2007

Back in March of this year, when I was still in charge of Oomph, Oxygen’s social network (which went down with the ship after the NBC aquisiton) – I attended the 2-day BlogHer conference in New York, hoping to promote awareness among the female blogger population. When I returned, Gerry Laybourne asked me to summarize my learnings from the conference, which I then sent out to our team of “anchors” (paid bloggers) in order to help them become stronger at their craft.

Keep in mind that our anchors were blogging on a community site, which is a bit different from, say, a personal WordPress blog – and some of my language here reflects that – but the main ideas are, I think, applicable to blogging at large. Now, if I can just learn to follow my own advice. Here is the email:

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Hola Anchors!

Many of you have emailed me over the past few months, asking for advice on your blogs – how to make your entries more compelling, and how to best get a rapport going with your readers. Hopefully you will find some of these tips -transcribed from my notes- to be helpful:

1. COMMENT! – This point is front, center and bold. If you want people to read and comment on your blog, you MUST read and comment on others. Oomphers will feel much more comfortable interacting with you when they see that a) you’re approachable and nice and b) that you take and interest in them. Also, never lose sight of the fact that Oomph is a community, and our agreement with you stipulates that you comment and participate, as well as simply blog. A social network is, by definition, a 2-way street and we expect all of our anchors to be actively participating. I think you’ll be surprised at how much more response your blog gets once you start responding to others.