the BlogFrog

The other POH ladies and myself are always looking for ways to increase reader involvement on POH. (Over email - or sometimes phone - of course, given the crazy distance between us!) We hope that our giveaways last spring may have increased the number of readers, but now we've got a new idea to get you guys more involved...

I was exchanging emails with a friend that is also a POH reader and asked her if she had any ideas for doing this. First, she suggested that the reason our number of comments was declining was possibly due to the fact that many people are using services like "google reader" to organize and read their blogs. By doing so, you don't often visit the actual blog so leaving a comment is an extra step! I know that is what I do.

She then mentioned the "BlogFrog" community on McMama's blog, MyCharmingKids. (Side note: If you don't read that blog - you should go check it out. Her son, Stellan has a heart condition and isn't doing well currently.) I went and checked it out and thought it was a great idea for POH too!

So, if you're currently reading this via a "reader" and not directly at our site - open up POH and check it out! It's on the left sidebar. Here is what it does:

1. Allows us to see the blogs of others who are visiting POH. It appears right in the BlogFrog widget there.

2. Gives us an online forum to start discussions that may or may not relate to that weeks post! You can click where it says "Visit the Prayer of Hannah Community" to see the discussions, reply to a thread or start a new thread!

We would love for you all to use this as a place to answer each other's questions and be able to get encouragement and support from one another; whether you're weaning, getting rid of a pacifier or anything else! This way, its ok to ask "Any tips for pumping at work?" in the middle of the week on coupons. Not that it wasn't before...but hopefully this will feel more open to questions like that.

We had a reader email us asking if there was a way for her to get connected with another POH reader in her area and THIS forum would be the perfect place do that! Just start a discussion that says, "Any POH readers in NC?" and go from there! (Be sure to remember this is public and guard your personal info as much as you can though.)

Please know that we still would LOVE comments on our posts continuing discussion of the topic! We welcome questions of all kinds - but this is just a different place to keep our discussions a little more organized!

Enjoy! Let us know if you have any questions about it.