Have you ever thought about the relationship you have with a blogger as a reader? I’m not talking any sort of real world encounter, but about the emotional attachment and one-way connection you build up with your favorite bloggers. What is it about them that makes you like them?

Everybody wants to be adored

The blogosphere is such a shallow and fickle place because everybody wants to be loved. There is a kind of false friendship that exists between all bloggers and their readers. If this were the real world, there would be some serious bitching going on about who keeps and real and who doesn’t.

When you blog, whether you like it or not, you project a persona out into the world. Your online persona is a reflection of everything you think is ideal in a blogger. You want your readers to think they are your friends, and you want everyone to “like” you. I’m sometimes disgusted by the incredibly lame comments people leave on other people’s blogs; I’ve been guilty of leaving a few myself. Everybody has to be friends, because making enemies in the blogosphere is unwise unless you can roll with the punches.

So how do you get people to like you? From studying a number of blogs I’ve come up with a few ideas:

• Write with an authoritative voice: What this means is that you need to assert yourself and make it clear to your readers that you know what you are talking about. Even if what you write turns out to be wrong, write everything in a manner that shows you believe it to be true. Research your facts too. Most people are quite naïve when they read a blog and will take whatever is presented to them without challenging it. When you do get challenged, you’ll have some good discussions to get in to.
• Be successful: A successful blog makes you the envy of everyone with less success than yourself. If people think you are good at what you do, then they will keep coming back for more. If you aren’t successful, then you can at least write like you are successful by being sure of yourself.
• Give your readers something: This is fundamental for achieving success as a blogger, and it works on a number of levels. By giving something to your readers, they benefit and will want to give something back to you: loyalty. Give useful, clear content. Give away prizes in contests. Give your readers something they can’t get anywhere else.
• Have a sense of humor: One major turn off for me as a reader is reading a blog that is strictly business. I link to her often, but Kumiko is a prime offender of this. When she writes, it’s not always fun to read. She might argue that only serious bloggers make money, but when I read a blog I want to establish some sort of connection with the author; I want to see that they are human. One of the best ways to do this is by the use of pictures of yourself.

One extreme way to make people like you is to offer them something similar to what a lottery ticket offers. By having blog contests with ridiculously huge prizes, you not only generate interest, but people will be impressed with your generosity. Conversely you can come across as a bit desperate, like Ashwin Khanna does with his $2,500 giveaway, but what he’s done is so simple that he will surely benefit in the long run. People are commenting on his blog saying how much the money would mean to them and their families. Ashwin has hit people’s emotions, including mine, hence my entry into his contest.

Over at Ashwin’s blog, you will find one crazy blog owner!! You can win $2500!! To enter just copy this text and paste it in your blog!! But hurry, this competition will not last long! So get posting!

What do you think? What makes you like a blogger?

Trust: For the truth about Ashwin’s content, see this post.

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Tags: Tips and tricks //