This post by Seth Godin touches on an important point of A Bigger Voice: The expansion of the voice to create a community is important to focus on before monetizing the voice. This doesn’t preclude one from monetizing. Godin sells plenty of books based on people reading his blog.

How does expansion happen? Virally. Good stuff gets read and passed on. That’s why Godin is clear that his goal is to provide valuable enough stuff to deserve the attention.

Seth Godin’s blog not only has a lot of readers. He has a community. Notice how many trackbacks he gets with each posting. Trackbacks show other people blogging about what he’s talking about in his post.

Godin also refers in his posts to links, studies, and pictures to which his readers have pointed him. This allows others to contribute and be recognized, a key part of building a community.

Godin’s blog is one of the few that I’ve consistently read since I started blogging in 2005.  He’s a master at using this technology to build his brand and connect to his audience.

He’s also one of the few big bloggers that doesn’t allow comments, which puzzles me as that’s the juicy part of an online community.  If others who follow this blog know why, leave a comment. Or just provide your observations on what else Godin is doing right to develop his community.