According to Kinkeldei (2007), a blog community could be a group of bloggers using the same platform such as Blogger and Xanga or even group blogs which are run by several people at once contributing to the same site. From a business standpoint, these communities are a way of connecting with other communities with similar interests (26weekplan, 2010).
The blog community should be extended externally through mediums such as Facebook and Twitter to reach a larger audience (Reed, 2009). Using permalinks – permanent links – is a good way of making sure that URLs from the blog will be able to gain traffic from search engines because of the use of keywords (Samuda, 2010). RSS - really simple syndication - feeds allow viewers to know when a blog has been updated. Comments on a blog allow the readers to interact with the author(s) regarding the topic discussed, allowing more interactivity and community-building. Tags are also a good way of maintaining viewer interest – delicious tag clouds for instance keep track of a site’s most popular bookmarks and allows easy navigation through related pages and links (Kinkleldei, 2007).
White (2006) lists three types of blogging communities. In the single blogger centric community, there is usually only one blogger and visitors to the blog can get further acquainted with the blogger and the regular people who comment and join in the discussion. The second kind, the central connecting topic community, is a vast group of blogs which are linked and connected over a shared passion or topic, such as food bloggers and sketch bloggers. The third kind of community, the boundary community is defined by White (2006) is the situation whereby many bloggers share the same blogging platform such as Myspace.
The Meek is an example of a single blogger centric community, since that it is a webcomic site updated solely by Der-shing Helmer. Since that is centers around a webcomic, it is also part of a larger community of webcomics which are linked to each other. There is also an RSS feed and this blog contains a comments section for viewers to post thoughts on the comic strips and an external link to a LiveJournal page devoted to the comic which encourages a sense of community amongst readers.
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References
26weekplan 2010, Blogging communities – Marketing plan week #10, online video, viewed 26 September 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJR_7cPhxUM.
Helmer, D 2010, The Meek, viewed 28 September 2010, http://www.meekcomic.com.
Kinkeldei, B 2007, Whitepaper blog communities: Forging connections and promoting growth through blog communities, 21Publish, viewed 27 September 2010, http://www.21publish.com/pub/21publish/blogging-whitepaper.pdf.
Reed, M 2009, How to build an online community, Community Spark, viewed 27 September 2010, http://www.communityspark.com/how-to-build-an-online-community/.
Samuda, RD 2010, 8 effective SEO techniques every Wordpress blogger should use, Blogging Pro, viewed 27 September, http://www.bloggingpro.com/archives/2010/06/14/8-effective-seo-techniques-every-wordpress-blogger-should-use/.
White, N 2006, Blogs and community – launching a new paradigm for online community?, The Knowledge Tree, viewed 27 September 2010, http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community.
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