Pimp my Blog: How to Create a Sharing Community

Pimp my Blog: How to Create a Sharing Community

Do you ever feel like your blog posts are simply words going out into the ether, never to be read by a soul? There’s a relatively easy fix: Create a sharing community to help promote your blog.

You may have heard of people being part of private groups on Facebook developed to help boost each others’ blogs as though it were some exclusive club. Not so much! If you haven’t been invited to one yet simply create your own.

What a Sharing Community Is

Sharing communities can help with all kinds of things relating to blogging or social media, such as:

• Sharing group members’ blog posts on various social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, StumbleUpon, etc. And don’t forget to add them as tips on Sverve, of course!).
• Commenting on each others’ posts.
• Promoting each others’ social media profiles.
• Re-tweeting each other (to gain new followers, increase reach, boost sponsored posts, and so on).
• Supporting members hosting chats or parties on Twitter or Facebook (or similar events).
• Sharing contacts or opportunities.
• Participating in link-ups.
• Providing general support. (Whatever that looks like!)

Facebook is the most common platform for sharing communities, but you could use a Google group, G+ or any other site that works for you and your your members.

Who to Invite

The best strategy is to include people with a similar blog focus. A DIY blogger, for example, might find it hard to promote other members if most of them are parenting bloggers. You probably already have a community (or tribe, if you like), so invite those people – the ones you interact with on Twitter, are Facebook friends with, whose posts you already comment on or share, etc.

It helps if the members of a sharing community are already active on social media, as that’s the best way to increase your reach. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with including some newbies, too. We all had to start somewhere!

How to Develop Guidelines

Let’s be real—if you’re supporting others, you’re going to want them to support you too. No one wants to deal with people who are all take and no give, so developing guidelines can help the group remain positive and productive. Some things to consider:

• How will you structure share requests? Separate posts for each? One thread per day? One per week? Having some structure can help people share things more easily.
• Will there be a limit to how many shares each member can ask for each day/week? Some people contribute to several sites and could easily flood the group with requests for promotion if there isn’t a reasonable limit set.
• Will members be expected to share everything? A reasonable approach might be for members to share what they can and try to share something from each member on a fairly regular basis. Or you could just encourage people to simply share what resonates with them.
• Are members expected to reciprocate shares? Some groups ask members to share anyone who shares them.

The Most Important Rule

Remember that a community is just that—a community. One of the best things about creating a sharing community is deepening your blogging friendships and getting to know other bloggers. One of the biggest benefits of being part of a group of bloggers is getting support from people who know what it’s like to navigate all the corners of the blogosphere.

So the most important rule? In my opinion it’s this: Have fun! After all, that’s why many of us started blogging in the first place.