How to Build a Blog Community
Written by Casey Botticello
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Blogs depend on people reading them. And the more people there are reading, sharing, and engaging around a blog, the better they’re likely to do. But what better way to get people to interact with your blog than to cultivate a community around it?
Blog communities are powerful blog enablers. They attract like-minded people who go from casual visitors to loyal followers and fans. They’re your top customers, your most passionate supporters, and are worth their weight in gold.
So how do you build a community around your blog, and what do you need to do to foster one that works for you?
Blog communities are becoming more complex, increasingly valuable, and harder to develop. With more bloggers competing for audiences and so many different ways to reach them, finding your groupings of followers and building a blog community that lasts can get tricky.
We look at how to build a blog community and what you need to do to get the most out of your blog community-building efforts. This article unpacks the process, areas, and ideas that will help you to foster a thriving blog community that can power your blog to greater heights.
What is a Blog Community?
Blog communities are vibrant groups of people who all share a common interest in your blog, related topics, and other blogs similar to your own. They’re informal clusters, niche segments, and members of your audience that interact with your blog and related content – whether on your blog site, across various social media networks, or over different platforms.
Blog communities can range from a few dozen people to entire market sectors, spanning the globe and racking up millions of clicks.
Every online community is different. Some consist of die-hard fans of your content, engaging with your posts on as many levels as possible, and sharing them every day. Other community members don’t necessarily identify as a part of your blog community, but they do belong to it, often without even knowing it.
Blog Communities vs. Blogging Community vs. Community Blogs
It is important to avoid confusing blog communities with other community-related spaces online. While blog communities reflect groups of people interested in and engaged with your blog, blogging communities and community blogs are different.
- Blogging communities – are like blog communities, only they consist of other writers, bloggers, and content creators rather than readers and blog visitors. These communities often collaborate with and support one another, and most can be found engaging with each other around a particular topic or theme.
- Community blogs – are not communities at all but rather a category of blogs or websites where people can post various entries, comments, and content in a single space. Others can then respond to them or comment directly on the community blog itself.
How Blog Communities Develop
Most blog communities emerge by themselves, over time, organically. As more and more people visit, read and engage with a blog, they can often find one another in comments sections, on social media platforms, and through various other channels – all because of your blog.
As these communities take shape, bloggers will notice common characteristics and features emerging within them. Whether a shared need that your blog is helping them to address, a mutual appreciation or passion for your content, or simply by chance, communities can pop up anytime, often without you having anything to do with it.
Sometimes, blog community leaders will emerge to take charge of the community and drum up support for your blog. These community champions are vital to blog community-building and assist in maintaining a thriving community.
How to Build a Blog Community
Building a blog community isn’t an exact science. Blog community dynamics are always changing as people turn to new, innovative methods of connecting and staying engaged.
But if you can identify, engage and leverage your blog community, you’ll soon find that building it into a vibrant social space that serves your blog’s interests is easy.
1. Define Your Blog Community
Before starting to build your blog community, first, you’ll need to know who it is that will form part of your new blog circle of friends. Ask yourself questions about your community and where you see it heading.
- Who is part of your community? Look at your niche and your audience demographics and identify the characteristics, beliefs, and values they share.
- How did they become established as a community? Consider what aspects of your blog will likely bring them together as a community.
- Where will they come from? Specifically, determine where many of them will arrive from to your blog and which channels they will use to get there.
- What is it that will bring your community together? Think about the elements that will give your community members a reason to feel like they belong.
- Why is your community different from other communities? Look at what will set your community apart from everyone else.
- When do you hope to hit your community goals? Establish your time expectations relative to things like your content velocity, and be practical about how long it will take to for your blog community-building to bear fruit.
2. Set Up Community Engagement Goals
Once you’ve defined your community, the next step in how to build a blog community is to move on to figuring out what you want to achieve with it. These goals should reflect both how you want your community to develop as well as the results and outcomes you hope to accomplish for your blog through your community.
- Community goals represent the objectives you have for your community as a whole. Things like creating engaging spaces, fostering conversations, and driving exposure through initiatives and activities are good examples.
- Blog goals related to your community can include targets and benchmarks that directly benefit your blog, like conversion ratios within your community and how often people share your content.
- Growth & access goals will inform your blog’s performance relative to your community. While the main objective is to grow your community, think about providing a more accessible community space that appeals to other members.
3. Choose Your Blog Community Spaces
Blog communities can develop anywhere. But you have the power to influence where your community will flourish best. Some communities exist in narrow spaces and niches, with members keeping to themselves, while others are there for all to see.
- Comments sections are the most popular and frequented spaces where early communities develop. Since you can reply to and post your own comments, you’re free to redirect people to other posts and new spaces while engaging with them.
- Social media platforms are hands-down the most community-friendly tools you have at your disposal. Established communities thrive on social media, and developing a vibrant one around your blog is easy.
- Other sites and platforms also allow for direct user engagement and are ideal for fostering communities around your blog consisting of very specific members. Here’s how to do it with Thinkific apps.
4. Establishing Blog Community Guidelines
This is an important aspect of ensuring that your blog community is sustainable and valuable. Nobody wants to be a part of a community that tolerates discrimination, promotes hate, and doesn’t reflect good values.
- Community culture represents how people see themselves within a community and the virtues shared within it. Developing a safe, positive community culture around your blog is essential.
- Community standards allow people to understand what behavior is acceptable and which isn’t. These standards can either encourage more open, robust engagement or limit how far people are allowed to go.
- Community rules are policies usually published at the top of most comments sections and in other community spaces. These rules outline the dos and don’ts of community participation and explain any sanctions for breaking them.
5. Engage, Engage, Engage!
Many communities spring up by themselves, sometimes without the blogger even being aware of it. Some bloggers choose to engage only with their communities on a limited or necessary basis, missing out on the massive potential of leveraging it to their advantage. Others, however, make the most of this gilt-edged opportunity.
- Reply to comments, especially negative or important ones. Doing so tells your community that you’re listening and are willing to interact with them.
- Host live, interactive events. These are ideal for getting face-to-face with your community and locks in loyal community members. Live streams are great, as well as webinars, Q&A sessions, and even in-person attendance.
- Give the community what they want by offering incentives and rewards for actively participating within the space. This is a great tactic for growing your community.
Building a blog community is important, but where do you start? While some communities eventually emerge by themselves, you have the power to give these elements a welcome boost, accelerating their growth and development and helping them to evolve into a powerful blog asset.
We explore the primary areas on which to focus for how to build a blog community and some ideas for how to go about nurturing it into a movement of loyal, engaged followers.
Your Actual Blog
The best place to start cultivating a lucrative, engaged blog community is with your blog itself. Since your blog is the object of your community’s attention, you’re most likely to be able to connect with its members right there.
- Enable comments– The comments section is ground zero for blog community-building. Most blogs come with optional comment sections. Think about enabling and using them.
- Provide contact details– Transparency is key to building a thriving community. Depending on what you’re OK with, list an email address, include your social media buttons, and provide more information about yourself.
- Create posts about your community– Content that focuses on the people who are reading them is always a winner. Every so often, consider publishing a community-centric post that relates directly to the people within your community.
Marketing & Promotions
If you want to level up your blog community-building efforts, use the tools you have at your disposal. There are myriad options and avenues for reaching out to prospective community members to market and promote your offerings to them.
- Email lists– Build and use your email lists to foster greater community involvement. Reach out via email, inviting people to join, follow, engage, and comment. Here’s how to build an email list for your blog.
- Subscribers & memberships – While subscribers and members are often seen as paying customers, they’re actually your most valuable community members. Many of them, however, are not actively engaged in your community. Encourage them to get involved by adding community access channels to their purchases.
- Run ads– Advertising is fantastic for getting your brand out there and into markets you’d struggle to reach organically. Infuse appealing community elements into your advertising for a nice bump in numbers.
Social Media
Social media needs no introduction when it comes to building a community for your blog. These mainstream social media platforms consist of diverse and active communities, just waiting for you to create space for people to connect and engage with one another.
- Facebook– Groups, pages, and more on the social media titan are designed for community engagement. Make your blog’s Facebook page as appealing as possible to the people reading your content, and watch as the numbers grow.
- Twitter– Twitter is another vibrant platform ideal for fostering more community involvement. Tweet frequently and provide the means for new members to connect with others within your existing community.
- LinkedIn– Like Facebook, LinkedIn is perfect for community engagement. But it is also an ideal platform for building your community profile to attract more people more consistently.
Get Involved with Community Activities and Interactions
Building a community is one thing – maintaining it is another altogether. Keep your community on its toes by surprising them with activities and engaging interaction opportunities they can’t resist. This ensures more active community involvement and incentivizes people to hang around.
- Challenges– Develop exciting challenges around your blog and brand that appeal to people’s sense of competition. These contests can range from completing puzzles to kicking off a viral meme or social media trend.
- Competitions– Hosting competitions is another powerful community-builder that keeps people hooked and engaged. Running giveaways, draws, and quizzes with small prizes or mentions is great for giving your blog extra credibility and community appeal.
- Incentives– Offering rewards for community members taking desired actions or participating in contests benefits your blog community-building They encourage people to grow your community by inviting others and sharing with them, and it provides you with an opportunity to direct desired actions.
Blog Partnerships
Communities don’t necessarily need to belong to any one blogger in particular. Many bloggers share members across their various communities, and, with a little cooperation, they can work together to leverage them to everyone’s benefit.
- Other blogs– Reaching out to other blogs to offer to collaborate across communities is a powerful tool for boosting both bloggers’ communities. Look for blogs that aren’t in competition with yours, but who share similar metrics and community characteristics and ask to follow and engage mutually.
- Guest posting– Guest posting is an effective method for tapping into other communities. Simply collaborate with other blogs, posting content containing links to your own site for new members to follow.
- Brand collaborations– Consider partnering with another brand to access their communities outside the blogging spectrum. These can be companies, influencers, or other websites selling products and services related to your niche.
Blog Community Building Focus Areas and Ideas
Conclusion: Good Blog Communities = Success
Blog communities are what keep a blog ticking over. They allow bloggers to target a subset of a niche and use them to drive their blog’s story, spreading the word much further and for much longer than a regular niche participant might.
If you can learn how to build a blog community that is always growing and engaged with your content, you’ll soon develop a valuable marketing and promotion asset that not even the best ad campaigns can match. Building a blog community that is sustainable and works for your blog is a must.
Cultivate a healthy blog community, look after its members, and engage with them. Because a blog’s community is its family.
