As readers become more involved with the blogs they frequent, a new form of communication is becoming prevalent – interactive blogging. There are a few ways to look at this and determine whether or not this form of interaction is right for your corporate blog and your readers. When used properly, interactive blogging can be a huge weapon in your arsenal towards building better relationships with your customers, but it can be a double edged sword.

First, let’s look at the most common form of interactive blogging, using your posts to answer reader questions. This commonly occurs when you have someone leave you a question in the comments section of your blog, frequently asking for more information on a certain topic. Now, if one person asks this question there is always a chance that there are more people that want to know the same thing.

You can use these comments to determine what your readers really want to know. If it’s a good question, consider writing a blog post that will answer it. If not, you can keep focusing your energies on your regular posts. However, it is a good idea to let your reader’s dictate what you will be writing about – at least to some extent – since this can help you develop a stronger reader following.

The second form of interactive blogging takes your comments section to a whole new level. This is where you encourage your readers to contribute on a regular basis and the comments section may even start to look a bit like a message board. This is another powerful tool that can benefit corporate blog owners.

First, you’ll be getting the benefit of having your readers return throughout the day to keep tabs on the ongoing conversation. You can also set up an RSS feed for your comments to make this easier. Second, you’ll be increasing the amount of page views you have as well as the opportunity to attract new readers through word of mouth advertising, and through search engine indexing.

Interactive blogging does have a catch though, as we mentioned above. If you can keep tabs on your readers and avoid having flame wars, or nasty comments, it can work quite well. However, if you let it get out of hand, you’re only asking for trouble. On one side, you’ll have readers that will wonder where you stand on the issue if you don’t take care of a problem, and on the other hand, if you take quick action and delete problem comments, you may be cast as against freedom of speech.

The easiest way to take advantage of interactive blogging is simply to set some ground rules, make them clear, and then stick to them. If your readers know right off the bat what they can and cannot do with your interactive blogging elements, there will be a lot less confusion and a lot more interacting going on. Try it for a week and see how your corporate blog changes.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-11-07 05:35:27. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Does Your Corporate Blog Need Video? Although video content is lauded and championed as the future of the internet, there is still a lot of dissension over whether it has a place in corporate blogging. While there is no one clear answer to this, there are a few benefits that videos can bring, as well as......
• 7 Reader Friendly Corporate Blogs Tips You want your blog to be engaging, but that may not always be easy. Here are some great tips on how to keep your corporate blog reader friendly. 1. Pick your design well. One of the biggest problems for corporate blogs is design. You can need to make sure that......
• 5 Tips to Get More People to Read Your Corporate Blog The whole point of creating a corporate blog is to be able to reach out to your customers, build up an audience and market your company. It takes time to build up an audience but there are many things that you can do to ensure that more people will start......
• 3 Tips on Avoiding Failure with Your Corporate Blog One of the main problems facing corporate blogs is that they have a high rate of failure. This can be due to many factors, but it doesn't mean that your blog is doomed to fail. With the right techniques and management, your blog can be incredibly successful and can serve......
• How to Start a Stellar Corporate Blog If you’re ready to get into corporate blogging, you need to make sure that you are going in with the right attitude. There is a big difference between starting an okay blog and starting a stellar blog. You are in this to succeed, so you need to make sure that......

• How I get more comments than blogs that have 10 times more traffic After weeks and months of long hours in front of your computer, you're finally getting some traffic on your blog but you can't get enough people to participate on your site. Ever wonder how some smaller blogs get a lot more activity than some of the giants in your......
• Top 10 Librarian Blogs [/caption] by Phil Bradley Phil Bradley is a British freelance librarian and Internet Consultant. He works very closely with the library community in Britain, but has also travelled extensively. Phil has helped advise Microsoft on the development of their search engines, is an accredited trainer for the European Parliament and......
• Frugal Things To Do All Over The Money Life Network is at it again! This time we're providing you with a resource of frugal things to do all over the country (and hopefully other locations too).  Each of our seven member sites will be giving you frugal ideas for the city they come from.  Check......
• Wickedly Spooky Halloween Roundup Happy Sunday to all my readers! Today's all about the roundup. As usual we have the Fitness Health Network of which I am a part of so go ahead and browse through the posts. You'll find they have a lot of great things to say. A little further down are......
• Save Money on Valentine's Day (Win $25) [Last year I posted these tips to save money. I'm disappointed in myself for not being able to come up with more original ideas. I'm going to pay that penalty with my wallet. The person with the idea that I like the best will earn $25 via Paypal, Amazon, or......