Blogging Communities & Methods to Build

Blogging communities are a community who interacted online within some bounded set of technologies. The technological act of joining was the most visible indicator of being 'in' or 'out' of the community. Communities could be public or private and visible only to those who joined.(White 2006) As Owyang(2007) classify blogging community is where a group of people with similar goals or interests connect and exchange information using web tools.

According to Nikkis(2011), the methods to build blogging communities will be:-

1. Read other blogs. Reading other blogs can get feel for what you like and will discover blogs that you share common interests with.
2. Leave comments on other blogs. By leaving a comment, you are leaving a calling card for others to find you.
3. Reply to your comments. When people comment on your blog or your posts, they want to know they've been heard.
4. List your blog in directories. A simple Google search for "blog directories" will bring thousands of results.
5. Write often. A couple of posts per day you are providing your readers with variety and a chance to keep them at your blog.
6. Make your post entertaining. Is your content fresh with a different view than other bloggers out there have?
7. Start marketing your blog. One way is to have a signature link to your blog on message boards and forums.

As blogging has gained wider adoption, blog based community shows up in three main patterns with a wide variety of hybrid forms emerging between the three.(White 2006)

Blog Based Communities

(White 2006)

Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community

This is the first form of blog based community to emerge as readers begin returning to early bloggers' sites, commenting and getting to know not only the blogger, but the community of commentors.(White 2006)

Topic Centric Community

This form is exemplified by groups such as food bloggers, mummy bloggers, travel bloggers and political bloggers with a particular party or issue identification.(White 2006)

Boundaried Communities

Typically members register and 'join' the community and are offered the chance to create a blog. This boundary makes them the closest form to traditional forum based communities.(White 2006)

Tumblr is an example of social blog which falls into the boundaried communities. This is because, tumblr is a social blogs that require user to register themselves before they will be able to create a blog. After registering and joining the community, there goes the user able going around reading other blogger's post and may re-post it in their blogs and leave comments.

References:

• Nikkis 2011, eHow.com, How to Build a Blogging Community, online, retrieved 3 May 2011, from http://www.ehow.com/how_2152382_build-blogging-community.html
• Owyang, J 2007, Defining the term: "Online Community", online, retrieved 3 May 2011, from http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/12/28/defining-the-term-community/
• White, N 2006, Blogs and Community-launching a new paradigm for online community?, online, retrieved 3 May 2011, from http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community