Sometimes it’s the little things you do that help build loyalty, and I’ve made a vow to come up with more ways to reward my visitors — particularly the ones who continue to add value to my blog and forum.
With the emergence of the social networking scene, developing connections and acknowledging regular contributors is an important part of marketing (particularly if you’re a blogger).
Having said that, I thought I’d discuss a few of the ways people publicly reward their visitors…
EntreCard – Top Droppers
Many EntreCard members make the occasional post to their blog with a list of their top EntreCard droppers.
If you aren’t familiar with EntreCard, it’s a free service that allows you to promote your blog by dropping your card (a 125×125 image) on other blogs.
You earn credits for every “drop” you make and you can use those credits to buy advertising space on other blogs.
I haven’t posted a list of my top droppers as of yet. On one hand, I like the idea, but on the other, it opens the door for a bunch of empty drops by people looking to make my “Top Dropper” list.
Nevertheless, it can be a good way to build up loyalty.
Top Commenters
I read every comment posted here and often follow them to view the person’s blog. But I pay even more attention to the people who take the time to craft insightful posts.
Blog comments are important because they make a blog look active and they encourage participation from other readers. So I appreciate it greatly when people take the time to make a thoughtful comment.
WordPress has a plugin that allows you to display the top commenters as a widget on your sidebar. While that’s a very generous thing to do, you still have to monitor rewards like this very closely.
People are competitive, and any time there’s a reward for quantity, some take advantage of that and the quality of the content begins to suffer. So you have to evaluate if it’s worth implementing.
Your top commenters may not always be your best contributors. Personally, I’d much rather reward someone with a few good comments than someone else with a bunch of empty ones who is just looking for first billing on my widget.
That’s why I’m a fan of the new partnership between SezWho and EntreCard. Hopefully this will enhance the commenting community and encourage more productive discussions across the blogosphere.
As an EntreCard member you can now earn credits for leaving comments on SezWho-enabled blogs. The catch is you only earn credits for quality comments.
This keeps people from flooding other blogs with quick comments like “nice post” or “great info”, just to drive up their credit totals.
Just for the record, this blog uses SezWho, so if you’re an EntreCard member, get to commenting and earn those credits. 😉
vBulletin – Top Posters
There’s a hack out for vBulletin 3.x that allows you to show your forum’s top posters for the month. I’ve installed it and posted a link to this list in two places on my forum Website Babble.
While the quantity vs. quality issue could come into play here as well, I’m not as concerned about that with my forum due to the high number of regular, quality contributors.
As many of you know, it takes a lot of work to build and maintain an forum active, and I am truly grateful to the active members who have helped Website Babble grow.
My forum is nowhere as active as Digital Point or ABestWeb, but for someone who has launched 3 forums that failed in the past, you won’t hear me complaining.
When I first launched Website Babble, I held 2 contests and gave away cash prizes ($300 and $150 respectively) to the the MVP (Most Valuable Posters).
I do believe that incentive helped my forum grow in the early days, and I do have plans to offer more prizes in the near future.
The great thing about this reward was that it was based on quality of posts, not quantity.
Even though I had to manually review several posts to determine who was eligible for the contest, it was worth it. It’s important to recognize and give back to quality contributors.
You can join my forum here. I’d love to get to know you.
If you’re thinking of starting your own forum, think of ways you can reward your members. It doesn’t haven’t to be money. Perhaps it’s free advertising space on your blog, or you could give away EntreCard credits.
Public Response to Tweets
Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net is good at this. Anytime someone poses a question on Twitter that he feels is best answered publicly on his blog, he’ll post a link to the person’s Twitter account in the post.
When you get a link from a blog with over 50,000 RSS readers, you’re bound to get some kind of reward, even if it’s just a few extra Twitter followers.
I just started using my Twitter account in the last week to announce my blog posts, and plan to come up with more useful ways to interact with my followers.
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The bottom line is people love to be recognized, and it’s important to show your audience that you appreciate their support.
Do you reward your visitors? If so, how do you do it?
hi Lisa, good post but caution needs to be exercised in virtual community management
rule#1 Think twice when some asks to be a moderator in a virtual community
MVP is a nice/elegant way of thanking someone for making an effort without giving them too much power
Thanks for the information on Entrecard, I will definitely check that out.
.-= Your Own Website´s last blog … Micro Niche Finder -One Great Tool =-.
Good Morning just figured i would let you know that i had a issue with your blog appearing blank as well. Might be gremlins in the page.
Ooh shoot i just wrote a huge comment and when i hit post it come up blank! Please tell me it worked properly? I dont want to sumit it again if i do not have to! Either the blog bugged out or i am just stuipd, the second option doesnt surprise me lol.
Recently I’ve created an 1 on 1 advice service for people who want to create their own website. There’s a small fee for this and it requires users to obtain a code by sending a premium-priced text message. Once in a while I give 2-3 premium codes to my newsletter subscribers and I plan to give codes to people who post valuable comments on my blog. Free codes are one of my incentives for users to subscribe to my newsletter.
.-= Paul Pela´s last blog … Teksty i s?owa kluczowe =-.
Well the concept of “no follow” is not really due to spam but due to the misconcept that no follow will hurt your page rank on that specific page that links out. This is an SEO myth that people believe. I have spoken to many reputable SEOs and they have told me that there is no such thing as a page rank leak.
There are ways spam filters and spam free wordpress plugins that help.
My blog is do follow and I don’t get any more spam because of that 😉
All the best,
Eren
.-= Eren Mckay´s last blog … And I Await (poem about hope) =-.
I certainly support the concept of do follow. There is nothing wrong in expecting something in return for meaningful participation. Of course there are spammers who would do anything to take advantage. Spamming is probably the key reason why any blog is no follow.
Another way to reward your visitors and comenters is installing the do follow plugin for wordpress to pass on some link juice to their website or blog when they comment.
Since wordpress default is now no follow in the comment area this plugin needs to be installed.
Here’s a link to it if you want to check it out:
http://www.semiologic.com/software/wp-tweaks/dofollow/
Lisa, I’m so glad I found you. Over the past two days, I have read your posts and have benefited from them immensely. I plan on putting a lot of your advice to good use. Thanks to Eranda from Turning Cats In To Lions for the link to your site, I’ll visit and interact with you regularly.
I have started using a free postcard service to try and increase traffic to my site and also when people send a postcard to one of their friends, they have to come through the site to collect it. It has a few pictures of Northern Irish Scenery and I plan to add more. It is a great way for people you like you site to share it with their friends. My postcard page for you to see yourself.
I try to treat my visitors the way that I would like to be treated. Repeat visitors are the backbone to your blog’s growth. They will mention to others why they like your site, those people will then visit and so on. Also, interacting with your visitors is important. It create discussions within posts and gives others a chance to mention a point or concept that should have been highlighted in the post.
A friend shared your blog site with me a few days ago.
Although I haven’t read through all the entries, the information in your posts is great.
I’m a babe to the world of blogging and social marketing. I joined Twitter a couple of days ago. Boy, I didn’t know what I was missing!! Thanks for sharing the tip on Twitter as a way to reward my blog visitors. I’ll kepp you posted on the progress!!
Best,
LConnie
yes i reward my visitors. i give away EC credits to my top droppers and i recognize my top commentators on my side bar. free advertising on my site for both groups. i also use the comment luv plugin and have taken off my no no follow tag
Hi, I just stumbled across your blog and I like what you have to say. I won’t be a stranger.
This is my first visit to this blog. I must say I’ve been missing out on some valuable information!
You’ve got some great posts here!
After reading this post, looking at your website and one of your YouTube videos, I like what you have to say. I’m new to blogging and websites in general, but I like the learning that is involved. I’m still trying to find my niche, but your message is positive and I will be back to read more.
I agree with you especially about commenting on other blog coz commenting on others bog are important just like posting a blog post….
Hello, I have this Lifetime Drops List of blogs which I visit and drop every day and those are my most valuable readers. One of them gets 500 EC credits every month.
I think it’s great to reward visitors with back links or EC credits or whatever. It shows your positive community side and can make your blog more popular.
I strive to reward my valued visitors in many ways. Like yourself, I also wrote a post talking about all the ways my visitors could receive link luv from my blog (http://tinyurl.com/mylinkluv).
Among other resources, I use “dofollow” plugin, “top commentators” plugin, my blogroll consists of my monthly top entrecard droppers and I’ve even developed a widget called “You drop, I link”, which shows the last 50 Entrecard droppers to the blog where it is installed.
Now, following Grahams’ advice, I’ve installed SezWho plugin which I think that it will be beneficial overall to my visitors and to myself.
(Find this comment useful? Don’t forget to rate it – Found it a piece of junk? Forget it!) 😉
I started using SBI!’s C2 feature a few months ago. I was struggling to get people to participate, so I signed up with Amazon’s MTurk service. I’ve gotten a ton of submissions from there, but still very few activity from the general public.
I recently added a “visitor’s spotlight” section to my home page. It’s just a small highlighted section which displays the topic of the submission, a direct link to the page. I think people would like the idea of their thoughts being mentioned on a site’s home page.
@ Eric
Yes, I have noticed some blog posts that are not too happy about it. But I say give it a shot to see how it goes.
@ Paul:
Yes, I did add it after the EntreCard announcement. It’ll be interesting to see how it affects things. I just wonder how many people take the time to rate other people’s comments. That’s the only part I wonder about.
Thanks so much for pointing out the Top Posters issue on my forum. Turns out it was a permissions issue and only mods and admins could see the link. It’s all fixed now. 🙂
I have seen the Entrecard Top Droppers on many blogs, and I have been lucky enough to have been on a few. I have yet to implement this feature on my blog, which I have been thinking about doing.
I noticed that you now use SezWho on your blog and was wondering if it was because of Entrecard. I like this new partnership and have also included it on my blog. I think it will improve the quality of comments on blogs, and was a great decision by Graham (founder of Entrecard).
I use your forum on a regular basis, as you know, and did notice on of the links to your top posters. BTW, the link below the last visited date redirects me to a smilies page, so I don’t see the list.
Just also added this widget of SezWho in my blog.
I think Entrecard is doing great integrating this tool to the members comment section. Although not all liked it, ‘coz I see some post not considering it as a good idea.
About rewards – I am planning of giving some extra credits reward to my top droppers at the end of the month. It’s just my gratitude to their drops in my widget.