Blog Engage: A Blogging Community That Gives Results

The first time that I heard about BlogEngage.com was while visiting Karen Woodham’s Blazing Minds blog. I kept seeing these advertisements for Blog Engage on her site and the phrase, “Blog Engage,” alone, caught my attention. I like to engage, and to engage with other bloggers? I was curious.

Soon after, Karen had a contest and the prize was a Blog Engage account. Ok, I was game. I mean, all I had to do was a few tweets and shares per day, right? Silly me was new to raffles and didn’t realize it was a drawing. So, after I had ensured that I was ahead, by all the points I garnered, sure that I would win, I was sad to find out I didn’t win the Blog Engage membership.

I would daily visit BlogEngage.com and try to figure out what it was all about. It wasn’t clear to me at the time, as I felt like I was peering through the windows, like a child looking at a candy store.

Then it hit me. Was I going to miss out on this opportunity just because I didn’t win it? Of course not! So, I paid the low and reasonable fee and entered into the blogging candy store of relationships. At first it was confusing, with so many options and not sure where I was supposed to go next. But, Brian Belfitt was there, via a tiny chat window, to help and answer any questions I had. I was hooked.

Soon after, I contacted Brian to upgrade my plan. Then, after he had gone to the trouble of pro-rating, I contacted him again, to upgrade again… and again.

I even went so far as to figure out how many interactions I needed, daily, to claim the “Karma ranks” within BlogEngage.com to get to the top. What I found was that it wasn’t about the points, it was about the relationships I was developing as I did my daily tasks on blogengage.com.

Engagement

I’ve used the word many times: engage. That really is the name of the game with blogengage.com and the main benefit, or, at least the one that is the most important to me, personally. Oh, you get some great shares, comments, ideas, new blogs to read, and so much more, but it is that engagement that sticks with a person and draws them in for more. There are opportunities to share others’ posts and for them to share your posts. There are opportunities to reach out a helping hand and there are times when you are the recipient of a helping hand. That is community. That is what I was looking for, and found, when joining Blog Engage.

Lasting Relationships

As an extension of the engagement, relationships were born. Lasting relationships. We connect via other social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, BizSugar, LinkedIn. Oh, yeah, Blog Engage helps you out there by offering profile fields for you to enter all of your social platform links. If there is one you have missed, filling out the Blog Engage profile set-up will help jog your memory and give you ideas of other social platforms where you should have yourself set up and ready.

As a result of Blog Engage, I have met some really incredible people. I have met people whom I can’t imagine ever “not knowing.” I have also crossed paths with people that I have met elsewhere, with that “Aha moment,” of “Oh, you are here too?!”

It is like living in a small town (as I would imagine) where everyone knows each other, or at least knows of each other, and crossing paths in the local grocery store, the gas stations, community functions, and being able to say, “Hey, how’s it going?” or “Got any new posts you want promoted?” Yes, that is the kind of community Blog Engage fosters.

That said, it is up to the people, the community, that comprise Blog Engage. If you are loner… No problem. There is no pressure to engage. If you are a “people person,” like me, there is plenty of opportunity to connect with people within the Blog Engage platform, like the chat window, private messaging, comments on posts, voting, forums, and more, as well as outside the Blog Engage platform on each blogger’s own blog.

Social Sharing

With the handy dandy Blog Engage voting button, if you have lost your way and forgotten where the Blog Engage tab on your browser went, no problem, click the voting button on the Blog Engage member’s post, on their own blog, and you have voted for their post on Blog Engage.

More than that, you have opportunities, built-in, within the Blog Engage web site, to share the posts and to link through to the blogs and share and comment. This not only provides the benefit of getting your content shared, but gives you quality content to share, as well, through your social media accounts. And, you are developing relationships. A bonus is that Blog Engage uses the popular CommentLuv Premium plugin. For those of you familiar with CLP, you know it is an essential tool to building relationships between blogs, allowing a DoFollow link back to your blog (sometimes after a required 3 approved comments) for every blog comment you leave on a participating blog. For those of you who are not familiar with CLP, you really need to check it out. So, for CLP-luvvers, make note of the fact that Blog Engage is a DoFollow CLP blog. Also, Brian has been kind enough to put together a list of blogs belonging to Blog Engage members that are also CLP blogs with this DoFollow benefit.

Global Community

The community at Blog Engage is diverse, allowing you to find others who are interested in your niche, and also those who are in other niches. There is something for everyone. It is especially fun to find a blogger in your niche who also has another blog in a different niche. This gives you an opportunity to get to know the blogger in a depth that is deeper than just one blog. You see, Blog Engage helps you to see that, as well, and not just one isolated blog, with one unknown isolated blogger. Another thing that I really like is that it is global. I know. The internet is global. But, it is still fun to meet people from different parts of the world, and different cultures and get to know them and learn where we all have similarities. I mean, at the least, we are all interested in blogging, right?

The Sky Is The Limit

Blog Engage is what you make it. If you are anti-social and don’t want anyone sharing your content, do not want Facebook friends or retweets on Twitter, then possibly Blog Engage is not for you. But, then, if that is the case you probably would not be reading this article right now.

If you like to get social, at least a little bit, and want to find some new friends, acquaintances, maybe even partners, and you like it when people give you those “votes of confidence” as well as sharing of your content, then you really need to check out BlogEngage.com for yourself, instead of staring at it like a child through the windows of a candy store.