The Blog of Lisa Morosky

Our readers are our lifeline. No argument there. But there’s a fine line between giving your readers ultimate freedom to comment and act how they please, and letting them dictate the entire direction and mood of your blog.

Just as a reminder: your blog belongs to you.

I was thinking about this over the weekend because I received an email from a former client. She wanted my input on something that was happening on her blog. Honestly, it was something I had never encountered before. It’s kind of a dramatic situation.

For every blog post she wrote, there was one person who commented negatively. Every single time. They aren’t defamatory or rude comments necessarily, but they are just negative in nature and really kill the mood of her overall blog that promotes positivity (her blog is in the personal development/life coaching market). Ever heard of Debbie Downer? That was this person.

Not only that, my former client noticed that when this person started commenting on her blog, suddenly others stopped commenting, or shifted their commenting to just responses to this one person. This one, negative person had essentially taken over the otherwise positive conversation on her blog, and twisted it. And my former client didn’t even feel jazzed about blogging anymore.

My response to my former client was simple: who owns your blog? It’s time to make an executive decision (because you’re an Executive Editor when you own and operate your own blog, don’t forget) and take control over your blog again.

I told her she should kindly get in touch with the commenter and state her case and say she appreciates the feedback and ask if she can help with anything, then let the person know that in the future, she’d have no choice but to delete comments.

I know what you’re thinking.

“Delete comments? Why don’t you just take away our freedom too?”

Okay, maybe I will. (Just kidding).

But really, as bloggers, we get way too caught up in the utopia of “we’re doing good for society by providing free information” and “blogging is an art form” and “free speech and freedom of the press”, and we forget that it’s also a business. I don’t know about you, but I’ve worked hard to create my brand and my businesses and my blogs. I’m not going to let someone come in and hijack the conversation and make it the complete opposite of what I’ve built and what I stand for.

It’s not personal. It’s business.

In this case, I really advocate taking the negative conversation off of the blog and approaching this person directly and continuing the conversation that way, if you feel they’re damaging the community as a whole. We’re not talking about the occasional critical comment here. We’re talking about a pattern of negativity infecting her blog and her readers as a whole.

It makes no sense to put so much effort into establishing your brand, then put zero effort into protecting and maintaining it.

You own your blog. You call the shots when it comes to what’s best for your brand, and for your blog’s community. Let’s not forget that.

Have you signed up for the ProBlogger Community yet? Bloggers all over the Internet have been writing about how much they really enjoy these forums, and how useful they are. I couldn’t agree more.

Here are the top 11 reasons why I’m totally diggin’ the ProBlogger Community thus far. Your reasons may be different, but here’s what I’m getting out of it.

1. You have easy access to top bloggers.
Want to get noticed by some top bloggers? Well hello, start here. Some of them are quieter than others on the forums, but they’re around. And they’re listening.

2. It’s an easy way to drive traffic to your own blog.
We all know (or maybe only some of us know) that forums can be a good way to drive traffic to your blog. Well combine that with the fact that those active on these forums are, by nature, looking for new ideas and information, and are plugged into the Internet pretty heavily, and you have yourself a traffic-generation winner. I’ve seen my traffic increase since being involved on these forums.

3. There are essentially zero spammers.
Darren knew what he was doing by charging for access to the forums. This keeps the spammers and obnoxious people (most of them, anyways) out of the forums. I’ve definitely noticed how hassle-free it is compared to other forums.

4. Newbie bloggers are receiving lots of love and support.
I love it! Newbie bloggers have a safe environment to ask questions. It’s cool to see bloggers pitching in to educate those that are new to blogging.

5. I’m learning about resources and tools I’ve never even heard of.
That’s a pretty nice perk. I’m always up for broadening my horizons.

6. I’ve found and been in contact with new bloggers in my market(s).
I’ve sent and received some emails from people I didn’t even know were in my market(s). Now they’re on my radar and we can exchange ideas and keep tabs on eachother.

7. You can find guest posters in an instant.
Seriously, this has got to be one of the easiest ways to get guest posters now. It cuts down on a lot of time spent searching for people, and searching for blogs to write on.

8. You can learn more about what’s “normal” and what isn’t.
People are distributing polls over on the forums to find out what’s “normal”. I think this is a great way to learn how you stack up to your peers.

9. You can get in touch with and meet people before events.
That way you don’t have to go to events knowing no one.

10. You can find people to collaborate and create alliances with.
There’s an entire collaboration area over at the ProBlogger Community. How cool is that?

11. Shooting the breeze with other bloggers.
Often times (at least for me anyways) your conversations with other bloggers will be centered around blogging topics and your market. Over at the forums, you can get to know other bloggers on a more personal level. For example, some people over there now know that I am an HGTV addict, and that my football teams are the Steelers and the Penn State Nittany Lions. If someone didn’t ask directly, those topics would never come up in conversation.

If you haven’t signed up yet, don’t let the measly price tag scare you off. It really is worth it. No matter what your blog’s market is, I think you’ll find some value in being a part of the ProBlogger Community.

What about you? Are you a part of the ProBlogger Community? What’re you getting out of it thus far?