Hello, I have been doing quite well with my site, http://www.comicnerd.com - but it is hard to keep the site consistently updated while working on the marketing aspect. My search engine traffic is unbelievable, and they treat me well, my site stickiness is good and people spend an average of 2.03 minutes on my site, clicking an average of 1.77 pages per visit. The problem is encouraging interaction. The site, while being review and news based, is really going to shine by being user-driven. The problem is no one comments! I have tried adding widgets that show top comments, recent comments, disabled registration requirement - made it as easy as possible to comment on my site - but to no avail. Does anyone have any tips on upping my visibility as well as encouraging community participation on a blog? Any and all input is appreciated. Thanks!
Maybe feature a user comic in a contest once a month, and have users nominate the comics and vote on them themselves?
That's a good idea but it would require a snowball effect on a pre-exisiting community, imo. Thank you, though! I forgot to mention, I use stumbleupon and myspace - but these yield very little: http://comicnerd--com.stumbleupon.com/public/ http://www.myspace.com/www_comicnerd_com
maybe people don't want to stay in your website so much.... If they are not doing comments then start yourself... post some fake comments where people need to cut your thought.
Well maybe, you can offer a rewards system when they have a certain amount of posts? I don't know what you could offer you'd have to think about that. But maybe an eBook with new content or a new video? -- Hamish
Not too thrilled about fake comments and the prize thing I've considered... thanks for the input guys... Any more suggestions? Not looking for anyone to think for me or do my work for me - just looking for some tips or suggestions from people who may have faced the same quandry and what they did to promote interaction. Thanks!