Positioning, “Social Polarity” and Vibrant Blog Communities
Positioning, “Social Polarity” and Vibrant Blog Communities
There’s a prevalent notion which says that if you comment in relevant blogs and forums, eventually people will click over to your blog. Over time, more people arrive and gradually you see comments being left in your posts. From there, the community starts to take shape. That’s fine, but let’s enhance it a few steps further. Let’s go beyond the importance of great content which adequately satisfies the principles of supply and demand. Let’s get to the “packaging” of this content so to speak.
So, How’s Your Blog Community Like?
Blogs are great tools for knowledge sharing, and in essence the blogosphere is one gigantic self-organized online network of individuals sharing their raw and unedited thoughts openly. It’s a vibrant and ongoing conversation, and the saying “there’s strength in diversity” holds in this case.
Let me elaborate.
Picture this:
1. blog posts with many comments from trolls.
2. blog posts with many comments saying something along the lines of “I agree” or “great post.”
3. blog posts filled with many smart comments and vibrant conversations containing diverse views.
The first case is bad and hurts your brand. You might as well have a few comments and a tiny community rather than many trolls infesting your blog and adding no value to the conversations in it. The second scenario creates good social proof which is obviously lovely. The last scenario is the best. You have social proof, a smart community and hence a great learning environment for your readers.
Now, there’s nothing groundbreaking with such observations of course. The challenge is in how you nurture a great community around your blog, and for me to briefly explain that, I’ll have to get into the concept of “polarity.” There’s no mystery here, the word explains itself.
Infusing Social Polarity Into Your Blog
Step One
Before the community arrives, the blog comes first. The first thing you would want to do is figure out your topic and then set out to create an enemy for your storyline and future quality content. Create an enemy and don’t be neutral. Remember, what we want is polarity, not neutrality. Neutral is boring, and boring is unattractive. It’s as simple as that. In fact, I remember Frank Kern talking about creating an enemy too in his excellent Mass Control course.
Some worry that going down this road will cause them to lose “balance” and “fairness” but this isn’t necessarily true. It depends on how you justify portraying the enemy the way you do. Pick your enemy, and explain why it’s so with research and solid facts. The key is to be genuine and passionate. Plus, no matter how “fair” or “balanced” you try to be, in the eyes of some you’ll always come across as biased.
Step Two
The second step is marketing your blog at the right places. This involves the usual steps which I’m guessing you’re already familiar with, but I’m also guessing these steps don’t incorporate the concept of social polarity.
Most - but not all - of your marketing efforts should be directed at crowds sharing your polarity (and your “enemy”). The rest of your marketing - a minor portion - should then be directed towards those who like and support the “enemy.” Disagreement to a certain extent is good, but you don’t want the destructive kind. This is why you should take it nice and easy. You don’t want to have excessively polarizing discussions, but creative disagreements.
Let me give you a simple example off the top of my head. You like internet marketing and think it’s a much better option for financial freedom than multi-level marketing which you’ve tried previously but found highly lacking. Your subject can then become internet marketing, and your evil “enemy,” multi-level marketing.
You get the idea. ;-)
And That’s Pretty Much It
Again, keep in mind that the smarter, more mature and more intellectual the crowd you’re trying to attract to your blog is, the better the quality of debates and conversations will become, which inevitably impacts your brand’s positioning. Moreover, once things get going, you can steer the direction of the discussions by participating in them appropriately, and you can also manage the quality of these conversations by moderating comments when necessary.
Positioning Social Polarity and Vibrant Blog Communities - To learn more about this author, visit Michael Reining's Website.
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Blog communities and commenters play a role in defining the blogs they socialize in. What’s your community of blog commenters like? If you had a chance to build your blog all over again, what would you do differently?
There’s a prevalent notion which says that if you comment in relevant blogs and forums, eventually people will click over to your blog. Over time, more people arrive and gradually you see comments being left in your posts. From there, the community starts to take shape. That’s fine, but let’s enhance it a few steps further. Let’s go beyond the importance of great content which adequately satisfies the principles of supply and demand. Let’s get to the “packaging” of this content so to speak.
So, How’s Your Blog Community Like?
Blogs are great tools for knowledge sharing, and in essence the blogosphere is one gigantic self-organized online network of individuals sharing their raw and unedited thoughts openly. It’s a vibrant and ongoing conversation, and the saying “there’s strength in diversity” holds in this case.
Let me elaborate.
Picture this:
1. blog posts with many comments from trolls.
2. blog posts with many comments saying something along the lines of “I agree” or “great post.”
3. blog posts filled with many smart comments and vibrant conversations containing diverse views.
The first case is bad and hurts your brand. You might as well have a few comments and a tiny community rather than many trolls infesting your blog and adding no value to the conversations in it. The second scenario creates good social proof which is obviously lovely. The last scenario is the best. You have social proof, a smart community and hence a great learning environment for your readers.
Now, there’s nothing groundbreaking with such observations of course. The challenge is in how you nurture a great community around your blog, and for me to briefly explain that, I’ll have to get into the concept of “polarity.” There’s no mystery here, the word explains itself.
Infusing Social Polarity Into Your Blog
Step One
Before the community arrives, the blog comes first. The first thing you would want to do is figure out your topic and then set out to create an enemy for your storyline and future quality content. Create an enemy and don’t be neutral. Remember, what we want is polarity, not neutrality. Neutral is boring, and boring is unattractive. It’s as simple as that. In fact, I remember Frank Kern talking about creating an enemy too in his excellent Mass Control course.
Some worry that going down this road will cause them to lose “balance” and “fairness” but this isn’t necessarily true. It depends on how you justify portraying the enemy the way you do. Pick your enemy, and explain why it’s so with research and solid facts. The key is to be genuine and passionate. Plus, no matter how “fair” or “balanced” you try to be, in the eyes of some you’ll always come across as biased.
Step Two
The second step is marketing your blog at the right places. This involves the usual steps which I’m guessing you’re already familiar with, but I’m also guessing these steps don’t incorporate the concept of social polarity.
Most - but not all - of your marketing efforts should be directed at crowds sharing your polarity (and your “enemy”). The rest of your marketing - a minor portion - should then be directed towards those who like and support the “enemy.” Disagreement to a certain extent is good, but you don’t want the destructive kind. This is why you should take it nice and easy. You don’t want to have excessively polarizing discussions, but creative disagreements.
Let me give you a simple example off the top of my head. You like internet marketing and think it’s a much better option for financial freedom than multi-level marketing which you’ve tried previously but found highly lacking. Your subject can then become internet marketing, and your evil “enemy,” multi-level marketing.
You get the idea. ;-)
And That’s Pretty Much It
Again, keep in mind that the smarter, more mature and more intellectual the crowd you’re trying to attract to your blog is, the better the quality of debates and conversations will become, which inevitably impacts your brand’s positioning. Moreover, once things get going, you can steer the direction of the discussions by participating in them appropriately, and you can also manage the quality of these conversations by moderating comments when necessary.
Positioning Social Polarity and Vibrant Blog Communities - To learn more about this author, visit Michael Reining's Website.
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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