A person needs a support group in order to feel a sense of belongingness and to be successful. A group can define a person, that is why it is important to join a group which shares the same interest and makes us feel comfortable from the start.

I personally like small support groups for a number of reasons:

- I grow with them and its members
- I know the leaders and can communicate with them
- I can participate, be heard and be noticed
- I like the personal approach

Like any other relationships, memberships in support groups are two-way streets: they support you and vice versa.

Actively participating in your support groups make these groups bigger, more active and more influential. In turn, these changes make you proud, make you part of a community, give you more experience and more exposure. Consequently, you grow more as a person you intend to be.

I have plenty of support groups in my whole life: my family, my girlfriend, and a couple of organizations during my education. I will not, however, mention how I support them as it will sound like I am tooting my own horn.

Since we are in the blogging world, I have listed below a select few of my “online” support groups. (If you are a non-blogger reader of mine, don’t worry, the technical terms are minimal). Some of these you might be able to relate to. After reading, if you are interested in learning more about them, I encourage you to click on their links:

SUPPORT GROUP#1 - Readers, Lurkers, and Visitors

Let us differentiate the three first. Visitors are people coming from various sites. They can be from search engines like google looking for something and somehow ended up here. These people probably will visit once then leave. 7% of this site’s traffic are coming from search engines.

Lurkers, on the other hand, are people who visited and decided to come back. However, they prefer to just read and comment only once or twice (sometimes they don’t). There is nothing wrong with that. Some of these people, I know personally.

Readers are people who are regulars of the site. They read, go through the archives, and sometimes comment when appropriate. Most of the readers are fellow bloggers who know the ethics of blogging.

How do I support them?

One of the reasons this site continues to exist is because of them. So I will continue to write useful information to feed their hungry minds. I read my readers’ blogs and comment when I have something genuine to say. I make sure I link to the post I think others will find interesting.

The top commentators are rewarded by displaying their links on the right sidebar. On a similar note, last month, I had moved the “latest comments” high on the sidebar to easily keep track of any responses.

The following 5 readers commented regularly here: Vic the CaribooPonderer, Jeni of Down River Drivel, Marcus Langford, Frank C of OpTempo - Internet Review Magazine, and Cris.

SUPPORT GROUP#2 - BloggingZoom

If you are a blogger who wants your articles and posts get promoted, BloggingZoom.com is the place for you. In other similar social sites, self-promotion is considered a mortal sin. But the creators of BloggingZoom (Vic Franqui of Make Money Online and Court Tuttle of Internet Marketing) made it known that publishing your own posts is what the site wants you to do, and members will “zoom” your submission as a vote of approval if they found your articles worthy.

What I also like about BZ is that making friends is a lot easier and they comment on your submissions. It means one thing: you get a readership that generates quality traffic and might subscribe to your blog.

A BZ power user, Jason Clark of Inner88 - Review of Internet wrote a very good explanation of BloggingZoom. You’ll find it extremely useful if you intend to be a member of BZ.

How do I support BloggingZoom?

I like the community in BZ; the leaders are approachable even though few sensitive people might find Vic a little bit harsh. My way of supporting them is following the rules especially in post submission. Vic and Court don’t like members copy-pasting their posts for one good reason: duplicate contents. Google penalizes sites that copy others’ information. Vic also explained the benefit is mutual. I do not see any harm writing 4 sentences (approximately 350 characters) to describe your submission.

Also, they encourage you to zoom others’ submissions and visit their blogs so they get traffic as well; I have been doing that already since my first day as a member.

SUPPORT GROUP#3 - BlogHology

A blogging friend of mine - Mert Erkal of searchforblogging.com - has a vision, a vision where selected bloggers are grouped together and their best posts are promoted. I am part of that group. He calls it BlogHology. Below is a blurb of what it is:

… Similar to an anthology, a bloghology is a collection of bloggers, their profiles, photos, and links to their best posts. It is a PDF e-book which can be easily circulated throughout the blogosphere for personal branding and marketing of selected good quality bloggers…

How do I support BlogHology?

Mert is a hard-working person who is dedicated in achieving his goals, and at the same time in helping others. As a result, he inspires others using the “lead by example” technique. Seeing these characteristics in him, it is easy to follow suit. He only wants one thing from the participants: to promote BlogHology to their own readers by putting up a download link on their blogs.

I encourage you to download (by clicking on the BlogHology image above) the BlogHology E-Book, where I was also featured. Find out which of my posts were included in the first edition.

SUMMARY

I believe in the old adage “No man is an island.“. No one should be. Whether we like it or not, we need others to be successful.

In choosing the right support groups for me, I see to it they have the following characteristics:

-They should have a vision-mission
-The leaders support their members
-The members voluntarily reach out to others

How about you? Do you have support groups that you would like to share?

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