How To Grow Your Blog by Building a Tribe of Online Friends

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You’ve started a blog. You have great content. But no one comments, and you’re struggling to find an audience beyond your friends and family.

Having great content is important. But it doesn’t matter if no one sees it! Growing your blog is much easier when you expand your network and build a “tribe” of online friends. Not sure what a tribe is? In the blog world, a tribe is a group of like-minded individuals who support, share and engage with one another. Sounds great, right? But how do you find these people? You might be surprised at how simple it really is!

Join a community. The SITS Girls is a great place to start. Sign up to be a featured blogger. When you sign up for this, you agree to comment on the featured blogger each day. But take it a step further. You’ll notice during “roll call” people send well wishes to the featured blogger of the day. Usually a link to their own latest blog post is attached. Take advantage of this, and check out a few that look interesting to you. Another SITS activity you may want to participate in is their Sharefest on Saturday mornings. You’ll find a lot of great blogs to follow!

Comment. Don’t just sit back and wait for people to come to you. Take the opportunity to start the “connection” process by commenting on those blogs that resonate with you. This is a great opportunity to start online relationships. Comment on someone else’s blog, and they’ll often take the time to come over and visit yours as well. I don’t comment on blogs expecting that to be the case, but this is how I started to get to know many of those who I now consider part of my tribe.

Connect on other social media platforms. Follow those whose blogs you enjoy on other social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. When someone reaches out to me in this way, I am going to reciprocate. We might not end up being the best of online friends, but it’s a great way to meet new people and learn more about each other.

Be generous and share. Share content that you feel will appeal to your fan base. Chances are if you liked another blogger’s post, your fans will too. And believe me, your fans don’t want to just see post after post of your own content. They like to see variety! And it goes with saying that your online friends will also appreciate your efforts!

Go to a blog conference. If you can swing it, I’d highly recommend attending one of these. One of the things I loved about the Bloggy Boot Camp I just attended is that we switched tables frequently in the morning, allowing us to meet new people each time. If you go to a conference that does not do this, make an effort to strike up a conversation with different people throughout the day. Exchange business cards. When you get home, follow up. You never know, that person might turn out to be your next great online friend!

Be realistic. If you’re a brand new blogger just starting out, don’t expect to create a tribe of blogger friends among those with ten thousand followers. They’re at a different stage than you. Absolutely it’s fine to comment, follow them and share their content, but ultimately you are going to be better off connecting and building online relationships with those who are in the same place as you. I’m not saying that you won’t ever connect with someone who has a much larger following. But don’t expect to build a tribe of bloggers that way.

Be consistent. If you continue with these activities day after day, you will make all sorts of great online friends, and you’ll be well on your way to finding your tribe!

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