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

blog commentHave 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!

31 Comments
  1. Thank you for your tips. It helps me a lot. I am a new blogger. I will visit here regularly. keep it up mt friend 🙂

  2. I’m with you on the anti-hypocrisy sentiment. In my own life, I’m constantly asking my friends and family if my words and deeds are matching up, because I’m in trouble if they’re not consistent.

    The truly genuine people,  the ones who are true to themselves, are difficult to disrespect even if their personalities or beliefs are different from your own because you can see, at the very least, they walk their talk. That’s difficult not to admire.

    Delena

    • Rightly said Delena. And I must say that your strategy of asking friends and family for a true assessment of your actions matched against your words is one that will always take you far in life.

      Don’t just blow your trumpet let others do it for you and you can be sure that you’re making progress.

  3. I agree that the social skills of the bloggers that you mentioned are very good. Plus they all have been in the game for five or more years. It’s like they are seniors in high-school and the majority of us are freshman.
     
    Our personality will show when we interact with people. We are who we are, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

    • You’re right Justin, our personality must definitely show as we interact with people. And that’s why we must work on them if we know that will kind of hinder us from achieving our aims. These probloggers may have truly been in the game for sometime and have succeeded in sharpening their social skills. But don’t you think we should study from them so as to fasttrack our own success? Should we wait five or more years to also build our own skills? I don’t think we should really do that. That’s why I’m always studying those who are successes in my area of focus.

  4. Hi, I just wanna share that I also have one blog and that is all about remedies for acid reflux. That is just a simple blog. I put what’s everything in my mind but reading this post made me more confident and I gained lot of knowledge on how to create such blog that is not just from what you are thinking but also from the event that you are analyzing, what, how, and when to post such blog.
     

  5. I think a really good way to show your personality as a blogger is to do videos. I plan on doing some too at… well, sometime 😉

  6. Reply
    Usman@FirstHosting May 19, 2011 at 3:06 am

    Petty nice guide because I guess most of the people are using social networking very effectively and they are one of the successful bloggers.
     
    Many of us just don’t care of it and keep on concentrating search engine marketting where as social media is direct and fast traffic.
     
    All we need to know is how to build relations, and you explained well on how to build and keep them
     
    Regards

    • Thanks Usman. The fact is that marketing is taking a new turn online. As much as the search engines remain powerful in generating traffic, mastering and implementing social marketing can really make a whole difference these days. Like you said these successful bloggers definitely know how to do just that.

  7. Hi Chadrack,It is  a very nice and informative post.You shared great tips for maximizing blogging success.Thank you for such a helpful post.

  8. No wonder you are a successful blogger. These are very professional tips. Thank you so much for sharing this. And I think that these tips will help us not only in blogging, but in real life too.

  9. I agree that the social skills of the bloggers that you mentioned are very good. Plus they all have been in the game for five or more years.

  10. Hi there,

    I think that the blogs popularity is so high because blogs are comparatively new phenomenon in our lives. As soos as the dust settles down, there would be less blogs than it is now.

  11. Hei Chadrack. I really like to read your posts, really. It’s always consist many useful tips and informations. Thanks a lot man.

  12. You are a great and keen observant Chadrack. As we all know that there are a lot of new and brilliant bloggers out there. They are also doing everything that they can to be successful in blogging or to be online marketers.

    • @raverture, definitely I think what those of us who are trying to hit the mark doing everything we can should really do is, take a real concerned look at what those who have succeded in this business are doing. You don’t have to re-invent the wheel but I believe you can always build on the wheel! You can add a little here and a little there!

  13. What makes people with good social skills so snappy and intolerant? Lets say your some social place and your in a group of people or a crowd and somebody says something and one of the people who have great genes or social skills or whatever says something like “what are you talking about” or “wtf” or what have you. In the persons mind they are just talking or curious or whatever and the elite or whatever you wanna call it sees it as an opportunity to attack or think that person is weird. Are they born with these social skills or non randomness? The way you act or things you say are completely different when there is a crowd what causes this? Thanks for nice post.

    • People with good social skills so snappy and intolerant? I don’t think so. That’s actually the other way round! Anyone with good social skills always have ways of getting “connected” even with strangers. They have ways of warming their way into the lives of others. So I think you got it wrong when you say, people with good social skills are so snappy and intolerant. Anyonw with that type of temperament is not really socially skilled.

  14. How can i participate in online marketing as someone from India.? I want to be involve in online marketing i.e using credit cards or even wire transfer. I dont know how to get going with the stuff. Thanks

  15. I have started a new blog on Harry Potter. I know its a very common theme but I want to make it a success. Please give me some ideas as to make it good, fresh and engaging. I am not very experienced at blogging either, so I seek your support. Please help.

    • I think you already have an idea of what you should be doing – make it good, fresh and engaging! Of course, you should know that succeeding in such a common theme demands going beyond just settng up the blog. My only advice is to do all you can to know that subject as the back of your hand. Then commit to producing nothing but unique content. Put a spin on what you do on that blog and ensure that you have something fresh every time. If you are really not very experienced as you said then go out and learn some more. We all are still learning and so never be afraid to learn. Study what others are doing but never copy others. Be yourself. That way you will be unique on your blog.

      I hope this can help. Thanks for the comment.

  16. If we wanted to market a specific person (ie to raise their celebrity status) what social media platforms (eg blogging, interactive website etc) would you suggest. Thanks

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