Lesson #10: Attend to and Reward a Reader Unexpectedly

Now that you understand how to build readership on your blog and grow a community that will keep interacting on your blog, you need to find ways to keep them motivated to keep coming back to your blog. Readers also want to be noticed and appreciated in some way. Do not consider the fact that you are feeding them with information is enough to keep them coming back. You need to do something that will highlight your best readers to the community you have created.

Those bloggers who break away from the tradition of writing posts alone and start to acknowledge their readers increase the loyalty of their readers. Two groups of readers are affected in a positive way when you show a gesture of acknowledgment.

i) The highlighted bloggers will be motivated for a long time if you show them that you recognize their loyalty. It makes an impression when you take your time to talk about a reader who regularly visits your blog. It will make your reader to feel appreciated, valued and belonging to a community that recognizes his or her presence and contributions. If you send other readers to this reader’s site, you will also be helping them grown their own readership, and therefore helping build rapport with other readers.

ii) Appreciating or recognizing a reader on your blog motivates other readers that visit your blog. Other readers will feel appreciated when you highlight one of them on your blog. This is because it is a sign of showing interest in the readers of your blog. Highlighting one or a few readers is a sign that you appreciate that you have an audience. It is much better rather than just ignoring your readers year in year out.

Ways to Acknowledge a Reader

• Elevate their comment into a full blog post. If you have enabled the comment section of your blog, you will realize that there are certain readers who make insightful comments on your posts. You will find tips and helpful observations in their comments. Encourage the reader by writing a blog post basing on their comment(s). Don’t forget to mention that the post is woven around the idea of that reader.
• Allow your readers to promote themselves on your blog.  Do this as some kind of a mini promotion. You can allow readers to write something brief about themselves and their blogs as well. This will be a good reward to allow readers to pitch themselves to other bloggers.
• Come up with a weekly promotion tactic such as the reader of the week section on your blog. You can highlight such readers in a post or create a small section on your blog where you feature a reader every week.
• Invite and encourage guest posts on your blog. Do not consider this as a way to get free content on for your blog but as a way to let your readers promote their identity to other readers.

There are many other ways of acknowledging your readers and making them feel appreciated. You can come up with a promotion that is unique to your blog. Some bloggers create a poll of some kind or refer their readers to one of the readers’ blogs. Whichever way you choose, it is a gesture of appreciating your readers that will bring you more rewards.