This is not a plea for comments for THIS blog. This is a post thinking about how comments matter to bloggers in general. I use my blog only as a reference point. Instead, this is a reminder that commenting is good, and that if you can’t comment, you can still help out bloggers that you like.
At the time of this blog posting, over 5,300 people receive this blog in their RSS reader (or via email). Another 2,000 – 4,000 come to the site directly, depending on the day and the post. Add those up, and let’s say that around 7,500 people come here daily to read my stuff.
If 1% of you commented, that’d be 75. (I’m bad at math. Did I do that right?) The average post on here gets a respectable 20 or so comments, but that’s about 1/4 of 1% then, of the folks who get a copy of each post. This got me thinking about other great blogs that I love.
I read several hundred blog posts a day. I comment on maybe five or six. So I’m in there with you. I’m not commenting much, either. And yet, if I’m able to leave a decent and thoughtful comment, I know that the other person will appreciate it. Sometimes, it’s a matter of time. If it’s that, here’s some other ways to help:
If You Don’t Have Time to Comment
- Bookmark the post in a social bookmarking site (so others might find it).
- Share it in Google Reader.
- “Like” it in FriendFeed.
- Stumble it in StumbleUpon.
- If it’s *really* good, Digg it.
- Note it on Facebook.
You get the picture. If you enjoy something, but don’t have the chance to comment due to time, another great way to be helpful is to move it along to others in your network. That’s why there are social software tools to begin with: to facilitate that very experience.
I could probably list 100 blogs that deserve more comments without breaking a sweat. You probably could, too. One might even be yours. If you want to talk about your blog in the comments section here, what it’s about, and why someone might want to come by and comment, that might be fun. Want to?
And now that I think about this, because he has comments turned off (for his own reasons), how does Seth Godin know when he’s hit one out of the park? Del.icio.us? Links? Hmm. I love my comments. It’s often better than the post, and it usually tells me when I’ve hit a mark.
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The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
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Photo credit, kingnixon
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