Three Community Expanding Plugins
For Your Wordpress Blog

You engage, you share, you promote and give thanks. You do a lot to build a community through social media but the challenge is how do you connect those community conversations to the content on your blog? These three plugins make it easy…

A recent article posed the question “Is social media replacing blog comments?”. It was an interesting question and one I’ve been thinking on for a while, especially since much of the comments for HomeStomper happen off-site.

Sort of like actual newspapers, people discuss newspaper content at the water cooler, the bar, the dinner table, etc. Different discussions at different places stemming from one piece of content.

As a blogger, you obviously want to tap into those conversations. After all, those people are a part of your community.

The challenge has always been how to include those elsewhere discussions on your blog.

Luckily, there are a few cool plugins that will not only help include those discussions on your blog but also help expand the reach of those discussions.

Backtype Connect

From Backtype, a comment-aggregation service, comes Backtype Connect, a plugin for your Wordpress blog. Connect is able to integrate comments from a variety of sources from around the web (Digg, Reddit, Friendfeed, and Twitter) and post them directly to the comments of your blog.

Easy to install and setup, Backtype Connect is a great tool for including community conversations from various outposts.

Backtype Tweetcount

Another plugin from Backtype, Tweetcount helps readers share your content on Twitter. While the concept isn’t new, Tweetmeme has been doing this for a while, Backtype’s Tweetcount does it a bit nicer. You’re able to customize the button’s coloring and it’s placement (something that always bothered me about Tweetmeme).

With the Backtype Tweetcount plugin you empower your fans to share your content elsewhere, and with Backtype Connect you include those comments right on your own blog.

This third plugin allows members of your community connect with each other…

Twitip ID

Twitip ID is another plugin that allows allows people to enter their Twitter username when leaving a comment on your blog. Their Twitter name can then appear next to their comment so others can click on over and follow.

While conversations about your content have always occurred away from your blog, these three cool plugins help to highlight those elsewhere comments and support community members by helping them better connect with each other.

What other methods help connect your content and community?