar). It encourages participation, amongst other powerful features.

OpenId

Allows users to register in order to post comments. OpenID is a universal authentication protocol which many of you will have come across. OpenID is obtainable from many big names like Yahoo (and WordPress).

FV Community News

Brand new blogging trend.  It’s up-and-running on a lot of current wordpress blogs. The plugin permits user-submitted news items (with a short description and a link). Again, interaction is great and freshness (is that even a word? ) is right up there.

Social Interaction without plugins

Bloggers are currently increasing social interaction on their weblogs without plugins. How?

Well, we’ve done this before, too. It’s really great to post ’shout-out’ posts which mention top commenters. The possibilities are endless – competitions, prizes, you name it.  This is really one of the great sides of blogging.

We’d love to hear more about your experiences and anything you have to share with ClubBlogger.

All the best, guys.

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.  People write short updates, often called “tweets”  of 140 characters or fewer.  These messages are posted to your profile or your blog, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search.

All you need to use Twitter is an internet connection or a mobile phone. Once you’re in, type your first update into the web box.  To get an idea of what other people are saying or doing on Twitter, check out Twitter search to see what Twitter’s all about.  You can search by keyword or just check out the trending topics to what’s hot on Twitter right now.

When you create an account, you can search for people by name or user name, import friends from other networks, or invite friends via email.  If you don’t want to do that, follow some of the people Twitter suggests. Once you’ve found your friends, follow them to start getting their updates.

Following someone simply means receiving their Twitter updates.   When you follow someone, every time they post a new message, it will appear in your Twitter home page.  New messages are added to your home page as people post them, so you always get the updates in real time.  When you log in, you can see what the latest updates are.  Twitter offers other ways to follow people too: you can get updates from certain people on your phone!

After you click the follow button on someone’s profile, you’re following them.  The follow button will change to a box that says “Following” with a drop down option to remove a person if you want to. If you’ve registered your phone with Twitter, you can set up text preferences for a person as well.  See a list of people you’re following by clicking on the ‘following’ link on your profile or your home page’s sidebar.

Twitter sends you an email when someone new follows you.  Set up your email preferences to notify you when you have a new follower.  The followers link on your profile page or home page’s sidebar will also tell you how many followers you have.

Twitter offers many ways to post updates: from the web in the update box, from your phone,  from your mobile web browser using m.twitter.com, or from any third party application made by the talented folks who’ve utilized Twitter’s API.

Can you put my Twitter updates on your blog?

Yep! Put a Twitter badge on your blog, website, MySpace… anything that accepts Javascript or HTML.  You can even customize your Twitter badge to match!

Thanks to twitter.com – check out their help resources for more information!

If you don’t have a great deal of money to dedicate toward marketing your blog but you do have plenty of time, social networking is a great way to boost your traffic while also building a community with your blog. In fact, one of the great things about social networking is that it can really help you build a solid reputation within the community of your target audience while also helping you build-up the popularity of your website.

There are many ways you can go about conducting social networking, but the basic premise behind this marketing method is to get out there and interact with others so they will want to come check out your blog. One common method of social networking is visiting blogs that seem to be targeting the same audience as you. Take some time to get to know the blog and its community, then start making your own comments and participating in the discussions. Each time you leave a comment, you can also leave a link to your blog. If the members of that blog community like what you have to say, they will likely click on your name in order to learn more about you.

You can use the same type of technique with forums. With forums, you may be able to set up your account so your forum log-in name is linked to your blog. If not, you can include a link to your blog in your signature. That way, your link appears every time you leave a message on the forum and, once again, those whose interest you pique will click on the link and visit your blog.

Video websites such as YouTube also provide you with great opportunities for networking. If you create humorous videos, instructional videos or informational videos that become popular on the website, you can potentially bring a great deal of traffic to your blog. In fact, any time you create a video to post on your blog, you should also post it on sites such as YouTube in order to get even more use from your video and to increase your chances of reaching more readers.

Sites such as MySpace and Facebook also provide opportunities for social networking. By interacting with those communities on a regular basis, you can build relationships with other people that might be interested in reading your blog.

The key to successful social networking is to leave comments that are meaningful to the blog or forum you are visiting. Simply saying something such as “Great post!” is not going to be enough to draw in traffic. Rather, take the time to build relationships with the communities you find at these sites and you will soon find them coming to your blog to interact with you there as well.