Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone, ushering in the Christmas/holiday season (whether its shopping, parties, or travelling that you do, you do so much more of it during the last 30 days of the year, it seems). But it’s easy to forget sometimes that your readers, commenters, and online social network friends are there all year round, giving you great discussions and passing your words along to others. So what can you do for your readers to share the love this Christmas season? Here are a couple of great ideas!
1) Feature your best commenters in a special post
There are some WordPress plugins that allow you to count the number of comments a person has left (if they have registered, that is). Take the people who leave the most comments and thank them with a blog post dedicated to them and giving them some linklove.
2) Feature your favorite blogs, posts, and authors that have made the biggest impact on you this year
But why stop at commenters? Take the people who influence you and let them know how much you care. Really enjoy Chris Brogan’s blog? Talk about it in a blog post of your own! The only limit is the number of people who influence you, and if that’s a small number… well, find some more! We don’t ever stop learning, after all.
3) Offer a Christmas Contest with an Awesome Prize
Make a Christmas/holiday card. Write a Christmas/holiday haiku. Make a video and post it to YouTube displaying your love and affection for your favorite blogger. Whatever the contest is, partner with some of your blogging/design/marketing friends to offer some wicked prizes to the best people. It’s a good way to drive traffic, but make it to where anyone who’s commented this year gets extra points, and you show your readers that you care enough to put them first.
4) Give away something – it is the season of giving, after all!
Nothing says that you love and adore your readers than offering up a free… anything! Are you a designer? Offer up a free web template. Copywriter? Give away an article about Christmas for people to repost (and make sure your info is at the bottom)! There are numerous things you can give away for free to show people you care (and you’ll even pick up residual traffic as well!).
