Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Engaging Your Reader

By

Before I went to BlogPaws I promised I’d share my tips for Engaging Your Reader with you, my readers. My session was a little different this year than the last time I spoke. This year my session was a ten minute table discussion with nine different people. 

I wrote a quick outline of talking points I could hand out to attendees, but tailored the individual discussions based upon a questionnaire I e-mailed to them.

The reason I did this is reader engagement is different for everyone. Some folks want more readers, some want more comments and some people to return to their blog. 

For me, it’s a combination of all of the above, but also about building a community. I really feel this blog has a great sense of community. I notice when I’m reading your comments that some of you comment on previous comments. It’s like a little neighborhood coffee klatch. 

Once a while back when I was trying to get a feel for what my blog is about, Jen from My Brown Newfies said something like, “Your blog is like Cheers, where everybody knows your name.” That was a huge compliment for me and it really set me on the path to where I wanted to go with this blog.  (Thank you Jen! XOXO).

So enough babbling, here are my tips on Engaging Your Reader.

Chocolate Lab

I’d like to engage you in feeding me some treats. Thankyouverymuch.

Keep in mind this is an outline of talking points.

Keep content relevant to your mission statement.

  • A blog about training dogs should have posts about training dogs.
  • Product reviews should have relevancy to mission statement. (A blog about dog training should have products used for training dogs.)

Write with authenticity.

  • Use words you would typically use in conversation.  (Many people say reading my blog is just like sitting down and talking with me.)
  • When sharing facts, link back to your source.

Write about topics that instill passion in you. 

  • Passion shines through in writing.  People will connect with your passion.
  • Editorial calendars are useful in scheduling posts and jotting down ideas for future posts.
  • Did you read a blog that touched your heart?  Bookmark it for future use.

Connect with other bloggers.

  • Link back to a post that inspired you.
  • A well thought out comment adding to the discussion will encourage others to check out your blog.
  • Connect with other bloggers on social media.
  • Ask for another blogger’s help if you are stuck on something.
  • Collaborate with other bloggers for special blog hops or events. ( example: Caring for Critters Round Robin.)

Don’t engage in too many blog hops.

  • Non-blogging readers may not understand (or care) what blog hops are.
  • Don’t become predictable, it’s easy for someone to blow off reading your post when you become predictable.

I want to try and express this a little better, as I’ve heard this may seem like I’m against blog hops, which I’m totally not!

Blog hops are great, I love blog hops, heck the best blog hop I know is Thursday’s Barks and Bytes hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and yours truly. 🙂 

Blog hops are a great way to connect bloggers (or readers) with other bloggers passionate about a particular topic.

For instance, Barks and Bytes is sort of like gathering around the water fountain at work on Monday and catching up with your co-workers. It’s a great way to connect with other bloggers and work on building your own community. Fit Dog Friday is amazing if you are looking for tried and true tips to help get and keep your dog in shape. Tasty Tuesday is the place to go when you are looking for treats to spoil your dogs.

I’m just saying, you want to be cautious about when you join a blog hop, why you join and how often. Don’t join in just to join in. Join a blog hop because its message speaks to you, you think it will interest your readers and because you have something to add to the conversation.

Do you have any tips for engaging your readers? What does engagement mean to you?

Discuss.

When the Words Won’t Come

By

By now you should all know that I will be speaking at the BlogPaws Conference in Nashville at the end of this month. My topic is Engaging Your Reader.

.

.

I was a little nervous when I heard they were opening sessions for people to sign up. What if no-one signed up for me? But I’m happy to report, my session is full. For those of you who get into my session, don’t worry. I’m at conference from Thursday until Monday morning, if you see me there, grab me chat me up. If you aren’t attending, don’t worry, I’ll be writing a post recapping my topic. 

Last Thursday to give peeps a little taste of my topic, I participated in a Google Hangout with Jessica Willams from You Did What With Your Wiener (who will be doing one on one sessions about increasing your Facebook interactions) and Carol Byrant, Marketing Manager of BlogPaws and blogger at Fidose of Reality.

You can watch the chat here or you can go directly to Youtube. (Honestly, could that picture be any more unflattering?)

I’m telling you up front, I fidgeted a lot and had a real problem keeping my eyes looking at the camera on my computer. I kept looking at Carol and Jessica on the bottom part of my screen. And I think I got off track once, but Carol was all cool about it. After the chat Jessica and I hung out a bit and answered a couple of questions.

One of the things Carol and I talked about was what to do when you experience writer’s block. 

There are a number of things I do when the words just won’t come.

  • I have a bunch of posts in draft form in my dashboard. I go through those and look to see if something catches my eye, (although some of them are outdated now).
  • I will also flip through pictures in my computer and see if any of them inspire me come up with a post.
  • I am also sometimes inspired by some of your blog posts, or one of your posts reminds me of a story and I’ll jot some ideas down.

These are some of the ideas I use when I’m at a loss for words, what methods do you use when the words just won’t come?

And just because who the hell wants to see my picture on the blog, here is a cute picture of my puppy on his solo walk this past weekend.

Golden Lab

If you’re happy and you know it, lift your paw.

&

A Day Late

By

Welcome to co-hosted Follow-Up Friday, the blog hop that let’s you wrap up your week and leads you right into the weekend.

https://www.heartlikeadog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/follow-up-friday.jpg

Thanks so very much to Misty Shores Chesapeakes, my co-hostess this week.  She very graciously handled the entire blog hop yesterday so we could make the big announcement about K9 Kamp hosted by Koly and Kelly.

This ‘N That Thursday – May 23, 2013

This goes way back but I just wanted to thank everyone for their kind comments and yes, I intend to follow my bliss wherever it may lead me.

You Make Me Laugh

Sampson-1

I think it’s pretty clear, our pets are awesome and bring us joy and laughter all the time.

Leslie said, ““Bella, you make me laugh every. single. day. It’s one of her greatest gifts to me.”  What a beautiful statement.

H and Flo said, “I always smile when George uses my use of the bathroom as his cue to use the litter tray.”  Yes, I imagine that would make me smile too.

Sampson Loves Sara

Delilah is very good about getting her nails done (she’s such a princess) she will actually hand me her paw and let me clip them.  Sampson is the tough one though, despite the fact that he has light-colored nails.  He does tremble a bit when I take out the clippers, so it’s just easier to take him to see Sara.

Misty asked, “Have you ever tried using a grinder on them?”  You know Hubby did a while ago and Sampson didn’t care for the vibration, but it might be worth trying again.

Marrow Bones from Jones All Natural Chews

Thankfully the dogs passed the bones with no major incidents.

Julie said, “That is exactly why I always leave typed, step-by-step notes, but how can you be sure that they will follow them?”   You know Julie, I always used to do that, write everything out so that a monkey could come in and feed my dogs.  Granted he’d have to be a monkey that could read, and I have yet to find one of those.  For some reason I did NOT do that this time.  That will be the last time that I don’t do it.

Guaranteed.

All Things Collie said, “Wow, that’s a lot of chicken! Our cottage is rather small, or I would offer to dog sit!

But if you need a recommendation for a really great kennel, let me know. My daughter works for a kennel, the same kennel I worked at while in high school and college. It’s very clean, great staff, and the owners live on the property.”

Thank you, that is so sweet of you and I really appreciate that.  My house is quite large would you like to come here?  😉

Actually I was speaking with my daughter today and she offered to come over, I think if I fly (I hate flying) I could leave first thing Friday morning and come back Saturday and would really only need someone to feed them dinner on Friday and breakfast on Saturday.  I’ll keep you posted.

Mrs. Taleteller said, “I am trying to imagine you coming home and your head NOT exploding!”  LOL that’s pretty much what happened.

A Dog Walker’s Chinese Star

Sue asked, “What kind of wild animals are you talking about, anyway?”  Well we know for sure there are Fisher’s (aka fisher cats) in the woods and we’ve been told there are coyotes as well. Neither one of which I want to mess with.

Bert said, “Oh I definitely would go for a patent, I would change the design on the bag a little and I would add a fling cord for harder impact” I like the way you think Bert. Let’s talk.

Emma said, “Mom worries about getting the poo on herself sometimes but we never thought of flinging the bags.”  Yeah, getting it on yourself is disgusting, but it’s my dog.  I wouldn’t want someone else’s dog’s poop on me.  That just grosses me out.

All Things Collie said, “We have WADS, or a poopisle or a fecal grenade ready to aim at any dangers, and we never even knew it!”  Fecal grenades.  I love it!!

Jen said, “I’ve actually thought about that, if necessary, I’d throw a poop bag at a charging dog/person of ill intent. With or without accompanying ninja sounds. For the threat display, you understand.” Yes I do understand, but knowing me I’d probably be screaming, “Eat shit and die mother f**ker!”

Kim said, “By the way, that reminds me of when I used to walk the dogs when we lived in a subdivision–I would put the bag down by a tree in the common area as I walked and pick them up on my way back. We used to pass the house of a really, really obnoxious schnauzer that our dogs didn’t like and he would bark at us from his front door that was always open. One day after I set a bag down he came over and picked it up and went inside with it.”

OMG that made me laugh.  I set the bags down by trees too!  Delilah has a habit of pooping within a few minutes of starting our walk and there I am left to carry it the whole way.  But I’ve never had a dog carry a baggie off.

Pam said, “The moment it opened with, “It was a four bag walk…” I knew I was in for hilarity.” Thank you.  I was  actually singing that first line to “It was a hard day’s night.”

This ‘N That Thursday

I answered the comments on this post directly.  Good thing too because I’m way over my word count!

Join us next week for Follow-Up Friday when my co-host will be?  Who?  Any takers?

Thanks again to Misty Shores, you rock!!



Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...