Blogging Communities

Types of Blogging Communities 


According to White (2006), the term ‘online community’ signifies to a community who interact online with some bounded set of technologies. The blogging communities can be those bloggers;s blogs that are interacted and have interconnections to form a social network. The communities can be public or private and visible only to those who joined. 


According to Arren (2009) in Webbusinesswiz, blogging communities can be differentiated in 3 types such as Blogosphere, Search Engine and Directory. 

• Blogosphere blogging community: interconnected through social plugins, blogrolls, post comments, backlinks and linkbacks (Trackback)
• Search engine blogging community: search/ browse of others blogs in the blogosphere in order to establish physical connection or create interest on findings and discussion.
• Directory blogging community: engage in blog directories as a social means to get a connection with people to blogs in order to promote their blogs to others.

Methods to Build Blogging Communities


There are many ways that bloggers can build blogging community. After reading the articles, I would like to suggest a guideline on how to create communities as following: 

• Comments: Leaving a comment on others' blog can be the first step to start building your blogging community by interacting with other bloggers (Rowse, 2009). You can ask a question or give your opinion to others. 
• Newsletters subscription: By publishing newsletters on your blog, you can expand your community. By using your blog post to introduce your newsletter to get attention from people and subscribe your newsletter. (Griffiths, 2011, Blog For Profit)
• Directory: As I mention above, you can list your blog in directory that can be found by readers easily. A simple Google search of 'Blog Directories' will bring thousands of results. For example : Technorati.com
• Links: Linking to other blogs is critical to help in building a community for your blog (Bauer, 2006). This to attract the readers from other blogs to return to your blog in favour. 
• Social network: As the social network like Facebook and Twitter are becoming a norm on the internet, you can integrate them into your blog by adding a 'like' badge. This will allow people in the social network to aware of your blog. This is also a excellent way to build community for you blog. (webstart.com, 2011)

Example


Here is a weblog that I want to introduce. www.tianchad.com. This blog is considered as a directory blog as I mentioned in my previous post. The blogger always keep an eye on media by blogging about the reviews of events, photography of events, advertorial, travel and even business blogging. 


The way that the blogger use to build community is by social network. He publishes links on Facebook and create a Fans page on Facebook to attract the audiences' interest. It has a 'subscribe' button on the blog that can let the audience to keep track on it when there is a new posting. 


By clicking on the contact button, you can see the contact of the blogger. This is one of the way that he build up the community on his blog. 

(Source: www.tianchad.com)

In my opinion, to build blogging community, we at least have to do things above in order to attract more readers. 

Reference


Arren, 2009, Types of Blogging Community, Web Business Wiz, viewed on 29 April 2011, <http://www.webbusinesswiz.com/blogging/types-of-blogging-communities/>


Bauer, E 2006, How to build blog traffic – community, BlogHer, 25 July, viewed 30 September 2010,<http://www.blogher.com/node/8128>


Griffiths, G, 2011, Using a Newsletter to build your Blog's Community, Blog For Profit, viewed on 29 April 2011, <http://blogforprofit.com/blogging-tips/using-a-newsletter-to-build-your-blogs-community/>

Rowse, D 2009, 8 Tips for building community on your blog, Problogger, 28 February, viewed 29 April 2011,<http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/28/8-tips-for-building-community-on-your-blog/>


Webstart.com, Add a Facebook 'like' badge to your website, Webstart, viewed on 29 April 2011, <http://blog.webstarts.com/2010/06/add-a-facebook-like-badge-to-your-website/>

White, N 2006, Blogs and community – launching a new paradigm for online community?, The knowledge tree, viewed 29 April 2011, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>