Are You Engaging Your Readers?

There are many topics and thousands of posts that have been written about How to Blog, Why to Blog, When to Blog, Where to Blog and What to Blog.  And then you see a comment on someones post where the writer is complaining about others getting featured posts all the time. Obviously they aren't getting a post featured ...or even read......and they are wondering why?

We engage the reader with our ‘interesting' content and I can't be more straightforward than to say that if you want others to read your posts you have to MAKE it interesting.

1. Localism Posts:  They have been always my favorite to write and  I've written hundreds that have given the consumer an idea (and then some) about my local area happenings and so forth. One of my favorites was:  Tsukiji Fish Market & Restaurant- Honolulu Hawaii where my husband and I took clients to lunch.
2. Personal Posts: No one said that transparency in blogging meant to reveal the skeletons in your closet but it does mean to have a little transparency in your writing. Showing your personality through your writing is something we all share when ‘getting to know others'. The best way your peers and the consumer will ‘see' you is right there in your writing.  "The Lovely Wifes" Blog.... is for members only blog but indeed a level of transparency that we all can relate to.
3. Market Reports: You can do a ‘boring' market report but make it eye appealing and attractive with a graph, pie charts and pictures of the area you're doing the report on.  KNOW what you're talking about and give details that the consumer WILL UNDERSTAND.  Renee Burrows taught me how to do pie charts and I'm doing some wonderful ones with Hawaii pictures in the background to enhance them.
4. Off Topic:Sure, we want to create a discussion on whatever the topic for off topic (not real estate) like SEO, Windows 7, Positive Attitudes and so forth. Keeping it light and not judgmental is a great start. No one wants to read a closed minded post full of ‘only my opinion matters' type of thing. Again, we engage the reader without insulting everyone that is reading.
5. Real Estate Industry Related: We all know that ActiveRain is a wonderful place to gain knowledge about everything real estate industry related. My favorite real estate writers are long time seasoned ActiveRain bloggers Lenn Harley and Broker Bryant and you'll see some hard core real estate with engaging conversations for sure on their blogs.

Why do I read the blogs of these writers? They are creative, interesting, eye appealing and lo and behold ORIGINAL, honest, great information, entertaining..... and they allow the reader to walk beside them while they are talking ‘with' them. ....not AT them. They engage me.

Are YOU engaging the reader?