Want To Maximize Your Blogging Success? Employ These Problogger Social Skills!

Have you ever visited any of the problogger blogs and wondered how on earth they pull such a big crowd of readers and followers?

I personally have!

It will interest you to know that as a student of success I'm always interested in studying those who have succeeded, especially in my area of endeavor. That's why, seeing those 100+ comments on blogs by probloggers like Darren Rowse, Yaro Starak, Jeremy Shoemaker and John Chow, I decided to research the problogging secrets behind their impressive results. I must say I was pleasantly surprised to discover that these master bloggers, besides some other creative marketing tactics, are actually using some very practical social skills in running their blogs.

Of course, you’ll readily agree that we are social beings. This is why we crave the attention of others. From the cradle to the grave, we crave relationships. We do this not just because it makes us feel good about ourselves but because we need others to reach our potentials in life. Just as the saying goes; a tree cannot make a forest, so we believe, to be someone outstanding in life we need the cooperation of others.

Even with the increase of modern conveniences like the television and the internet which tends to make us more confined to ourselves, we still yearn for that relationship that gives us the joy of being human. We can see the power of this being played out in the astronomical rise of the social networking sites like facebook.com and twitter.com and of course, their outstanding success.

What the success of these sites tells us is that as bloggers we can maximize our success if we can exploit to our advantage our social power!

Social Power, but what is that?

Social power is about you being a people-person – someone unbelievably nice and charismatic that he can charm anyone into doing anything! For example, if you take a person who is so naturally friendly and put him inside a room full of strangers, you'll discover that in no time he'll be friends with almost everyone! This person is simply using his social skills to not only gain the attention of others but also get them to trust him. 

So the lesson is that you need to use your social-power as a blogger. When you do this you'll achieve outstanding success because others will readily catapult you to your success. Building relationships and forming partnerships will be much easier as you maximize your social potentials!  The following are some of the social skills you can use as a blogger to gain trust and all-out support from other bloggers to ensure your success.

1. Be Genuine, Shelve Hypocrisy!

One thing that is hated by every one of us is hypocrisy. Despite the facelessness of the internet, the truth is that you cannot hide behind some static webpage anymore. The internet has become so interactive that trying to be some hypocrite will only bring you down. So if you want to succeed as a blogger you need to be genuinely nice and interested in other people. If in any way they perceive that you are a hypocrite with selfish intentions, you might as well say goodbye to your dreams.

2. Be a Listener

Socially empowered people are great listeners. They do not just hear people speak but they listen with their hearts. They know how to make eye contact and how to sympathize with people. This is very important for you to earn the love and trust of people. As a blogger learn to put these skills to your advantage. What are your blog readers saying in the comments? When they contact you through email, do you respond to them quickly and do you help them with their problems? Your ability to listen and respond accordingly will help you greatly as a blogger as others will easily find a confidante in you.

3. Have A Sense Of Humor, Be Funny … At Least!

Humor and jokes have a way of helping us connect much easily with others. A joke and a laugh not only ease the tension but it opens the heart to more intimate feelings. A person oozing with an awesome sense of humor attracts crowds and eventually, attracts success. As a blogger, found a way of putting some humor in your content. Tell a joke now and then. A tactful use of jokes will make your blog more popular and therefore successful.

4. Don't Forget Yourself

In the process of fluttering around like a social butterfly, you might forget yourself, allowing everyone to push you over. Remember, love and value yourself before anyone else. It’s when you respect yourself and let others see this that people will flock to you and not trample on you. Besides, never forget your purpose for seeking that relationship. If it’s for networking or forming partnerships, always keep that in mind.

5. Be Kind

Little acts of kindness showed to your readers matters the most. There are various ways you can do this. Bookmark and share their blog post on the social networking sites, send an email when you notice something wrong with their sites, link to their blog posts maybe in a post roundup, etc. These simple acts can really endear you to many of your readers so much that you may reap a truckload of gains from them in no time!

6. Work on Your Old Friendships

As a blogger you definitely must have connected with many wonderful bloggers in the past. Of course as time went on those friendships may have somehow staled. But you can renew them. Why not look into your records again with the mind of contacting some of these old friends? For example if you're using the WordPress blogging platform you can use a plugin like the contact commenters plugin. This plugin can help you stay in touch with those who have connected with your blog through comments in the past. Simply choose a period of maybe a year or even two years back and send an email to these people with the intention of renewing your relationship with them. You may not know it but adding these old friends to your roster of support peers will surely make a great difference in your blogs popularity.

7. Work on Your Personality

Are you bad-tempered? Are you easily irritated? Then you'll need to work on these for they will some show in your communications with your blog readers and friends. If you're the type that throws a tantrum when angry you'll need to learn to stay calm and collected before replying to comments. One thing that seasoned bloggers know how to do very well is how to turn negative comments to useful relationships. If you don't learn how to turn your anger into something more productive your blog readers will soon find it hard to come to you. Remember no one wants a grouchy friend.

8. Never Stop Nurturing the Relationship

You must understand that it is not just about starting a relationship. Relationships need nurturing because they are too precious to neglect. And to this you must apply your social skills to the uttermost. I’ve come to realize that most of these super bloggers nurture their relationships with their blog readers in different ways. One of such ways is through offering free ebook donwloads, offering more insightful content and reader’s-only newsletters. Work on ways that best suit you. Only ensure that your relationships are nurtured for better results. Do some acts of kindness like the ones mentioned above and never forget to continue visiting and posting comments on their blogs. As the saying goes, what goes round comes around; you will definitely be the better for it!

Conclusion: Your social skills can be powerfully employed to maximize your success as a blogger. Learn this secret from the probloggers and sky-rocket your blog success today. What you need is to become a better and more lovable blogger and done well it can turn out to be a win-win situation.

Over to you: Have you noticed these social skills in any of the probloggers? Do you think there is any more you would want to add? Feel free to give your comments below.

And, you can always support us by tweeting and sharing this article on your favorite social network!