SKIP THE COMMENT & VOTE ME UP!
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What is a "meaningful" comment?
I blog for money...I love to write so it is a natural extention of my daily life. My blog is aimed at 50+ retirees and I write about what I know from experience. The blog is called RETIRE IN STYLE BLOG. In my blog description under the title it says "writing about retirement where the rubber meets the road". While I love the social part of the blogging life, it is not my purpose for existing. Given that information, you must know that while I love comments, I do not live and die to get that kind of attention. I check my Adsense income long before I go to comments.
Have you ever gotten one of those responses that made you wonder what the author really thought? I had one the other day from a man that had become a follower. The comment he made went something like this: "I thought your blog was good enough to become a follower. I would like for you to become a follower of me." Now, I think that is being damned by faint praise. Trust me, I do not get up in the morning and strive to be just "good enough". Even though I don't get a ton of comments, most people are a little more enthusiastic. I was hoping the guy had set very high standards and "good enough" was glowing praise...at least from him.
How important do you think comments are? I have been blogging for almost 5 years now. I have never gotten the huge number of comments that "mommy bloggers" get...they are very supportive of each other and have turned the "comment phenomena" into a social media circus kind of thing. Each person comments, all their friends respond and they go back to each person that commented commenting on the ever widening circle of contacts. One of the people that I have on my contact list on twitter said yesterday that she thought it was "good manners" to always respond to all comments. In her blogging circle it is all about the comments.
I blog on Blogspot and at the bottom of the comment portion there is a little box you can click that will trigger an email response to all the comments that follow yours. If you commented on a blog that received up to 150 comments, that means that you would receive an email for every comment after yours. I don't know about you but my email box is full of too much noisy material every day as it is. That is not what I want at all. Still, for the author, short of visiting each blog's website and leaving a note, a short thank you to everyone that comments in one box at the bottom of the comments section is what works the best.
Do you check back to see if the author has left a thank you for your comment on their blog? No? Me either. I leave the comments because I have something to add to the conversation, it is relevant to what I write about or of great interest to me. If the share button is handy at the bottom of a blog I really like, I will pass the post on to some other form of sharing...twitter,digg, stumbleupon etc.
If a reader likes what I have to say what I would like for them to do is point my website out in a future blog or go to my blog and twit me up or review my material on Stumbleupon or Digg! Even becoming a google follower of the blog will help a blog grow. Now that is the kind of comment that counts.
So, what function do comment serve in the blogging world? It is nice to know what you think...I am not a rock star that gets many comments and I love doing what I do. But as one of our fellow hubbers said recently, comments should meaningful, not just a lot of noise for the sake of making a lot of noise.
Just as a added thought...if a reader finds a product they love on my blog, a real statement of their support would be to buy something that they want from my ads. These ads are a great fountain of information and I want my readers to use them. That would say more than all the comments or thank you's in the world.
Thank you for stopping by!
b
My blog: Retire In Style Blog
I almost hate to ask...but LEAVE A COMMENT!Loading...
This is just an educational piece. When you see something that is of interest to you, clicking on the ad is a way to get more information.
I find it very odd that in the blogging world, we are our own best advocate but we are "not allowed to promote ourselves". Is that weird?
b
I will change the language...thank you for the heads up.
I definitely see where you're coming from. I mean, lets face it, almost all of the commentors in Hub have an altruistic motive of commenting on your hub so that you will in turn, hopefully, comment on theirs.
And typically, yes, I will return the favor. But if all the reader is going to give me is a word or two that adds up to nothing more than a condescending pat on the head, then I'm going to match their effort precisely. I don't care of the late Micheal Crichton has just reviewed me, (even though he's dead, so reviewing me now would be the coolest thing ever), if he doesn't make at least a comment or two that tells me he's read the hub, I'm not going to give him the time of day.
But, alas, that's the Internet culture for you.
a comment is a valuable thing is it is relavent and supportive...I just don't want to be damned by faint praise.
Thank you NateSeen and Barbar Kay for stopping by.
Barbara Kay Level 6 Commenter 13 months ago
You almost scare me off from making a comment, since you say they can just be making a lot of noise. I've never gotten into blogging or visiting blogs. I guess I've just been too busy with other things online.
Comments on my hubs are important to me though. It shows me that they actually read the hub and enjoyed it enough to comment.
Your comment about people clicking on the ads is possibly against Google Adsense Rules. One of the rules is that you can't tell anyone to click on them. Maybe you should take that part off. If you want to delete this comment, it is fine so nobody sees this part.