The Blog Engage Community is a social networking site that I’ve recently discovered and am quite impressed with. I decided to share my discovery and thoughts here, with the hope of encouraging other bloggers to check it out. Blog Engage can be described in as few words as its title, a networking site to help bloggers engage with one another. Blog Engage allows bloggers to submit their Blog Article(s) that will be reviewed by members of the community, and based on votes can be promoted to the main page. In a lot of ways Blog Engage is similar to many other popular news/bookmarking /submission sites that may be more familiar to you such as Digg, Sphinn or Reddit. I’m a member of a lot of these types of sites and I use them all regularly both to discover and read blog articles, and also to submit my own. But…
Blog Engage is different, it was created by Brian in 2007 who goes by the online user name of bbrian017, he’s successfully created an environment that helps bloggers promote one another. Blog Engage as you may guess by its very name is quick to engage you, and does a good job at it too. Members appears interested in one another, and are not simply there serving themselves (submitting their own articles, for their own promotion). Commenting, voting up (or down of course), and engaging with other bloggers is key.
I think one of the keys to the effectiveness of blog engage is the very fact that it is a community for bloggers (only people who can prove they have their own blog). Bloggers generally know how important it is to engage, and are aware that it is a two way street. Commenting on other blog posts, and building relationships with other bloggers is critical. Every blogger hopes to generate more comments on their own site, and more of a social environment. Contributing to other blogs is a key! The Blog Engage Community assists in these connections, and encourages comments and the promotion of others.
Blog Engage is also not an overwhelmingly huge community (yet!), its size is at the moment is actually an asset, it shows that the people who are there are serious about it, and are likely to be interested in others who get serious and involved. As a quick example the first post I submitted to blog engage got published to the front page and was voted up 22 times within the first week! The fact that the avatars of people who voted me up are displayed with the post, is another benefit to building relationship. You can quickly and easily find bloggers who like what you have to say, and likely have things in common with you. Check out their blogs, comment on their posts, and in a short matter of time relationships are being built. Relationships that become mutually beneficial, when individuals begin sharing, promoting, tweeting, and linking to your blog (as you do the same for them). Blog Engage requires a personalized profile and avatar, so there is no hiding behind no name or spam accounts.
It’s a community that rewards you, and does a great job at what it says it does… it engages bloggers. I hope you’ll join! If you do, let me know with a comment here, I’ll intentionally look out for your posts, and look forward to voting you up to the front page on Blog Engage!
#1 by Brian on July 7, 2010 - 2:58 pm
You really got a good understanding of what blog engage is about Daniel. Since day one I knew what I wanted to accomplish with blog engage and so far I think it's working out great. Blog Engage was always meant to be a community that helps one another promote. This can be on any of the larger social networks be it twitter, digg, reddit or any other community you're a member of.
I just wanted a place where we could separate the real bloggers from the fake bloggers and so far we have manged to accomplish this amazingly. Personally I was tired of the spam content in these larger social communities like mybloglog and blogcatalog.
I closed registrations about a year ago due to the spam accounts and spam content we started seeing. I was not happy with this so now I make all bloggers request an invitation using the phpbb forums software. Trust me when I say I'm not selective and pretty much allow all bloggers to join. If they have good content without tons and tons of ads I will invite them to your community.
I know it sounds funny but I'm seriously trying to control the quality of our members. I think in the end this helps our community grow strong and keeps a positive flow and attitude amongst our members.
Many bloggers complain about signing up in the forums and then having to request an invitation. Personally if a blogger complains about the process and doesn't follow through then we don't want them as a member. All of our members understand in order to get something you have to give something. This is what makes our community so special.
I always say, Blog Engage will change the blogosphere even if it's one blogger at a time.
#2 by danielsnyder on July 8, 2010 - 2:39 am
I was going to ask you about the registration process. I did find it confusing somewhat, but obviously not too difficult that I couldn't figure it out. Thanks for explaining why you do that. Any thoughts to revamp that end of things? Perhaps there would be another slightly simpler but just as effective screening process.
Twitter: danielsnyder1
#3 by Thiruseo on July 8, 2010 - 4:36 am
Excellent Daniel, Two days back only i found blog engage portal which stole my heart. Really excellent platform to contact with social bloggers. I got good changes in my blog traffic too. Well written article on blog engage. In this time, I wish to thank Mr.Brian for providing wonderful portal for bloggers.
Twitter: thiruseo
#4 by danielsnyder on July 8, 2010 - 1:16 pm
Glad you're enjoying blog engage as well. I encourage my readers to take a look at your blog thiruseoblogs.blogspot.com
Twitter: danielsnyder1
#5 by Brian on July 28, 2010 - 9:31 pm
I tried many ways to keep the spam accounts down but there is no winning. I was getting 40 or 50 spam accounts a day it's just not cool at all! The invitation is the only way to keep control of the websites quality.
#6 by danielsnyder on July 28, 2010 - 11:55 pm
Yeah I can understand that, wow 40 or 50 a day, that's amazing. Gotta be frustrating.
Twitter: danielsnyder1
#7 by danielsnyder on July 28, 2010 - 11:55 pm
Yeah I can understand that, wow 40 or 50 a day, that's amazing. Gotta be frustrating.
Twitter: danielsnyder1
#8 by Brian on September 16, 2010 - 3:34 pm
Hey Dan you will be happy to know we are going to be opening registrations soon. I have meet a real life friend in the city I’m from and he’s been helping me fix so many issues. If you haven’t noticed the site is running the best it ever has in the history of our community.
With the new status updates and featured guest blog articles we are expecting some large amounts of growth in the upcoming months.
Expect registrations to open within the nest 24 to 48 hours. I’m also going to be throwing a huge contest but more details will be released this weekend with a video post!
#9 by Daniel Snyder on September 17, 2010 - 1:47 am
Wow OPEN registration on Blog Engage, that’s great! Glad to hear it Brian, and I’m also impressed with the changes and improvements on the site that I’ve seen lately. Looking forward to its growth!
Twitter: danielsnyder1