This week on ProBlogger we’ve been looking at the topic of building community on a blog. We started by identifying 9 benefits and 3 costs of community on a blog and then looked at 5 stages of building community on a blog. Today I want to dig deeper into some specific things to DO to build community on your blog.

1. Write in a Conversational Voice

This tip fits into the ‘it’s not rocket science’ category of blogging tips (as do many blog tips) – however as simple as it sounds I regularly see bloggers falling into the trap of talking ‘AT’ readers rather than blogging in a conversational voice.

The art of good conversation is as much as being ‘interested’ as it is about being ‘interesting’. Good conversationalists ask questions, pause to allow others to speak and listen to others when they are speaking.

Good bloggers similarly often write in a more conversational way and in doing so invite readers to respond.

Every bloggers needs to find their own style and voice but I’ve found a number of things have been helpful in writing more ‘conversationally’:

I write like I speak

y best blog posts often start out as me writing an email to a reader answering a question. Alternatively I will often imagine I’m talking to someone as I’m writing – which leads to a post written in a more personal way.

I tell stories

I don’t do this in every post but I find that when I weave some kind of personal angle into a post that it seems to draw readers into recounting their own stories. The story need not be long or highly personal story – it could simply be sharing how you did something in your business (you’ll see me do this below when I talk about how on dPS we added a Flickr Group to dPS as an intermediate step on the way to starting a forum).

I use personal language

When you talk to another person it is common to use words like ‘I’, ‘you’ and ‘we’. Conversely when you write in a theoretical language these words often disappear. Check out the top 20 posts on ProBlogger in 2012 and notice that over 50% of the most read posts this year had personal words in their titles.

Share Opinions

One of the most powerful ways to get some kind of a reaction from readers is to share you opinion. Doing so will automatically trigger your readers to think about their own opinions and whether they agree with you – and more often than not you’ll find at least a few of them will let you know if they do! Tread a little carefully here – opinion pieces can cause debate and depending on the tone of your writing and the topic can lead to heated conversation!

2. Invite Interaction

Part of writing in a conversational tone is to invite others to participate in the conversation. While some of your readers will comment without any kind of interaction you’ll be surprised how many more will interact with you with a simple call to do so!

Inviting your readers to interact with you can include numerous things such as:

• asking readers to comment (and not just at the end of posts… you can signal right at the beginning that you’re interested in other people’s thoughts on a topic (as I did several paragraphs above).
• asking specific questions – I find the more specific your questions are the better better responses you get (i.e. instead of ending a post with a general ‘what do you think?’ guide your readers with a more specific question about your topic or give them some alternatives or examples to help them make that first comment.
• write posts that are purely questions – one of the best ways to get responses is simply to write a post that is little more than the question itself. These ‘discussion’ posts can be gold (for example recently to wrap up a week of content on the topic of Pinterest we finished the series with a discussion post on the topic.
• Setting a Challenge – on dPS we do a weekly themed challenge for readers to go away and take a photo on a theme and then to come back and share what they did (here’s an example of one we did on the theme of ‘Nature’). This not only gets a good number of comments – it gets readers DOING something quite involved which is a sign of real reader engagement. Another recent example would be our recent Group Writing Project here on ProBlogger.
• Polls – perhaps the simplest method of getting a first time reader out of passivity and doing a little something is to run a poll on your blog. Having them simply choose from a couple of multiple choice options and clicking ‘vote’ may not seem like much but it signals to your readers that you’re interested in their opinion or experience and takes them a tiny step down the road to engagement and community. The other thing you can do with polls is once they’ve voted ask them to tell you why they voted as they did. For example on dPS we asked readers if they’d ever taken a photography class and then at the end of the post invited them to tell us what class it was and how they found it. 161 people added a comment. While this was a small % of those who’ve voted in the poll it was a higher number of comments than an average post on the site.
• Tell Readers about the Community - while we’re talking about polls, the other thing I’ve found useful is to not only run a poll but to post the final results of a poll too. For example in this post we shared how many of our dPS readers are looking to buy a new camera. In doing this readers see where they fit in to the diverse membership of your community and you remind them that they participated. The other good thing about showing results is that you signal to your whole readership that others are engaging with you. In that example above we mentioned that 28,000 people responded to the poll – great social proof!
• Invite Interactions OFF your blog – community does not just need to happen ON your blog for it to be worthwhile. In fact some of the best community discussions I’ve seen among my readers have happened on our dPS Facebook page or on my personal Google+ page. People are trained by these social networks to interact – so it can be a great place to begin conversations and relationships that may lead to ongoing community.

Regular invitations to your readership to interact will gradually draw more and more of your readers out of passivity and into an interaction with you. Even a small first step towards community could lead to a passive reader becoming super engaged which as we’ve seen previously can have many positive benefits.

Further Reading:

• 10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog
• 7 Ways to Turn a Blog Post Upside Down and Get More Comments

3. Consider a Dedicated Community Area

Blogs have community built into them to some degree by allowing comments to be made on any post. Many blogging tools now not only allow comments but allow threaded comments which enhance the experience and allow mini-conversations to happen in an easy to follow way.

However if there may come a time on your blog where you want to give readers the ability to not only respond to what you or your writers have to say – but also to start threads of new conversation.

To do this you’ll want to consider some kind of dedicated community area.

There are a number of ways to do this. On dPS I first did this by starting a ‘Flickr Group‘ where I invited readers to share photos and start conversations. dPS being a photography site and Flickr being full of photographers this not only gave our readers a place to interact but also helped us to find new readers.

For dPS the Flickr group also gave our readers a taste of community and whet their appetite for it to the point that they began to ask if I would consider starting an actual forum area – something I did (see the dPS Photography Forum here) after I saw that there was enough demand to kick it off with enough active members.

A forum comes with its own advantages and challenges.

In short forums benefits are:

• Increasing Reader Engagement
• Builds User Generated Content
• Increases Page Views per Visit
• Appeals to different types of readers

However the challenges of forums include:

• The challenge of moderation (they can take a lot of work and are often targets of spammers)
• The challenge of having enough critical mass to make the forum active enough to be attractive
• The technical challenges – as with most self hosted blogging platforms forum platforms need maintenance and upgrades and can be a challenge to manage.

Further Reading on Forums: check out 10 Mistakes that Will KILL a Forum (or blog) and 6 Tips on Adding a Forum to your Blog.

Other options for community areas on a blog include setting up off site community areas such as:

• Facebook Pages
• Google+ pages and communities
• Setting up a Ning Community

Of course with all of these options you’re really at the mercy of other companies who have control over the hosting and upkeep of your community. You also lose some control over features etc.

Add to the conversation: If you’ve had experience with other types of community areas on your blog (or other people’s) I’d love to hear about them in comments below.

4. Use Interactive and Accessible Mediums

While we’re talking about using different types of social media lets touch on a range of other tools that you can use to help build community on and around your blog.

A number of years ago I experimented over with using Ustream to connect with my readers. I set up a ProBlogger channel and on a fairly regular but impulsive basis used to jump onto it to do Q&A sessions with readers.

It has been a year since I ran a Ustream chat but the times I did it I got a lot of positive feedback from readers as it allowed them to not only interact with me by asking questions but allowed them to see and hear my responses live.

Today there are a number of other such options available to you – perhaps the most popular of which is what Google+ offers with their hangouts.

I’ve not run a hangout myself yet (there are only so many hours in the day) but have attended many as a viewer and think that they’d be a great way to give readers a more engaging experience of you – particularly now that they can be live streamed and synced with your Youtube channel.

One of the best people I’ve seen doing hangouts is Trey Ratcliff who is brilliant at it!

The other option on this front is to experiment with running webinars – something I’ve done more and more over the last year.

I use GoToWebinar (to which I am an affiliate) to run ProBlogger webinars and while mine have only been me talking to slides or me interviewing guests (audio only) I’ve had more positive feedback about our webinars than I have about most other things I’ve done in the past couple of years here on ProBlogger.

GotoWebinar have also just introduced Video conferencing also for 100-attendee webinars (soon to be adding it for larger plans too) so that those attending can see you live.

5. Run Projects and Challenges

I’m often asked what the ‘tipping point’ for ProBlogger was – the moment that the blog really took off. There were a number of these but one was the first time I ran the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog (31DBBB) challenge.

31 Days to Build a Better Blog is today our best selling eBook but it didn’t start out that way. It actually began as a series of blog posts that I put together over a month in 2005.

The idea started as a joke with a fried but was one that wouldn’t go away and so on the spur of the moment in the early hours of a night when I couldn’t sleep I posted that we were going to run this challenge where I’d give readers a little teaching/theory on an aspect of blogging every day for 31 days and would also give them a challenge to complete that related to the challenge.

I didn’t really expect it to take off too much but the next morning I awoke to a lot of comments on that post and people emailing to say that they were excited. The following 31 days not only saw increased traffic on the blog but readers engaging in a deeper way than they had before.

I ran 31DBBB over the next two years again and each time we saw readers becoming more and more engaged with the site.

What I realised through these projects is that giving people a common task to work on over a period of time gives them a shared experience that draws them closer together.

Since 2005 there have been many such projects run around the blogosphere. In fact inspired by 31DBBB Nester from Nesting place runs an annual ’31 Days of Change’ project on her blog in which bloggers are invited to run a ’31 Days’ series on their blogs.

Last year Nester saw over 1200 bloggers run 31 Days Challenges over the month of October (just a few pictured below)! That project is growing every year and I suspect it is because bloggers who join are discovering the power of running such a project on their blog.

There are many other challenges you can run. Check out FatMumSlim’s Photo a Day Instagram challenge for example which is participated in by many thousands of people. Similarly Fox in Flats runs a Style Dare a Day challenge that is always popular.

Add to the conversation: If you’ve run a challenge like this – please tell us about it in the comments below so we can learn about it!

6. Real Life Events

One of the most powerful ways of building community with your readers is to actually meet them – face to face.

I know this is full of all kinds of logistical challenges but IF you can meet your readers – take the opportunity because face to face interactions and a real life shared experience certainly seems to speed up the building of community.

I first experimented with this in the early days of my first blog when I didn’t have a heap of readers but when I posted that I would be in London on a holiday and asked readers if they wanted to meet up for a drink. I had 3 people show up for a beer – not a large crowd but the first time I’d met readers face to face.

Now almost any time I’m in a new city I’ll try to tweet/post out a time and place to have a meet up. Sometimes we get a good turnout and other times it is small – but every time it gives me an amazing opportunity to meet readers and build relationships with them (and for them to meet one another).

The other way I put myself out there to meet readers was to attend events that I thought my readers might be attending. In the early days for me this was about buying a ticket for popular events just like everyone else but in time it meant accepting speaking invitations when they came for the events I knew my readers were attending.

Over the last 4 years I’ve of course had opportunity to not only attend other people’s events but to run my own ProBlogger Training Events here in Australia. This started relatively small with a hastily arranged 100 person event but each year it has grown – to the point that our September Gold Coast event sold 200 Early bird tickets in a couple of hours.

The added bonus of our real life event is that a virtual event runs alongside it both in the selling of virtual tickets but also through the hashtag for the event. While not all ProBlogger readers are able to get to Australia in person the event hashtag last year saw a lot of readers engaging with one another and the ProBlogger brand and created a real buzz.

What I notice after running an event or meeting people face to face is that in the days and weeks after we meet in person I’m much more likely to see that person engaging with me on social media and on the blog. It’s one of the fastest ways to build deeper engagement.

The perfect example of someone who has run hundreds of real life events around the world is Chris Guillebeau who when launching his books has done meetups in every state in the US and for his recent book every continent around the globe. I was fortunate to go with him to one of these events in Melbourne and was amazed at the enthusiasm his readers turned out to the event with – it’s no wonder Chris has had such a massive impact upon so many.

7. Put Your Readers in the Spotlight

Way back in 2006 I wrote a very short post encouraging bloggers to ‘Make Your Readers Famous‘.

At the time it was a bit of a throw away idea and not something I’d pondered too much but in the last 7 years it has been something that I’ve seen the power of many times.

The idea is simple – put your readers in the limelight on your blog. Most blogs keep the blogger on the stage with the microphone and the readers inn the audience – but what would happen if you allowed your readers onto the stage?

The answer to that question is that readers will take real ownership over your blog and become a lot more loyal to it if you allow them opportunity to share the limelight.

Most bloggers use their blogs to build their own profile – but when you use your blog to help your readers to build their profile and achieve their own goals something special can happen.

Here are a few ways that you can make your reader famous that I’ve previous published (updated for 2013):

• Promote a comment to a Post – sometimes readers make incredibly insightful and wise observations and tips in the comments of your blog. While they will be read by a handful of people in the comment thread – why not pull it out and use it as the basis for one of your post – highlighting the wisdom in it and the person who made the comment.
• Write a Post about a Reader’s Blog – visit the blogs of those leaving comments on your blog and pick one that you resonate and that is relevant to your readers. Write a link post linking to that blog highlighting the best posts and what you like about it.
• Send Your Readers to Comment on Someone Else’s Blog – write a post that links to someone else’s great blog post and instead of asking your readers what they think about it on your own blog ask them to head over and comment on it on the other person’s blog. Shutting down the comments in your own post and saying that you’ve left a comment on their blog already can help make this more effective.
• Give Readers an Opportunity to Promote Themselves – run a project or write a post that gives readers an opportunity to promote themselves in some way. For example on dPS I wrote a post asking readers – do you have a photoblog?‘ As I wrote the post I thought I’d add a line inviting readers to share a link to their photoblogs. I didn’t think much of it until the next morning when I woke up to 250 comments on the post and a whole heap of emails thanking me for giving readers the opportunity to highlight their work.
• Run a Reader Poll and Highlight Answers in a followup post – have a post one weekend where you pose a question to your readers. Then in the week that follows do a followup post where you add some of your own thoughts on the question and pull out some of the best comments left by readers. Alternatively you could survey your twitter followers on a topic relevant to your blog and then highlight their responses as a blog post (example of this).
• Invite Guest Posts – often ‘guest posting’ is talked about solely as a way to get free content for your blog. While this is nice – one of the things I love about it most is that it puts the microphone in the hand of someone else and lets someone who would normally be constrained by the comments section have a little more power and influence on the direction of your community for a moment in time. This can have a real impact upon the person doing the post – but also upon your readership as they see someone like themselves featured on your blog.
• Invite your Readers to Promote their Social Networks – a fun project I ran here on ProBlogger a number of years ago was to have a ‘social media love in‘ where I invited readers to share their social media accounts with us here on the blog. Readers left comments sharing their Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, StumbleUpon (and more) accounts and we compiled all the submissions (over 700) into lists so readers could all follow one another. It was a massive amount of work but helped our readers grow their profiles.

There are many more ways to put your readers into the spotlight and help them out with their own online projects and goals. Please let us know below how you’ve done this type of thing on your own blog!

Blog World Expo (aff) is approaching and I’m getting really excited about heading to Vegas for the third year running to do some teaching, meet some amazing bloggers, and learn from some of the best in the business.

Last week, while on a Ustream Live Chat, I was bombarded with questions by first-time BWE attendees who wanted to know how to get the most out of the conference. I thought it might be helpful to jot down a few tips for the first-time BWE attendees among us.

1. Create a Twitter list of people going to BWE

I did this earlier in the year for SXSW and it was very helpful. Simply identify people in your current network—and out of it—who are going to BWE, and compile them into a Twitter list (it need not be public).

The benefit of doing this is two-fold:

• You’ll be able to get to know people who will be attending before you get there. Perhaps this is just something that appeals to me as a shy guy, but having some sort of connection with people before you rock up does make the real-life interactions you’ll have a lot easier.
• You’ll be able to find people a little more easily once you’re there. There are times where BWE can be a little overwhelming: hundreds of faces, and no idea where to go or what to do. Being able to dip into your Twitter list at these moments can help you get a sense of where your people are and what they’re doing.

Your Twitter list is also handy after the event, to keep in touch with those you meet. If you do this, make sure you add @problogger which is the ID I’ll be tweeting under at BWE this year.

2. Follow the #bwe10 hashtag

This has similar benefits to the point above. Dipping into this tweet stream gives you a snapshot of what’s going on at any moment of BWE, but in the lead-up, it also gives you a sense of who else is going—perhaps you’ll want to get to know them before you get there.

3. Take your business cards

It might seem a little strange that people going to a conference that’s focused on virtual relationships would still use business cards, but they do.

You need not spend a fortune on business cards. Even a simple business card with your contact details gives you something to hand to those you meet. If it leads to just one fruitful relationship at the conference, the expense of having them printed could easily be covered.

If you’re feeling creative, try a card that’s a little different. As I look back on the last few conferences I’ve been to, it’s often those with creative cards that stand out to me. I’m not sure whether it’s just me, but a card that makes me look twice usually helps to cement an interaction in my mind.

Having said that, one of the cards I remember from last year was a photocopied card with a guy’s story and photo on it. It was very low-budget and basic, but the story made me laugh and got my attention.

Oh, and try to include Twitter (or other relevant social media) handles on your card. Also get in the habit of following people as soon as you can after meeting them. I generally go through cards at the end of the night and do a mass follow of those I meet to reinforce the relationships.

4. Consider why you’re attending

Blog World is many things for many different people. Some attend to network, some to learn, some to build their profile, some to be seen, some to show off a product…

Think about why you’re attending before you get there. What are your goals for the event?

Time flies at BWE, so knowing what your goals are will shape the way you use your time. Not being clear on your goals could mean that you go home having achieved little.

Your goals will lead you to attend certain teaching sessions. They could help you to identify which people you want to meet, and what meetups and events you’ll want to hang out at.

If you goal is to go to BWE to learn something, come up with a list of things you want to discover before you go. I did this two years back, and it helped me to find sessions that were relevant to me, and gave me good questions to ask in those sessions. It also helped me in conversations to learn from others there.

5. Think about how you’ll introduce yourself

This one comes from the “shy guy” tip archive. Something that has always helped me at these kinds of events is to do a little thinking about how I’ll introduce myself. How will I take that opportunity that often comes at the start of a conversation when people ask what I do?

Some might call it an elevator pitch, but having a sense of what you want to communicate to people before you even get to BWE can be helpful. As a blogger, it may be that you want to get word out about your blog, for instance. Having a sentence or two that explains what your blog is, and what problem it solves, could be useful.

6. Organize your first meetup

This is another shy-guy technique that I’ve used a lot over the years. The anxiety of showing up at an event like this and not knowing anyone can really get to some people. What I learned is that if I tee up a couple of face-to-face catch-ups early in the conference, I more quickly find myself getting involved in the event.

So take your research into who else is attending, and attempt to hook up for a quick coffee with someone that you want to meet on the first day. You might even come clean with them and tell them that you don’t know anyone and would love to meet them.

If there’s a group of people in a niche that know each other online, but have never met, you might try to organize a group meetup on the first morning. In doing so you could just become the “go-to” person in the group.

I find that if I get organized like this before I go, I’m much more likely to find people to hang out with for the rest of the conference.

7. Choose some sessions to attend

I hate to admit this, but last year at BWE I found it very hard to get to sessions because I was rushed off my feet speaking and meeting with people. However the year before I got a lot more out of the teaching, because I put some time aside to organize the session side of things before I went. The BWE scheduler lets you create a personal schedule pretty quickly. Use it.

Keep in mind that some sessions are quite heavily focused on the beginner. So you might want to try to assess the level of each session before you go, and consider going to sessions on topics that you know nothing about. Sometimes it’s the off-topic sessions that are the most interesting.

Don’t forget that this year I’m running a full day of ProBlogger training (with Chris Garrett) on the Thursday of BWE. If you’re coming please do mark it on your schedule to let us know you’ll be there.

8. Decide how to capture it

Two years ago I left home for BWE with a very heavy bag of gear: a DSLR, extra lens, flash, backup compact digital camera, iPhone, video camera, laptop, notebook (plus all the chargers for all the devices)… I had dreams of taking loads of photos and video that I could use on my blog when I got home.

I could also barely walk.

The reality was that I used little of the gear.

I can’t tell you what to bring, but would suggest that you try to pack light and think carefully about what you need. It’ll depend a little on your goals and workflow, but you’ll probably need something to write with, something to take pictures with, and, if you use video, something basic to record that.

BWE is a great place to create content. There are so many people from so many niches that it’s great to do interviews with people and tweet or blog live. But if you’re like me, you may find that you don’t use half of the gear you bring.

9. Preschedule your blog with content

The great thing about Blog World is that while you’re there you’re going to be connecting with a lot of other bloggers. You’ll talk about your blog and people will want to check it out.

I know one blogger last year who told me that they got their biggest days of traffic while at BWE because those attending would visit it and were linking up to it.

As a result, it’s an opportune time to have some good, fresh content up on your blog. So don’t just let your blog sit dormant while you’re at BWE—try to have a few posts scheduled to publish.

Also try to stay active on Twitter while you’re there. Lots of BWE attendees tweet during the event and it’s a great way to reinforce your relationships with people.

10. Dress for comfort

I often get asked, “What should I wear to BWE?” I remember asking it myself—and stressing about it quite a bit, too. On reflection, I don’t really remember what anyone was wearing. My only real impression was that it was pretty relaxed.

As I look back on some of the photos I took, I see there was a wide range of levels of dress. A few people dressed up, but most people were pretty casual.

I’d probably suggest throwing in something a little smarter for the evening parties, but unless you’re speaking or have a booth you can probably get away with jeans and a T-shirt or a simple shirt. I tend to stick with jeans and a button-up shirt and have never felt out of place.

If still in doubt on what to wear, head to Flickr and do a search for BlogWorld or BWE09 to see what others are wearing.

11. Create a list of action items

One of the problems with attending conferences is that you can learn some amazing things in both sessions and conversation, but then go home and do nothing. It can be a lot of fun and very informing, but unless it impacts what you do, it’s kind of empty.

As a result I recommend that you take some time out each day (or at numerous times during the day) to create a list of action items that you’re going to work through when you get home.

Last year, I created this list on my iPhone, and three or four times per day would jot down points that really hit me as I listened to other people—ideas that I wanted to put in place for myself.

Items included the people I wanted to follow up on, posts I wanted to write, tweaks to my designs, topics I wanted to learn more about, and so on.

At the end of the conference I went through the list, prioritized it, and got the tasks done.

12. Be present

A challenge that many people find at social media events is to actually be present at them. We spend all this time and money getting to the events, but then spend a lot of our time on Twitter, creating videos, live blogging… In the end, we don’t really stop and just be an attendee.

As a result, we can miss a lot of the good stuff that’s said in sessions. We can also be so distracted that our conversations don’t go to the depth that they could, so we don’t make the connections with those around us that we should.

13. Mix big groups, small groups, one-on-one, and me time

Mix up the type of interactions you have at Blog World.

At BWE, there are some great bigger gatherings. The keynote sessions and parties can be quite inspiring, although some do find them overwhelming, as you realize that you’re a part of a movement that’s bigger than yourself—something I find it’s good to be reminded of as a guy who spends most of his time alone typing on his computer!

However, if you only spend time in the big groups at BWE, you could be missing out on the opportunities to connect a little deeper in smaller group interactions.

Earlier in the year I had one fantastic afternoon and evening where I had almost the perfect mix of interactions:

• it all started with a nap in my room (as an introvert, I need my cave time).
• Then I caught up with a group of ten bloggers in someone’s house for a few drinks and some relaxed chatting about life, blogging, and the niches we were in.
• Dinner was with a group of about 25 people—it was more of a networking opportunity.
• After dinner we attended one of the big big parties that happens at SXSW. I met loads of people but didn’t really get too deep with anyone.

I got home that night and felt it’d be a great combination of activities—there were lots of opportunities for deeper conversations and relationship building, and while the party wasn’t overly relational, it was good to get around and meet lots of people. I was even able to catch up with some of them again the next day.

I know some people prefer to only do the small group thing, while others are more drawn to the big events, but I find a combination of both (with some me time to keep me sane) helps me achieve the most.

Also keep in mind that while the sessions at BWE can be great, a lot of the networking happens in the corridors between sessions, on the Expo Floor, in the Blogger room, and in the evenings at parties.

14. Get out of your comfort zone

Let me finish with one last piece of advice: make the most of the few days you have at BWE and get a little out of your comfort zone.

BWE is an awesome opportunity on many fronts. Where else in the world are you sharing an experience with thousands of online publishers and influencers?

The potential that relationships and learnings from BWE can open up for you is quite massive, so whether you’re a natural conference goer or not, resolve to make the most of the time you have there, and get out and meet as many people as you can.

I’ve always found people to be very approachable at BWE. Speakers aren’t whisked away at the end of sessions, and most don’t mind being stopped in the hall to chat. Even better than that, some of the most interesting people are probably sitting next to you in sessions.

They might not all have big names or be Internet celebrities, but among your fellow attendees are some amazing people who you could learn a lot from, and who you may end up having a fruitful relationships and friendship with.

So push yourself a little this BWE to meet some people who you might not meet unless you bite the bullet and say hi to somebody new!

15. Take tips from fellow BWE attendees

Lets finish with some tips from your fellow attendees—some people you might want to put on your BWE twitter list. I asked on Twitter a few days back what tips my followers would give for BWE and here are some of the responses:

Don’t try and meet everyone. Find the people you connect with and get to know them well!—@CatherineCaine

Ooh, and plan beforehand on how you’re going to use the info and business cards you get!—@CatherineCaine

Based on ur objectives, create a plan of action for the 3 days like which sessions/events to attend & who to meet—@rabeidoh

Have an idea of what you want to do ahead of time but mostly, have fun & don’t be afraid to introduce yourself to new people—@LaraKulpa

stay out of conference room. mingle in the streets. seek out the conversation destinations. that’s where the real talk happens—@SimplyOptimal

if waffling between going to a panel or connecting 1:1 with someone, go for the personal connection. Better long term—@ahockley

my tip for #bwe10 is to make your own crowd—@tedmurphy

Have specific objectives b4 you arrive. Network, network, network. Follow up with a personal note when you return home—@altmarketing

carry your phone charger with you AT ALL TIMES! (If you can, an extra charger) It’s good for you & you’ll make new friends.—@Ribeezie

I’m really looking forward to Blog World Expo this year and hope to catch up with you there. If you’re still not booked in, grab your ticket today. If you’re coming, please do drop by one of my sessions and/or the ProBlogger booth on the exhibitor floor, where I’ll be spending more time this year!