Continuing my theme about blog comments, if you’re a blogger, what are some ways you can encourage comments from your readers? Some of these suggestions will be wordpress-only, but perhaps the idea behind them has been implemented differently for other blogging platforms.
1. Comment
What’s that? Encourage commenting by commenting yourself? Balderdash!
*sets aside monocle and walrus mustache*
One way to encourage people to comment on your blog is to reply when you get comments. It’s a way for a blogger to say “Aha! Oho! This blog is run by a human who likes it when they get comments!”
Granted, it’s a pretty safe bet that most bloggers like getting comments.
Even though I KNOW that, I’m still more likely to comment on a blog that I get feedback from the blog author. I’m pretty sure that’s true for other commenters as well.
If I comment and I never get a reply, I do not think “oh, what a stuck up blog author! I’m never coming again!” and then flounce as I click away.
I DO, however, stop and think about leaving comments on subsequent blog posts. If I have a comment that I don’t care whether or not I get a response, I’ll still leave it. But a conversational, “hey, thanks for the post” comment I will probably just keep to myself and move on without commenting.
Responding to comments is the number one most inviting method to encourage people to leave comments on your blog, and works for all platforms.
2. Invite Links
That’s sort of an odd phrasing, but it it’s a single idea that encompasses multiple methods.
You want to invite people to link back to their own site. I am more likely to comment on a blog which allows me to comment AS MYSELF. I want to choose the name I use to comment on your site, and I want to be able to provide a link directly back to my blog, just in case I’m witty enough that someone decides to find out who I am.
Livejournal and Blogspot are NOTORIOUS for failing at this. For both of those blogging platforms, I have to use my Livejournal ID (which points to a now defunct blog) or my BloggerID (which also points to a defunct blog). Aside from commenting anonymously and then ending my comment with a link to my blog (which I do not like to do, since it reeks of self-promotion and link-whoring) I don’t have a way to tell people “this is who I am!”
I don’t really have a solution for LJ and Blogspot bloggers – I don’t know if there’s a flag you can set in your blog settings to change that behavior or not.
Wordpress users can actually go one step further. We can install a plugin called CommentLuv, which will actually pull a link to the commenter’s most recent blog post and insert it into their comment. It’s automatic, so it’s not link-whoring, and if I’m reading comments, I might see a catchy blog title and click through to read, thus finding another blogger to follow.
HUGE kudos to Kestrel for not only finding this plugin, but also encouraging others to use it AND giving tips on how to make it more “pretty” during display. <3
Being able to comment as ME makes me feel more comfortable when leaving a comment.
3. Inform Commenters
Even if you are a diligent comment replier, if your commenters don’t know that you’ve responded, it does no good.
I may spend a day visiting and commenting on a dozen or so blogs – I am SO NOT going to re-visit those dozen blogs periodically throughout the week, refreshing the comments to see whether or not someone replied to me.
I’ve done that before. It sucks bigtime since most bloggers don’t reply to comments, so I seemed desperate and needy as I hit the refresh button. NEVER AGAIN, do you hear me?!
So how can you let a commenter know if they’ve gotten a reply? My weapon of choice is another plugin recommended by Kestrel (smart guy, there) – Subscribe To Comments.
A commenter may CHOOSE to have replies to comments emailed to them. Granted, this probably works best on smaller blogs, like my own. Blogs that frequently get upwards of 100 comments might easily end up spamming inboxes, but those are the blogs that I’d not really expect bloggers to reply directly anyway. Who has that kind of time?!
I am more likely to comment on a post if I see the little “subscribe to comments” checkbox (from any of a number of different plugins) because I’ll be able to tell if I get a reply, and I’ll be able to read OTHER comments as well.
This feature, in particular, encourages conversation among blog commenters. For example, the comments in my recent Fun With Twitter post are hilarious as some of the original commenters have stepped up and replied to things other people have said.
Ending
Does anyone have any other tips or ideas? Does any of this not really apply to you? Anything that bloggers can do which might make you feel more comfortable leaving a comment?
Aside from “write witty blog posts which invite commentary based on content and subject alone”, of course. That one goes without saying (only I said it! What can I say, I’m a rebel.)
One deceptively good method is to simply have an underlining question to accompany the topic. in this case, it was “how do YOU encourage comments?” or “how are you encouraged TO comment.” sometimes if you write the most awesomest post in the world, it can backfire comment-wise because there’s really nothing else left that needs to be said, or you end up with a spam of comments such as “omg win” “i lol’d” and whatnot that really don’t encourage the author to respond to them in kind.
@krizzlybear
Gahar! Superb note, and one I missed.
4) Ask People To Comment
Don’t be all “omg, nobody comments, nobody LOVES ME” because that’s creepy and makes me want to leave at high speed, not comment.
Offer conversational starter questions (preferably at the end of the blog post, to accomodate the post skimmers <3)
The question at the end is one of my favorites. It may not always work because most people will assume it may be rhetorical and, therefore, won’t reply. Occasionally, though, you will get one or two. It’s harder in my situation, for example, when you write a blog that is more on the “specific informative” side than the “general postulating” side. Whenever I throw in a blog that’s more of the latter than the former, I think it throws my readers off.
Ailis´s last blog ..My Love/Hate Relationship With Gear
@Ailis
Sometimes I feel like the question at the end feels…fake. Like someone just told you this awesome story about their vacation, and then said “have YOU ever been to Hawaii?”
You get the impression that they don’t really want to talk about YOUR Hawaii trip (not that I’ve been to Hawaii, and THANK YOU, hypothetical blogger in my head, for reminding me of that fact!) they’re just being polite.
Like someone asking me how I’m doing as we pass in the hallway. They don’t REALLY want to know about the guy who cut me off on the drive in, or how I spilled coffee on my pants, or how my cat refused to let me leave this morning without extensive cuddling and much depositing of cat hair upon my person. They’re just being polite.
I dislike polite/rhetorical questions. And I have no idea how to tell if something I write is going to come across as being polite/rhetorical, so I just add them in anyway.
But yeah. I think if the only response you can think of to your own blog entry is “Jolly good!” then it’s probably a clue that you won’t get many comments on it. *grin*
I have no real idea why I am this way, but I tend to be horrible when it comes to commenting on just about anything I read. Maybe its some left over concept of hard cold print, books magazines and so forth or if I am just really bad at thinking of things I want to say that would be conversational as opposed to “hey, well done…”
My meaning is the obvious in that there are some people you just cant entice to comment.
@Rhotley
True, some people will never be commenters. The idea is more to encourage people who already WANT to comment to have a comfortable commenting experience.
And now I feel like a blog stewardess. Would you like your pillow fluffed? Perhaps some complimentary peanuts?
Hmmm…are you picking on me? I’ve blogged a couple times about Hawai’i trips!
Just kidding…thank you for the linkage. And Kriz picked up on a point I used to forget about, but now it’s become almost a mantra: The “call to action” to close out a post. Generally, mine are rather innocuous, but not subtle: “Tell me (or us) about how you…” or “So what would you add to this list?” There are as many ways to do this as there are blog posts.
And as I’ve pointed out before, where I feel welcome as a friend, is a blog where I’ll comment more often.
(Incidentally, most Blogspot bloggers have the “Name/URL” function enabled, which is way more helpful than the defaults, but I still prefer WordPress’ cookie method.)
Steve´s last blog ..Recommended Reading: October 26 – November 1
@Steve
*laughs* I promise, I wasn’t picking on you! I just asked my brain for a common vacation spot and that’s what it responded with. ^_^
[...] Egotistical Priest) has a couple good posts regarding how comments are like a handshake and how to encourage comments on your [...]
It’s very rare that I end posts with a question, inviting the readers to comment. “So what do YOU think about xxx?”. I have two reasons for this: 1. how embarrassing isn’t it if no one will answer it? Calling out in the darkness and no one answers… gives me shivers… 2. I think it becomes a bit repetative after a while (looking at wow.com, which ends like every post that way “what’s your opinion…?”. Too predictable.
I think the best way to get comments is to take the comments seriously. I don’t give a personal answer to every single comment, but not far from it. Like 90 percent. Even days when I get like 20-30 comments, I make the effort. And once people get used to this and starts to realize that every comment is read, appreciated and often replied to, they get encouraged to keep commenting.
Larísa´s last blog ..A different perspective on WoW charity
@Larisa
On the ending with questions – I, too, feel it can get repetitive and feel a little forced. I like to add them when I genuinely, truly am interested in the answers. I think it gives readers a way to think about things they might want to comment on.
I HOPE mine don’t come across feeling forced or fakey, but you never can tell with the internets. =]
I definitely, hugely agree with the “taking comments seriously”. Make your commenters feel appreciated, and they will notice.
I’ve been struggling with just this topic lately. I have a core group of commentors and readers, but I am having a really hard time building readership and getting people out of their shells to comment on my blog.
I do what you’re talking about when it comes to replying to my comments, but sometimes I am afraid of it coming across as desperate because I nest my comments and most of them have a reply from me personally. Does that give a “does this guy not have anything better to do?” vibe?
Professor Beej´s last blog ..Reading Blogs vs. Reading Books
@Professor Beej
Well, if you look back at my blogs, you’ll note that most of my comments are replies from myself to other people, and it’s not a complete 1-1, but that’s just because this blog theme doesn’t nest out of the box and I’ve been too lazy to try and implement it.
So, if having that many replies from yourself in your comments gives off that vibe, then so does my blog. I think it’s an opinion thing. Maybe to some people, it would seem that way, but I think I’d rather just reply to people and not worry too much about whether or not doing so made me look like I had nothing better to do.
I DO have lots of things to do, but I consider replying to comments pretty important, so I make time for it. =]
@Professor Beej:
Tami put it very well; I do the same thing you do. And rather than giving off the vibe you suggest, I prefer to think of it as showing my readers that I care about their opinions enough to respond to them. Neither I nor Tami (nor, it seems, you) get so overwhelmed with pages (the default WP comment “page” is 50 comments) that we can’t take a few minutes to respond individually to the ones we do get.
To me, it sends the message that my blog is not simply about putting my thoughts out there, but to share those thoughts in at least a 2-way venue.
Steve´s last blog ..Recommended Reading: November 2 – 8
I took your advice, and I really like the way it seems to build community and discussion by responding and not seeming like some I’m writing to them and don’t care about they have to say. Thanks for the advice.
Professor Beej´s last blog ..The Best Three Books in Existence
@Professor Beej
I’m glad you found it helpful!