4 Tips To Creat Effective And Efficient Relationships

This is a guest post by Olusegun (Billy). If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Social networking is the order of the day and it is so for a very good reason. No one wants to be alone – even online. The need to be a member of a community is embedded within our DNA. A relationship is a two way bond that is formed between people. For a relationship to exist there has to be at least two people both willing to be involved with each other.

Online relationships like real ones involve some measure of commitment. The level of commitment determines your involvement with in turn determines the depth of the relationship. It also provides security and can be long lasting despite many trials.

Relationships of various kinds are often perceived as very delicate things that require extra effort to sustain. However, building effective and lasting relationships is a necessity for several reasons especially online where you can hide behind your blog as a different personality.

For instance, consider a blogger who has gotten a massive following, the readers of his blog return regularly because he meets a definite need if theirs in such a way that a part of their well being online depends on his content and the quality of information he gives them freely. Consequently, the blogger is also dependent on his readers. He makes a decent living off the traffic that he has (if he is a full time blogger) by selling private ads space, recommending that his readers buy products from which he gets a commission and might even be offering a course or a product to his readers for a fee – which sometimes develops organically (the readers ask for a product or training on How To do whatever).

In the end it is a win-win situation.

When there is ineffectiveness within this set up, frustration sets in. Maybe the blogger for no good reason decides to post content irregularly or ceases to post relevant content for his readers. Or maybe he doesn’t but pitches to them at an unbearable rate thus creating a feeling in them that he no longer makes his readers the core priority. In this situation, relationships can be stressed or suffer from breakdown.

Advertisers and other entities that depend on the blogger and his crowd also suffer.

On a larger scale, a society is defined as a web of relationships, which requires all parties to their quota in order to achieve some common goal. The biggest goal of a social network is for the general benefit of all those involved a.k.a. stakeholders and there has to be a balance for everything to work well. Having a relationship that is good, where cooperation and respect are manifested, can make society work better.

According to Technorati’s presentation at the last BlogWorld conference in 2009, 72% of bloggers are hobbyist who blog for fun, share their expertise and half of them hope to make money from it someday. Only 9% of blogger are self employed (Let’s assume all of these guys are making money online).

Note: An early 2009 report also from Technorati, estimated that there are about 133 million blogs online and 900, 000 posts are made per day. So 9% of this is roughly 12 million bloggers earning money online as full time bloggers.

It will be very modest to assume a 10% growth rate in the blogosphere meaning there are about 146 million blogs now.

Understanding The Needs Of Everyone Involved

Understanding the all the parties’ involved your blog, their feelings and position creates an effective and efficient relationship in a small blog community and in the blogosphere as a whole.

The easiest method a blogger with any kind of followership at all can do is to understand what is important to another to his web host, readers, advertisers, guest bloggers, technical team and he can only do this by asking them what they want from the relationship they have or are about to get involved in and listen to what they have to say. When everyone party realizes this, they would feel valued, active to do their part and if anyone’s expectation is wrongly placed, a quick adjustment or outright repositioning (which might sometimes mean a very amicable separation) is settled for.

This is what is known in the real world business realm as Stakeholder Analysis. It is very foundational to the success of any relationship and also prevents any future clashes since everyone knows every other person’s needs and the whole “community” is committed to helping each person achieve his/her objectives.

In developing effective and efficient relationships, everybody involved is required to openly express their feelings and positions on all matters pertinent on the relationship. Assuming that the other party understands our needs and give us when we need it without asking for it is not a good practice. In fact it is like setting a time bomb and not knowing it.

Mutual Respect

Mutual respect is the key to relationship. Remember our blogger who suddenly begins to over pitch to his readers at everybody’s expense? If there was mutual respect, he would have told them ahead and used their feedback to make a quality decision. In order to create a more effective relationship with your readers or list, an internet earner should treat them with respect. He can do this just by asking questions, listening to their responses and trying sincerely to understand what their opinions and expectations are. You can also show respect to your list be showing them you place their needs above selfish desires and would not do anything to jeopardize the trust they have in you and relationship you have with them.

Remember that you did not coerce your subscribers to sign up. At the very worst, you stretched the truth a little bit (this tactic always backfires) and persuaded them to sign up. The other side to this is that they also can leave or unsubscribe just as easily as they came without any obligations to you.

In business marketing, it has long discovered that the cost of acquiring a customer is 7 times as much as the cost of keeping one. And even more dangerous is the fact that an unsatisfied customer has been found to tell on the average 10 other people while satisfied ones at the very most tell 4 people.

Respect is the very foundation for a great relationship. Respect yourself and respect your subscribers.

Confrontation

Another major area in forming an effective relationship is to tackle differences of the other stakeholders directly. Differences between people are quite interesting. For example, most bloggers who earn money on the internet do so from advertisement and most readers are so inundated with ads that they mentally ignore most of them.

It is left for the blogger to know how to balance both. Letting his readers know that his earnings from his blog are the sole source of income will pacify their psyche and ease the blockage they have towards any kind of ads.

Also advertisers should be properly researched before any contract is entered into. If you sign up an advertiser who has a shady reputation, this spills on you faster than you can say Jack Robinson. You should also be aware that your readers visit your blog simply because you offer them value. The day you shift from this strategy, you mark your end in a way you might not notice until it is too late.

Win-Win Solution

Work towards a win-win solution for everyone associated with your blogs.

Exert more time, effort and energy to understand all their needs and work out a way to satisfy everyone. Severance of a relationship should be the last resort and even then, it pays you if it is amicable in which case, it is comforting to all to know that you tried.

Blogs generally are rather informal and this makes discussions conducive for most people involved. They bring out issues and concerns comfortably. They also feel more relaxed making them think more clearly.

Develop your atmosphere around your blog so that all involved can express their feelings when they need to, exactly how they want to (as long as it is decent and respectful).

When people fail to express whatever is on their mind or their feelings, it can get in the way of building an effective relationship. So it is the blogger’s responsibility to always prompt his readers for information.

Human nature tends to be distrustful by nature. That is why trust is the hardest thing to gain online especially if you are just setting out as a newbie online entrepreneur. Be careful that none of your stakeholders throw accusations falsely on your blog. Clearly define your objectives and expectations of every one. Generally this is done more in forums than on blogs.

Relationships are important to us all; especially those of us who want to earn money online. Addressing issues and problems right away is a must to further improve the relationship. As we say in Africa, ‘A tree cannot make a forest’.

About Author :
Olusegun is an offline entrepreneur from Nigeria and a hobbyist-blogger since 2007. Now he is building internet-earner.com, an almost 2 month old blog as at the time of this writing. He thinks “One Ageless Universal Strategy; Countless Marketing Tactics” is what will make a successful online business.