Understanding the advantages of creating relationships and interacting with users, in this lesson we see which are the main ones tools to interact with them through your blog.
What I explained in the lesson on the importance of interacting with your users to create a successful blog can be defined as the theoretical part. But now we need to understand how it is possible, in practice, to communicate with users and consolidate the relationship. In fact, there are several resources on the web that you can take advantage of to be perceived as an active admin and interested in what users have to say. Try to follow all these paths without ignoring even a visitor.
Tools to interact with your blog users
Comments Area
Here a common mistake emerges: thinking that the comments area is just a space reserved for users to comment on an article. Wrong. The comments area is an excellent mutual communication platform, where the exchange of ideas must always be encouraged.
You can also entice users to comment or interact with your post through original systems, such as the use of Facebook-style reactions .
If you want to maintain a more professional structure, you can disable comments from pages and leave them on for articles only.
Make a commitment to always respond to your users’ comments, whether they are questions, compliments or criticisms. This will give the feel of a professional and active blog.
Chat
Live Chat is one of the more useful tools to manage and interact with your users. First of all, it allows you to speed up communications by answering and asking questions in real time. Secondly, it is perceived by the user himself as a guarantee of safety and punctuality.
There are several plugins to install a chat box on WordPress , you just have to choose the one that best suits your needs and your blog.
Social Network
In a later lesson we will see how to create your Facebook page. This and other social channels are fundamental elements in establishing a careful and engaging communication with the users of a blog.
Each Social Network has its own peculiarities, but in general Facebook and Twitter are the most widespread and commonly used. Make sure you interact with the users of your blog writing proactive posts and sharing all the articles published on the website. Furthermore, it is very important that you insert the social buttons on the blog pages and in each article, to give the reader the opportunity to share and “like”.
Emails are a very useful medium that can be used in several ways. First of all make sure you enter a contact form or the address you want to be contacted at on the contact page (or the homepage, depending on your preferences).
Users will then be able to write to you in case of problems and observations. Check your inbox promptly and make sure you reply to everyone.
Secondly, you can start a newsletter service to update your users on the latest news regarding your site and the niche covered. We will see how to do this in a later lesson.
Surveys
A very effective practice for engaging usersconsists of creating surveys on topics related to your niche. First of all you show visitors that you care about their opinion, and secondly you make them feel part of the site, as they are making their mark. Make sure you choose interesting and original polls that give rise to discussion.
The Pages of Your Blog
That’s right, even the content of the web pages themselves can be exploited to interact with your users. After all, this is the showcase of your business, and the first thing visitors see. Even before reading the articles or subscribing to the mailing list.
You can create pop-up boxes that welcome your users or help them find their way around the site. Alternatively, it is very important to insert CTAs (calls to action) here and there on the site, inviting those who visit it to do something, such as read your latest articles, subscribe or contact you via chat to ask for advice.
Forum
The good old forum. Those who haunt the Web for some years will remember that the forums were one of the first forms of “social” to appear on the Web. But you are wrong if you think they are extinct. A well maintained forum can be a very engaging way to exchange opinions with your users and create epic discussions.
In conclusion, these are the better ways to interact with your users. As you may have read, one of them is the social channel.
