LOFT LIFE - Forming community is easier with help

I have learned something recently. In the three and a half years I have been publishing my blog here, I have probably resorted to begging for people to sign up as followers.

I don’t have a problem getting thousands of “reads” on my blog. I have, or at least I perceive, a problem with getting that little “follower” counter to increase. I ask myself, how do I get 7200 reads and only 72 followers?

Part of the answer is that I am solo in forming this community for my blog.

So a serendipity happened that taught me an important blogging lesson:

I began posting my SAME column on www.allrecipes.com as a premium member of that community, and amazing, my comments almost quadrupled. Lesson? 

They already have community. It’s that simple. I plug into an already formed community and my own community expands. Good news.

I also find friends and friends’ blogs there, like Petey’s Home on the Range blog, about farm life, with fabulous photos and stories about the animals, and some really, really good recipes, and Baking Nana’s rant about the poison in our food. I have found a good friend in her. The site itself is wonderful, filled with good recipes, good friends and good reading. I especially like Chef John's video cooking lessons.

One of the ideas I have used from Pat Flynn, who publishes some of the most helpful articles, blogs and podcasts for us bloggers and online entrepreneurs on www.smartpassiveincome.com  is to work with other bloggers. I love www.daisygirlproductions.blogspot.com 

and have formed an alliance with her for our blogs. We chat, we share, we leave comments, and now we even play Words with Friends on FB. Community. Ain’t it great!

Pat Flynn also has really great information on forming affiliations. I will take his advice very soon. And. he publishes his online income statements monthly just so we can see where his sources are. That alone gives him a solid following. More community.

So rather than re-inventing the wheel in forming my own community, I am now learning to attach to communities who have cross-networked with me, and that is working much, much better.