You may have noticed that our content this week shifted forward a day — we took Monday off to honor the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Then on Tuesday, we started talking a lot about connections — especially the connection with our audiences. Brian kicked things off with a post about one of my favorite topics — our ability to attract the kind of customers and clients we want, by thinking carefully about the type of messages we create.
The first step is to get very clear about who your people are (and aren’t). Brian has some specific exercises for you on how to do that.
Fear is the great enemy of connection. On Wednesday, I offered — from my viewpoint as a lifelong coward — some ideas about how to find the courage to be more genuine and how to handle some of those tricky days in a healthy way.
On Thursday, Robert Bruce, who’s been working hard behind the scenes at Rainmaker FM, emerged to break his long, public silence. If we’d thought this through, we would have timed it for Groundhog Day. Never mind — he shared his thoughts on some of the deep habits to cultivate when we want to create something worthwhile.
Over on the Unemployable podcast, Brian talked with Andrew Warner about how to become a (much) better interviewer. On Copyblogger FM, I gave some detailed thoughts on how to leave blog comments that truly build connection. (Sounds simple, but a lot of folks need a refresher.) And on The Showrunner, Jon Nastor and Jerod Morris discussed the value of emerging from behind the microphone and meeting your audience at face-to-face meetups.
As always, we love to connect with what you’re up to! Drop us a comment on the post (or posts) that most resonated with you … and I’m looking forward to connecting with you next week!
Chief Content Officer, Rainmaker Digital
Catch up on this week’s content
How to Attract Your Ideal Customer with Perfectly Positioned Content
by Brian Clark
Practical Tools for Finding Courage and Revealing Your True Voice
by Sonia Simone
The Subterranean Foundations of Any Good Content Marketing Strategy
by Robert Bruce
How to Write (Much Better) Blog Comments
by Sonia Simone
The Four-Step Process that Transforms Your Business (Without Knocking Yourself Out)
by Brian Clark
How the Editor of ‘Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living’ Manjula Martin Writes: Part Two
by Kelton Reid
Why Doing Less Can Generate More for Your Online Business
by Sean Jackson
Become an Expert Interviewer, with Andrew Warner
by Brian Clark
The Value of Meeting Your Audience in Person
by Jerod Morris & Jon Nastor
Reader Comments (4)
Lori Tian Sailiata says
Thank you for recording “How to Write (Much Better) Blog Comments,” Sonia.
This speaks to a conversation I had on Twitter the other day. We were all grappling with the best way to leave some love without being misconstrued as either a stalker or self-promoter.
The old Google Authorship experiment rewarded a firehose approach to commenting in one of its iteration. Crazy days.
I mourned the day Copyblogger comments were turned off, but I totally understood the reason for it. We lost the cohesive public camaraderie of a truly amazing group of CB devotees. I learned nearly as much from their comments as I did from the original post.
The quality of the conversation was a beautiful thing…until is wasn’t.
Coming back after a hiatus from online everything, I’m trying to figure out my new groove. It would be wonderful to see some of those wise and worldly comments from that original tribe of commenters.
Hashim, Darren, Sonia T, Priya, Patrice, Mark, and so many others. The roll call is a long one, but also a quality one.
I hope it is a repeatable one.
Sonia Simone says
Me too, Lori!
One thing I look for as a commenter is a lower-clutter environment. So I won’t comment on a YouTube video that has 1000 comments (955 of which are spam or abuse), because no one can get heard in that din. But I’m commenting more on thoughtfully written stuff with a smaller, but more genuine, comment community.
Ravi Chahar says
Hey Sonia,
Connecting with others is the best thing. Brian has focused on some great the customers and clients perspectives and the need.
I have read about Andrew. He nailed it. It’s all about how you explore yourself and try to embrace your relationship with your readers.
Keep connecting.
~Ravi
John says
To list all the points I liked in the blog commenting article would mean I would have to virtually rewrite the article. Some great points mentioned. One of which had me redoing my Gravatar.
I think automated commenting by robots with spun gibberish is what has really led to many sites stopping commenting on their posts. Nothing worse than all the comments from people that you can see haven’t even read your post.
It is really a pity as commenting helps to connect you to your audience.
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