Today’s Book Blogger Appreciation Week Prompt:
The world of book blogging has grown enormously and sometimes it can be hard to find a place. Share your tips for finding and keeping community in book blogging despite the hectic demands made on your time and the overwhelming number of blogs out there. If you’re struggling with finding a community, share your concerns and explain what you’re looking for–this is the week to connect!
Community is so so so important to me. Although I am totally dramarama, I love that my friends and group of blogger buddies are springboards for my concerns and provide some awesome feedback.
So some tips for not being a loser and making friends?
1. Leave the bat cave. For serious if the only place you hang out is your blog, no one is going to know who the hell you are. So, go on ahead and participate in some memes, leave comments on other blogs.
2. Leave genuine comments. Dude people KNOW when you are copy pasting the same comment to every other blog, especially on memes. I will totally call you out for that shit because it is annoying and obvious that you are trolling for traffic and you are not going to be making any genuine friends that way.
3. Join the 21st century and get a twitter account. Seriously, all the srs business goes down on twitter. Bonding happens on twitter. Twitter is pretty much the bar. It’s where you go to get a drink and meet new people and hang out.
4. Reply to comments on your blog. Dude if you are engaged and interacting, people will become your friend.
So, there’s 4 tips and plenty more can be found by clicking here.
This post was written by...
April (Books&Wine) – who has written 1075 posts on Good Books And Good Wine.
April is 24 years old. She is an educator. In her free time she can be found reading, working out, or eating junk food. She often wears her sunglasses at night.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t manage to leave many comments anymore, but it was the #1 traffic driver to my blog and I met tons of new bloggers that way. Need to start commenting again
“Twitter is pretty much the bar.” – I may be an alcoholic then b/c I’m hanging out at the bar quite a bit
Love your tips! They are all so very true. Although, I am bad at commenting….I do try, but I don’t always have time.
April, I love you, girl. I tried to say these things “nicely”, but you just spelled it out plain as day. LOL. Love it. Love it. Love it. You rock.
Love your funny style of conveying the info. I don’t like “blanket” comments, either.
But whether or not someone uses that kind of comment, I still reply to their comments on my blog and on theirs.
Thanks for sharing!
Here’s MY BBAW POST and
MY WEBSITE
I agree, I hate it when people copy and paste comments or links on my blog. I know I need to keep up with my twitter account but man am I bad at twitter!
Haha, leave the bat cave. I think that’s probably the biggest one, although I think for the first… mm, year I blogged, I actually didn’t realize that there was a book blogging world to step out into. Now it feels SO OBVIOUS that there are a LOT of book bloggers out there to interact with, but back in 2006-2007, it so wasn’t. I was on discussion boards and yahoo groups instead. I like things better now!
There is nothing I hate more than the c/p comments!! I tend to delete them and I never click the link back to their blog. It is so darn annoying…
I’ve had a twitter account for YEARS; but joining the bookblogging community is when I *finally* started using it. I’m addicted. I check from my phone CONSTANTLY.
Haha, the bat cave…I love it! Twitter is my biggest problem. I’m on there, and have been for a while, but I still find it hard to just hop on in and join the conversation. My biggest wish is that people would listen to your #2. Like, sign a contract before they’re even allowed to start a blog that says they will not leave such terrible, copy-and-paste, follower-hunting comments.
I love how you are so frank. I find it interesting that we all love comments and we know they drive traffic yet they are the first thing to go when we get busy.
You are right about twitter. I follow a lot of blogs, but I always manage to visit those that I chat with on twitter.
Ha! That’s some tough talk but excellent advice.
I visit more people via Twitter than any other way some days. So do it!
Baha love it. I tend to be a lurking reader that is too lazy to click out of my google reader and comment, but you are totally right. Even though I don’t hang out in the bat cave, I linger around the entrance. And also, blanket comments in response to memes? Pretty much a guarantee that I will NEVER visit their blog. Love the straightforwardness!
I really think the idea of “genuine comments” is essential to joining the community. I get so many comments where the commenter didn’t even have to read the post to come up with the response. Great suggestion!
I agree, those comments better be genuine! When people just say, hey here’s a link to my blog I think it’s so rude. Great post!
I love the Twitter tip, because it’s so true. Most of the interaction really happens on Twitter. But I also agree on leaving meaningful comments. I’d really rather have meaningful comments than hundreds of subscribers.
Great post, April!