Retro Phone Booths by Dominique B
Commenting is a building block of blogging. One way to gauge the success of our posts by the number of comments it receives (along with whether it’s been stumbled or tweeted); comments are easily one of the best ways to network and promote your own blog. They’re an incredibly powerful and useful part of the blogging process, and they are one that becomes all too easy to overlook, skip over, or ignore.
In late October, Amy at Wolf Whistle tweeted about her own personal comment challenge– to leave 500 blog comments during the month. I was instantly intrigued by this– what kind of comments does she leave? How difficult is it?
Amy told us about the experience:
Several people have asked me why I’m doing this. I hoped to bring more conversation to the blog community, gain new visitors to my own blog and hopefully make a few people smile in the process!
In a way, it definitely IS self-promotion: I’m not denying that in any way. I do think, however, that it is self-promotion in quite a quiet and subtle way and that I’m giving something back to the people who spend a great deal of time on their blogs.
I have not been writing massive comments on every single blog post – unless, of course, I feel like I have a lot to say. I promised myself when I started this that I wouldn’t leave comments such as ‘Nice blog!!!’ as I generally feel that these type of comments are a bit of a let down. Being on the receiving end of a comment like that does not make you feel special at all!
After talking with Amy, I decided to take up the challenge for November. My own goal was to leave 250 meaningful, thoughtful, useful comments. While some of my comments may have been complimentary or lighthearted, I tried to make them substantial nonetheless. Amy’s quest made me realize that it’s important that I get out there and start leaving comments more.
What I’ve Learned:
- To actually read, not skim, my RSS feed. It’s amazing how easy it is to skim through posts, ignore the content that is really there and feel uninspired. When you slow down to pay attention to what people are saying, instead of just looking at images, headlines, and bullet points, you’ll find there is a lot more to respond to.
- Diversify my reading list. It’s HARD to reach a target goal of 250 comments without falling into a pattern of leaving meaningless comments. So I reached out for new content sources– reading the Links a la Mode threads weekly & commenting on submissions, seeking out new sites through others comments, commenting on re-Tweets from Twitter and more.
Amy’s Tip: If you have Bloglovin’ or Google Reader, open five of your favourite blogs and comment on them all. Then follow a link from each blog and repeat forever… forever… forever.
- Don’t fret over failure; each comment is a success. This month, my goal was 250 comments. As of this posting, I’m at approximately 180 comments. It’s unlikely that I’ll reach my goal, but holy crap! I posted 180 comments this month! That’s awesome.
- If you find a new site that has great content, subscribe to it or bookmark it. Otherwise, you’ll want to return to it later and will have NO idea where its at. Alternately, use some kind of tool to help you track where your comments are. For next month, I’d be likely to use something like coComment, a Google Spreadsheet, or a list in a program like Notepad to help me keep track of the comments I’ve left.
Challenge Yourself
- For the month of December, challenge yourself to leave more comments. Comments are, afterall, the building blogs of community, blog growth, outreach, and relationships.
- Pick a number appropriate for you: it may be based on factors such as the site of your site, how many blogs you read, what your schedule is like. Pick 50 comments if you’re a new blogger wanting to reach out. Pick 250 if you’re moderately sized, but finding yourself slacking behind. If you’re super ambitious, set a goal for 500 like Amy has.
- But what about the holidays? Amy had a great tip on that for herself:
500 is a big amount and with my work commitments and holidays coming up, I doubt I’ll reach the same goal in December. I am still going to set myself a smaller target though: I want to make daily commenting – on both my favourite blogs and blogs that are new to me – part of my internet life because all of those amazing blogs out there deserve some recognition!
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I don’t feel entirely comfortable with this post. I mean it’s one thing to me to say I should comment more on posts but to do it in hopes that people will visit your site is just too much in my opinion.
I mean I did decide to comment more a few months back and I actually began to do it. I started getting really disenheartened when visiting various blogs from my Reader and going into the commenting section to find hundreds of blogs saying things like
“Nice Post
http://www.xxx.blogspot.com”
“cool outfit
http://www.abcde.wordpress.com”
or even what seems like a heartfelt comment and then their address afterwards. I, along with some other people I know, will never visit your blog that way. If you comment though and say something substantial, and sign in with say disqus or commentlove or if you’re on your blogger/wordpress profile, if I’m intriqued by what you say I have no hesitation in clicking your name… it just seems really self indulging to post your blog address on someone else’s blog.
It’s sort of like going to a party and saying, “hey everybody this is a great party but I have one at my house!!” and leaving hoping that people will follow. If you really want to be respecting you’ll engage the audience and maybe… just maybe they’ll ask you what you’re doing after you leave the party.
I like your party comparison. Great metaphor. I’m heading over to check out your blog now too! Funny how that works.
Agreed.
The ‘nice post [address]!’ kind of comments are pretty much spam to me – they have exactly the same structure and the amount of time that went into them as those ‘hey long time no see I found how to make 875$ a week click here [shady address]‘ emails.
I’m really sad when I see a thoughtful comment doing the same thing
– I think ‘Oh, they’re better than that, that just cheapens the whole thing. Too bad’.
thanks! all your posts are so helpful to me!
I like your party comparison. Great metaphor. I’m heading over to check out your blog now too! Funny how that works.
yeah you r rit ………
I’ve found traffic wise the best option is to find 3-5 relatively successful blogs and leave really great comments on there. You need to find one that generally interests you though otherwise it can be difficult.
When I first started I kept commenting on loads of blogs in a group as the group grew it took up more and more time to the degree I could easily spend 1 hour to 1 hour and half just commenting. I’d comment on any blog even if I was saying something small. I did it at the time to try and get comments back and sometimes it wouldn’t work. So I gave up
Now I just comment on articles I generally have something to say about. I also always go through the comments I receive on my own blog and post on their websites too. If someone has made the effort to post on my article I’ll always repay the favour.
What a fabulous idea. Good work!
Like the tip you give about diversifying your reading and searching for new content – it’s great idea to do this anyway to keep yourself inspired! Seriously though, good for you on managing to engage meaningfully with so many – it’s no mean feat!
What a great goal! I think that it is good to leave a comment if you have something to say. Often times I will read a post and have an opinion or thought on it, but forget to leave a comment or not even think to leave one! Here is to remembering to leave them when the thoughts are right!
Cocomment seems like a really neat tool. I have to try this out, because I love to ACTUALLY read post and comment but then I sometimes wonders what other people say after me or even if the writter of the blog comment’s on the enterie.
this is great! i really like this.
brilliant tips, amy. and about this part i’m really agree:
“I have not been writing massive comments on every single blog post – unless, of course, I feel like I have a lot to say. I promised myself when I started this that I wouldn’t leave comments such as ‘Nice blog!!!’ as I generally feel that these type of comments are a bit of a let down. Being on the receiving end of a comment like that does not make you feel special at all!”
yeah really. seriously now.
thanks for such amazing article!!
I have only been blogging for a little over a year now and I am happy with every comment that I do get. With that being said, I realized I have over 50 followers and barely get comments :/ I think I will definitely try to comment other blogs more as well. I was doing that before and it actually does work
This is such a good article.. I love it… And comments for me feed my blog
xx
Rosa
My Stylish Little Secret
giving yourslef a traget is such a good idea. i bet it really helped with gauging your traffic!
Helen, x
http://areyoudressingupordressingdown.blogspot.com
I struggle with leaving comments on blogs! I generally only leave comments when I have something meaningful to say; however, I do love when I get comments on my blog. I’ve decided, however, to take the challenge for January since December is over. I’m going to start out small. I’ll start off with 50 comments for the month of January and then build up each month.
Chandra
Hi
Great a
Hi
Sorry about that.
I will do this challenge for January, and tag my fellow bloggers:)
Have a great day,
I love this idea… I make a special effort to comment every time I feel like I have something nice to say about a post… I wish my blog felt like more of an interactive community.
Bisous,
Rachel
lovealamode.wordpress.com
I don’t mind the ‘cool post’ type comments… many people don’t comment at all- we all have so much to see, do and comment on.
the idea you given is great i liked it and it will also help me for a work i was looking for some like this…but thanks to you…..
IFB there’s the comment challenge and I think that’s awesome because that’s a way we [...]
very nice and informative post…thanks for sharing.
This won’t be hard for me – I have actually got into blogs because I was into commenting, especially as a way of thanking the authors for their time and good content shared, and as a way of getting the conversation going on a topic they spent their time on
.
Getting the conversation started is one of the main objectives for my new blog – I’m starting it so that we could all share and enjoy the content.
For that reason, I’m going to answer comments on my posts – as my comment show appreciation for author’s time, the author’s comments show appreciation for their commenters’ time.
The only “problem” is that I’m commenting on blogs that are not in my niche (art features), but I like to view my commenting as something that’s feels nice in itself, not as something that’s main purpose is to drive traffic here or there.
I realize this post is a year old, but I think this is such a neat idea! I always forget to comment on posts… I feel bad, because people don’t get to know how much I appreciated something in their post! So I might try this out this month…