Episode 4: 6 Ways to Engage with the Blogging Community

This Week’s Episode

Before I launched the Creative Yarn Entrepreneur Show, I sent out a survey to a few online friends for feedback on show topics. Kathy Kelly from the Crochetbird blog asked about ways to engage with blogging community. Thanks for the suggestion, Kathy! In this episode, I share 6 suggestions for engaging other bloggers.

6 Ways to Engage with the Blogging Community

1. Commenting
2. Participating in challenges
3. Joining link parties & blog hops
4. Finding blogger groups
5. Attending blogger events and meetups
6. Connecting with bloggers on other forms of social media

Each of these different ways of engaging has its own benefits and challenges. Deciding which ways work best for you will depend on your goals.

1) Commenting

Commenting on other blogs is a great way to engage with bloggers. Unfortunately, due to spam, trolls, malware, etc., some bloggers don’t allow comments or have so much security to cut through that it makes commenting near impossible.

Include a link to your blog in the comment form, and, if appropriate, include a specific link to a post that’s relevant. When possible, include a substantive comment. Try not to include links within the comment unless they are highly relevant to the discussion and/or you already know the blogger. (The best analogy I’ve heard about this is that including links in the comment is like a party guest jumping up in the middle of dinner to shout, “Come on over to my house for dinner instead!”)

2) Participating in challenges

There are several types of popular blog challenges, including:

• Daily blogging challenges
• DIY challenges, like Me Made May or the Seamless Pledge.
• Yarn-related challenges, like Knit Picks’s 52 Weeks of Dishcloths.
• Blog improvement challenges, like ProBlogger’s 31 Days to Building a Better Blog or the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

You can join in a current group challenge, or follow along with another blogger’s personal challenge, or work through an old challenge. Challenges can help you improve or diversify your blogging skills while engaging with other bloggers.

3) Joining link parties & blog hops

Link parties and blog hops are organized activities that take place on a regular basis. A host (or hosts) write a blog post and participants can add links to their blog post directly in to the post. Link parties come and go so ask for recommendations or use search to find a party.

Each link partu has its own culture and rules. Generally speaking, you are expected to visit several of the other posted links and comment. It’s often the norm to visit every blogger who comments on your blog as well.

4) Finding blogger groups

You can find blogger groups on every social media platform, so choose a setting where you feel comfortable. Some of these groups are private or secret, so you can discuss some of your blogging concerns more privately. Others are public. Most of these groups combine elements of blog support (discussions about tech issues, posting ideas, etc.) with cross-promotion. Some are open to all bloggers and others are focused on specific types of bloggers.

Some groups you may want to consider are:

• Blogging, The Blog Hub, French Blogs, and Self-Hosted WordPress on Ravelry.
• Facebook groups with the words “blogging,” “bloggin,” or blogger in the title.
• HubSpot shared a list of 20 LinkedIn Groups Every Marketer Should Join. You can also click these links to find LinkedIn groups with blogging or