One thing that I’ve learned very quickly when I dipped my feet into the world of blogging and online technology is the importance of the reader. Ultimately, you’re not writing for yourself but for your audience. When you write a review of a product, it’s about how that product would be a good buy for your reader. When you give advice or technical support, it’s about putting it in the reader’s terms and applying it to the reader’s situation.

It’s about giving back to the community which supports you by reading your content. It all boils down to one singular idea: the community. Without the community, you have nothing. Sure, you can be producing content, but if you don’t have the backing of the community, your community, you won’t get very far.

The main importance of the community, however, is how the community can help you. A lot of times they will offer suggestions to help improve you. Collectively, this vast amount of knowledge and critique of the work you do becomes critically important to your success. If you don’t embrace the community, you lose everything, including your respect. Not only does this apply to the online blogging world, but also to products and services. I’ve covered this idea more than once (see the two blog entries previous) so I won’t repeat myself.

There aren’t too many ways to involve the community–the more the better. Get yourself on YouTube, or even Twitter. Twitter is one of those things that is ridiculously simple but can have such a profound effect on your community (speaking of which, here is my Twitter). The community subscribing to simple blurbs or mini-posts gets them surprisingly involved. It lets them tune into who you are as a content producer and get into your mind a little bit more on a casual level. Share interesting links or quick thoughts on emerging news. Let them get involved in your thought processes and they’ll only turn around a help you back by offering suggestions.

In summary: everything from products to services to blogging to online content should be first and foremost about the community. Otherwise, you end up with garbage.