I write to you today floating on a wave of delight that my teaching year has just ended. Since I am NOT ready to launch into grading, here’s a short blog post, that somehow still manages to be rambling (it’s a gift):
A year ago, I wondered if Twitter would cause people to blog less. I am not sure whether it has. Although I can certainly name some bloggers who seem more productive on Twitter than on their own blogs, there are new blogs springing up all the time.
Today, I wonder whether the main effect of twitter has been on blog comments.
Paranormal romance author Isabel Roman blogged today about the lack of comments on some of her posts, despite getting a lot of hits. She writes:
The thing I notice is that people come. They read. They do not comment. I wonder why that is. Curious. My post on reviews and why you do them, where you post them, and if you comment on others gets hits, but no comments. Hmmm…
Even my guests get hits, especially after the fact, and yet very few comments. Example: Friday Guest: Wendi Zwaduk with 120 page views but only a measly 6 comments. 120 vs. 6…my math seems skewed.
Not too long ago, Tumperkin of Isn’t It Romance? was thinking about shutting down her blog, and named lack of comments as one possible reason (she’s still blogging. Thank God).
I have been emailing a bit with author Shannon Stacey, my next featured author for the Behind the Lines segment. I felt nervous about how many comments she might get, since Shiloh Walker’s Behind the Lines had so few (despite getting lots of hits), but Shannon replied that, in her mind, any place people are talking about a post is all good, be it Twitter or Facebook, or wherever. So look for her post Tuesday.
Here’s an interesting comparion from Mediaite about Tumblr:
A year ago, in preparation for another piece about Tumblr, [founder] Karp told me that the average Tumblr post had five interactions – likes, reblogs, answers – as compared to an average 1.5 comments on the average WordPress post.
I have a Tumblr account, mostly because I didn’t want someone else to take the name*, but I do not know what to do with it.
(*yeah, because someone is really going to steal what is possibly one of the worst blog names on the planet!)
Looking at some of the big blogs, you see lots of RTs but few or no comments. This effect is really extreme at a site like www.mashable.com. But even here, I’ve had posts get more RTs than comments.
I’ve noticed that this blog has grown steadily in subscribers and daily visitors, but comments have not grown proportionately. Some folks like to lurk, and some read this blog, but only discuss it on Twitter.
Or maybe it’s just fatigue. At this point, in order to do my Monday Morning Stepback posts, I subscribe to over 300 blogs. It can be overwhelming to try to comment on everything I find interesting. Adding that to Twitter, etc. makes for a packed online schedule.
I don’t have an opinion, actually, on whether this is a good thing or not (if it even IS a “thing”.). Occasionally I do feel let down by lack of comments. The absolute lowest was a post on trends in paranormal romance I spent weeks preparing, even interviewing some very big name authors, and got like two comments. But usually I just go with the flow.
I know exactly what to post if I want a lot of comments (something about sex, something funny, snarky reviews, criticism of other blogs), but I would never force myself to write what I don’t feel like writing.
I recognize the irony in asking for comments on a blog post about comments. And it would serve me right if I get none. But I’ll try it anyway:
- I’m curious, do you feel like you get as many comments these days as in the past?
- Do you think Twitter or Tumbrl or even Facebook has affected blog commenting?
- Do you care whether you get a lot of comments?
And even if you don’t feel like commenting? Thanks for reading!
Related posts:
Well, for me, no. For me, it’s school. Graduate school is killing me (teaching two classes, taking two classes). I don’t read hardly anything outside of what I must for class. I don’t socialize with my friends who aren’t in the department. When I read blogs, I can’t justify the time it takes to comment and keep up. Whereas with Twitter, I can come and go and do it from my iphone while I’m in the passenger side of the car or waiting for a ride or whatever. Much harder to do that from the iphone with blogs.
As you can see, now that the semester is winding down I’m more participatory again.
Stupid school term.
Oh I totally care about how many comments I get on my blog. Sometimes I write a blog, and I think, “This is *such* a good topic! I’m going to get great discussion” and I get three comments. Honestly, like you, I subscribe to about 300 blogs, and I’m pretty good about clearing my Google reader and viewing them. But there’s no way I can comment on300 blogs, so I really only comment if I have something substantive (or not, heh) to add.
Which is a total double standard because I love, love, love having people comment on my blog. I’m always thrilled to get comments, and I know my blog traffic is decent (for a teeny, tiny fish in the romance pond), but I also get that I don’t blog daily, and maybe that affects the amount of commenting I get.
I find it to be a total crap shoot.
It’s always been like this, long before Tumblr and Twitter. Even before MyCrappySpace.
I think there is an agreement that it’s three comments per hundred visits*. Sometimes in spite of a huge number of visitors, there would be no response. It’s also seasonal. Quiet during summer. Busy times tend to be during working hours (you should be working, people!). It’s the norm for most in the blog scene, IMO.
It’s my theory that of all online interactive media, the one that receives comments/responses the most is a frequent-visited message board. Next: a popular multi-author** blog.
*my numbers may be skewed, but you get the drift.
** I mean anyone who writes.
I’ve had blog posts with hundreds of hits–one with 6,000 hits, even–that have had ZERO comments. A few years ago, this might have seemed odd. Maybe it is odd, indicative that I’m not “engaging” readers, and this might depend on the nature of the blog post at times. If I directly ask a question of readers, I think that readers are more likely to comment. Most commenting on my posts takes place on Twitter or Facebook, which is fine by me.
I’ve noticed lack of comments on my blog, but as you, I subscribe to hundreds of blogs and can’t comment on everyone. But I do believe when I write a post, or like this one you’ve written, people will comment because you can have a discussion you can’t have on Twitter or Tumblr.
Once I tweet a link from my blog on Twitter, I get a ton of people stopping over to read.
Comments give no indication of the amount of visitors I get a day.
I think authors know that we mostly get comments because people want to win books. For the record, I read many blogs (including yours ) and almost never comment. Formulating an intelligent response is hard work and takes away from energy going to ones daily page count. I think a Facebook-ish “Like” button would be good on blogs so that one could signal appreciation even if one has nothing to say.
On a related topic, one of the successes of Goodreads may be the ability to rate a book without reviewing it – or add a very brief comment. Writing a review for Amazon takes a lot of effort. Actually, writing any decent book review takes a lot of effort. Thanks to you and other reviewers for taking the trouble.
My comments have gone down as well. I love comments….because they make me feel like something I said resonated enough to spend the time commenting. however, how much I comment on other blogs really varies. Some days I’m all over the place and others I may leave only one or two. I do try to do tweet or share good posts. It’s just that there’s so much excellent content out there it’s hard to keep up with it all.
I really sympathize with spending so much time on a post to get so few comments! I feel like often the most time consuming posts are like that. I also hate it when I have an author interview that gets little attention.
About two years ago I took a year off from blogging while I, you know, finished my dissertation, held down two jobs, and endured the debilitating horrors of the academic job market. When I came back, my readership had plummeted in a way that it has never recovered from and the level of commenting on my posts had gone WAY down. I attributed this to a number of factors – my more sporadic posting, a different kind of blogging (less ardent participation in reading challenges, for instance, which are great community builders, but which my schedule just doesn’t have time for anymore), the fact that my blog ranges widely over genres and topics rather than being easily classifiable. But it does occur to me that my readers generally don’t feel comfortable (or urgently driven to) commenting – even those who are friends of mine outside the blogosphere and comment up a storm on similar Facebook posts (and probably would on Twitter if I used it. My partner D has an irrational disdain for Twitter that has held me back, I have to admit. One day while we were on a long, LONG distance drive he suddenly said, after a half hour of total silence, “I am going to start my own site. I will call it Bitter. And we will send beets.”).
It is certainly dispiriting to spend time and psychic energy composing a post that no one comments upon (did no one read it? Did no one think it worthy of further thought? Of any reaction at all?). I think at least part of it is that people have reached a certain level of media saturation when it comes to blogging; their blog rolls are too vast to permit the kind of active dialogue that was much more common even three years ago. I miss it. What to do to fix this? I am afraid that I have no solution other than commenting whenever I can on other people’s blogs when I enjoy and appreciate them. Like yours!
Now back I go to the interminable slog up Mt. Grademore.
Ugh…the lack of comments on my blog can be disheartening and aggravating because then it feels like I’m just lecturing my readers. I do have regulars, whom I very much appreciate (!), but sometimes it’s incredibly boring to put together a detailed post and only receive two or three comments. What’s funny is that the post with the most comments and interaction consisted solely of a photo! Though I do think the nature of my blog encourages lurkers, I want people to engage in the topic because I don’t want to seem like some know-it-all.
EDIT: I don’t subscribe to a lot of blogs, but I do try to comment on them as often as I can. However, when it comes to romance reader/industry blogs, I stopped commenting because I find I loathe the blog format in comparison to the message board format. It’s much too confining for me, and it’s easy for conversations to get lost in the shuffle of 50+ comments.
The fear of word vomit gets people, I think, as well as not wanting to be one of the “only ones” who comment. It seems the fewer comments a blog gets the less it’ll have in general.
Also the number of comments to number of blogs out there does seem to be inversely related.
[But lovely blogs like yours with the edit option save people from word vomit fear ;D At least for 10 minutes...]
@Fia:
You know what? you know what has given me the MOST hits from ANY other site? The current discussion about one of my posts (joint with Tumperkin) on the AAR message board. When I looked at my stats the day that was posted, I realized once again what a huge following message boards have.
I try to comment, but sometimes I have nothing substantive to say! Sometimes I just comment with the fact that I liked the post and it made me think, even though it feels silly to do so. I think the urge is similar to that in face-to-face conversation, when you are acknowledging to the other person that you are listening, and to please go on.
For the most part, I am not rapid-fire in my responses to complex issues. I’m more likely to come up with my own blog post weeks or months later, once my brain has thoroughly chewed the ideas over.
I’ve noted a sharp drop in comments this last week or so, since I moved my blog over to my website and made it WordPress – not sure if it’s the move, or that a lot of my posts recently have been announcements of guest blogs rather than substantive posts. I’ve given up trying to predict what will get comments and what won’t, because there are so many factors: if the post seems to “require” response, if the reader has anything to say on the topic, how many hits there were in the first place, what day of the week it is, what else is going on across the internet or in the world, if the topic is yet another reiteration of something people have burned out on, etc..
I was about to post my answer on Twitter. Then I remembered the question & snuck back with my tail between my legs. My take: I now spend about 99% of my online time on my iPhone, and I find it much easier to simply jot down my thoughts via Twitter, rather than typing in my name & email address, etc on blog forms. Granted, it’s only a few characters, but then my comment has to contain complete sentences & non-abbreviated words! What?!
As for blogging myself, between writing & Twitter, I find myself all shared-out, so that has definitely changed too. I only blog out of sheer necessity now.
Thanks for the great post, Jessica!
Thinking more about it, it reminds me a bit of a class I taught this term where NOTHING I COULD DO would make the students talk. It was a senior course, and the students in my sophomore course were talking up a storm, so I knew it wasn’t that I had suddenly, horrifyingly lost my teacherly mojo. I thought, “Oh god, they are hating this course. They aren’t absorbing anything I am teaching, they aren’t doing the reading, they are just enduring it until they can finally graduate….”
But then I began to notice some things. First, when I wandered around the classroom during group work, I noticed that many of their readings were heavily marked with reading notes. Most of them WERE doing the readings, even the difficult philosophical ones. And when I lectured, I noticed that all of them were frantically note-taking. Not texting or doodling, but scribbling down the words coming out of my mouth.
This class was an object lesson in not succumbing to one of my teacherly (and, um, bloggerly?) prejudices: I tend to think that the mark of someone who is intellectually engaged is active, vocal, verbal participation in conversations and debates. But I think that because that is the sort of thinker and reader and citizen I am, not because that is the absolute standard of intellectual engagement. For some, engagement is much more like spectatorship, and it is profoundly uncomfortable to delurk and enter the debate. Still, I struggle with this idea on my (too quiet) blog and in my (too quiet) classrooms.
What Fia said.
My interesting anecdote to add here is that I started Random Romance Sundays strictly as blog filler – and chose Sunday because it’s notoriously a low (low, low, low) traffic day for my blog. And with the exception of a Jayne Ann Krentz title I mentioned once, none of these posts generate a ton of comments for me. Three tends to be average. However, a lot of these posts do generate a ton of hits/traffic for me. A lot. So much that I was, frankly, a little shocked.
I know I only comment on blogs when “I have something to say.” Believe me, there are lots of times I read a post, think “Wow, that was a really good post” – yet I don’t comment. Why? I have nothing to add. That said, now that Twitter exists, I will Tweet interesting blog posts – to pass on the love…..
Here’s why I rarely comment on blogs anymore. I’d be interested to know if others have the same issue. I’ve taken to reading my blog posts in Google Reader. No big deal – been doing it that way for a few years. But I recently began going through my GReader on my smart phone. And so I’ve done a couple things. First, I’ve weeded out any blogs that don’t include a full feed. I don’t want to have to click through just to read the blog post. Second, it’s really made me comment less because clicking through, waiting forever for the page to load, and then logging in via my iPhone so I can make a comment is a huge PITA. So unless I have something brilliant to add (yeah, right), I rarely comment anymore. So I think it has less to do with twitter and more to do with the increased use of mobile. (At least for me, and it all revolves around me of course).
If you use analytics for your site, most of them allow you to see the number of mobile visitors you get. Have you taken a look at that?
I’m in the minority here (again): I never really cared about comments or numbers of comments or whatnot. I LOVED what I got, but I’d take a look at my page views, see how long people spend at my blog and where, and that meant more to me. Then I realized my life started revolving around my blog stats and it was NOT healthy. I haven’t paid attention to that in a year.
I blog because I have something I want to get off my chest. If that resonates with just one other person, I’m good. If not, I still got it off my chest.
There are blogs I visit from time to time, but I don’t read on a regular basis because the way they phrase the question at the end (to spur comments) seems manipulative and desperate. “I really really really want you to comment and so here’s a question to get it started because that’s what everybody says you have to do to get comments.”
I haven’t opened my feed in a year. I follow exactly five blogs regularly (as in, the first things I check in the morning). Those blogs write long, deep posts, so there’s always much unpacking to do before I can even begin to parse my own thoughts about it–if I had any to begin with. And with those posts, I use dotEPUB, download the post as an EPUB file, put it in my “Articles to Read” file and put it on my reader because those are posts I want to KEEP and digest.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by katiebabs, Jessica Tripler. Jessica Tripler said: Read it, please: Can Blog Commenting Survive the Twitter and Tumblr Assault? http://bit.ly/i1w34K [...]
I’m not familiar with Tumblr, but Twitter has no impact on whether I will read and/or comment on a blog post. I don’t subscribe to any blogs (partly because I’m not sure how to do it, but mainly time considerations) but I do read about four or five of them on an almost-daily basis. The reasons I don’t always comment are varied, but I can tell you it’s virtually never due to lack of interest in what’s being discussed. There’s an intimidation factor for me in regard to academic blogs; I don’t have the background or education to join in some of the discussions (though I’m trying to improve) and rather than embarrass myself, I stay a lurker. Sometimes it’s just timidity or lack of anything intelligent to add. So–basically–it’s not the blog; it’s me.
I always liked getting comments when I blogged, but I never cared for blogging. I thought it was something I had to do to gain an audience. It did always feel weird to *not* get comments; makes you feel as though you’re talking to yourself. But at least, if you have hits, you know someone’s listening, even if they’re not feeling bold enough to turn your post into a conversation.
There are two main things that stop me commenting.
1. I read most blogs in Google Reader so have to click through to leave a comment. I have to be really inspired to do that.
2. I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome so do a lot of my blog reader lying down either using my iPhone or my laptop lying on its side on the bed. Neither is conducive to typing.
I appreciate the work that goes into blogging, but simply find it very difficult to comment.
*G* yeah, contests will always get comments.
But I also know that a lack of comments doesn’t mean it’s not getting read…so that doesn’t tend to bother me too much-at my blog and when I’m guest blogging. I’m not familiar with tumbr nor do I want to be-I’ve got enough social media eating up my time-I’m even getting ready to shut down my regular FB page because I can’t keep up. O.o
I figure that if people have something to say, they’ll say it… if I’m just rambling, they aren’t as likely to comment.
First when I’m online, your Monday morning stepback is something I always read. I even been known to click through the links. I don’t always have anything to add but, ya know what, from now on I’ll make more of an effort. Why? Because they are something that I look for each week and when it’s not there I do miss them.
Not on twitter so don’t have anything to add there.
I’m sorry about that. If it was the post on Vampire Romance: Dead or Alive, the short answer is 1. that it lacked your normal level of observations and insights and 2. offline life was cutting into my online time.
For me, there’s no discernible trend. Some days I get mega-hits and few comments, some days fewer hits and more comments. I will say this – when I go to a blogsite, even if the post is fascinating, if there are hundreds of comments, or say…50 comments, I tend to read and leave without commenting because who has time to read all those comments? Certainly not the blogger! I feel like a sheep, and a silly brainless sheep at that, for commenting.
You just never know what topic or book discussion will generate comments. I used to feel that my blog topics or reviews were a failure if I didn’t generate comments. I’m used to what I get. I don’t promote on Twitter. I tried it out for maybe three days and decided I didn’t want the attention. I’m uncomfortable with anything that spotlights me or my poorly maintained blog. I mean I’m only getting what I put into my hobby. Another thing, do you comment within your community? I’m bad at this. But some readers may not comment for that reason among a million others. But anyway, I read but I don’t always comment. Why? Nothing really to say or add that hasn’t been said already. And why is the font so tiny?
I do not have my own blog, but I love to read romance blogs. I read in google reader so I do not always see other people’s comments. I will click through to see them if I’m curious about other people’s response to the post. I didn’t realize that bloggers are really conscious of the number of comments that they get, although it makes sense. Your blog has more of its own content and is less crowd-sourced than many blogs, so the comments haven’t seemed as important to me. I remember the post about paranormal romance and turning girls into vampires being the new taking their virginity. I thought that was really insightful and it stuck with me and helped me understand the paranormal trend. It didn’t occur to me to comment “Oh yeah, I think you’re on to something.” With thoughtful posts, a reader has to process the ideas before having something to add. “Comment on blog” isn’t something that goes on the to-do list for me because I’m a romance reader instead of in the business. I do really enjoy your blog and want you to feel appreciated and stick around. Thanks for the heads up that you need comments.
I know exactly what to post if I want a lot of comments (something about sex, something funny, snarky reviews, criticism of other blogs), but I would never force myself to write what I don’t feel like writing.
Bingo. My blog gets a rare comment here and there. Mostly from a few regulars. But I’m not this type to do all that stuff that makes it easy for people to comment.
If you post reviews, what can people say really? Nice review? You suck? Unless they’ve read the book of course and can comment a bit more in depth.
You need to post stuff that people can converse about and you have to be that type to put in the energy to do that, to come up with interesting things to talk about, and just do all that chirpy stuff. I’m not this type.
I’m content with how often I post, not much, and how many people read or don’t read or comment.
Why I don’t comment on blogs that I follow? It depends on so many things. Sometimes I just can’t articulate what I want to say. Sometimes I just don’t have time. Mostly when I scan through the blogs on my reader, I find some interesting posts, but mostly not much that I can comment on.
But I will say that I have stopped commenting on blogs in which the owner never responds back. I’ve commented on a few blogs several times, responding to something they’ve asked or a post and they’ve never acknowledged me even if it’s only to say I disagree with you.
The comments issue goes both ways. Except for huge, more impersonal blogs like DA or SB who consistently get large amounts of comments, I think ignoring people who do come to comment is off putting.
I’m not talking about you Jessica because you are one of those who almost always comments back specifically to people, which is one reason I keep reading your blog.
People blog for many reasons, but I’m sure most do because they want to share and communicate about things they like or enjoy. If I post something, it’s like I’m inviting them into my house. If I then ignore them, why would they want to come back?
I try to always respond to every commenter and comment even if there’s not much I can say to what they are saying.
I think Twitter has had an impact in that some of the people most likely to comment now direct their energies at tweeting. However, I think Googlereader has possibly had a bigger impact – I read 80% of my material through it without ever linking to the actual site. Like many here, I don’t comment on many of the posts I read – only when I have something concrete to say. For years I’ve bemoaned the lack of a ‘tick-box’ option in the comments to simply say “I liked this”. Just to give the blogger some feedback and encouragement. There are some blogs I read almost every post on but very rarely comment. And this despite the fact I can get demoralised by the sense of ‘silence’.
I’ve been meaning for ages to contact some bloggers to arrange a day when we all post our ‘least appreciated post’ i.e. the one we really hoped would get lots of comments – and it didn’t. And then we could all visit each other and comment lavishly and at length.
I think it would be very healing.
@aq:
Yes, that the one. And thanks for reminding me that one reason people don’t comment is that sometimes the posts aren’t that good. Thanks a lot for that. Really. *runs off the BAN aq*
@Tumperkin:
I am feeling healed just thinking about it!!! When can we do it?
@Jessica:
Per the post. It was well-written and well-researched. I appreciated all the time that went into it. BUT it relied on the opinions of others, mostly authors, and therefore felt more like an interview/soft promotional post than one of Jessica’s truly mind-boogling, let’s look at this from another angle posts. That doesn’t make it a bad post or even an unworthy post or even that my experience was anything more than my own, it just means that my mind didn’t get engaged to the level that I wanted to post a comment. So there.
Sniff. Sniff. Ban me all you like but that won’t stop me reading your insightful words.
Ha! I win.
PS. I very much respect how you make me stop and think. Or to look at a topic from a different direction. And you have a lovely authorial voice and a way with words that I appreciate. And I’m still waiting for the day when one of your topics is chosen to be published by the esteemed publisher of ethics and popular culture.
I am SO guilty of reading a blog and then tweeting the person a comment rather than leave it at the blog. I think for a couple of reasons – one, if I tweet it, I can converse right away with the blogger and others who read the tweet. Second, if I am doing it off my phone – it is MUCH easier to tweet a response than type a comment on a blog (logging into blogger on the phone is a pain.)
As far as my blog – I would say comments are down. But looking at stats – views are consistent or growing. So I guess that is what you need to go by these days
I’ve only had a book blog since July and I’m lucky if I get more than 3 comments a week! I get a nice page count and lots of people visting but nada, zip increase on comments. In the last 4 months I’ve been commenting on more blogs but it hasn’t made a difference to my comments.
The problem I find on my behalf is that I use google reader and if you want to comment you have to then go to the website of the blogger wait for it to load etc etc and by then I either can’t be bothered to comment or I’ve forgotten what I wanted to say or got occupied by something else while it loads and forget.
Also sometimes I’m intimidated by the blogger which is silly but its there.
Part of me thinks it would be good to have a like button, like facebook and goodreads just to know people actually read and like what you’re reviewing or saying. But I don’t know if that’s possible.
I don’t blog, don’t Twitter, am not on Facebook, don’t have a smart phone and just last month finally let my brother talk me into getting a little netbook. I do, however, keep track of 5 or 6 blogs on my work breaks. I check them every day and if you haven’t put anything out, I miss you and hope everything is OK.
I rarely comment on any of the blogs, but I read each and every one and usually all the comments, too. Sometimes it’s lack of time, others have already made comments similar to what I might have, or I just have no clue how to phrase what I might want to say. (After all, I’m a reader, not a writer.) You may not get as many comments as you might have wished, but, trust me, you and the other bloggers I follow have contributed to many conversations with my friends, family, and coworkers.
So, please don’t feel like us (we?) lurkers don’t appreciate the thought and work you all put into your blogs and websites. We may not respond with comments very often, but we wouldn’t waste our time clicking our way to your site day after day if we weren’t very interested in what you have to say.
Name the day, Jess.
@Jessica: @Tumperkin: I’d have a hard time picking my least appreciated post. So many “duds” to choose from! I usually don’t feel bad about no/few comments unless it’s a guest post. Then I’m worried that I’ve disappointed my guest (or host, if I’m the guest). Otherwise I don’t mind and I never check my stats.
Tumblr is a new thing? My WP blog loads comments very slow. Sometimes I’m reluctant to comment on my own blog because of it!
I bloghop from Goodreads a lot (I like author blogs) and click links from twitter, so I don’t know that these other sites have reduced my commenting. I read ten or twenty times as many posts as I comment on.
Okay, okay, I promise as a reader of all of your interesting and informative blogs to post more comments.
I have a couple of reasons why I may not post a comment. First, I may not have the time. But the point is to make the time, right? We all need to affirmation and feedback in our daily lives. Also, by the time I have a comment ready, someone has already said it better. In this case, it’s LVLMLEAH.
I completely agree with LVMLEAH’s comments about replying to comments. I disagree slightly about Dear Author. I want to give a shout-out to you, Jessica, Wendy, Sonomalass, Just Janga,
Katiebabs and Kristie J for replying to my comments, even days after all of you have posted.
I admit, sometimes I’m guilty of not commenting back on my own blog. I try to do but then I forget. *blush*
I lurk on blogs. A lot. The two reasons I don’t comment are 1) because I can’t think of a good coherent way to say what I mean, or 2) I need to think about it a while and by the time I’ve thought it over I’m doing something else. Also, I comment then re-read what I said and think, that’s not what I meant. Then I get caught up in editing my comment and time has flown and I’m frustrated because it’s not precisely what I wanted to say, and …. I hit delete and go back to lurking. I better post this before I re-read it and start editing it.
For me it is time related. At the moment I have lots of time so have been able to enjoy my regular blogs by reading everything and commenting on everything. When I am working full time again that just won’t happen. I too would love a ‘like’ button so I can at least acknowledge that I have read a particular post.
@Angela/Lazaraspaste:
God help us all.
@Kati:
Truer words were never written.
@Andrew Shaffer:
I think this is true, as this thread indicates. Some bloggers are very good at asking questions at the end of their posts. Sarah Tanner is one of those.
Also, 6000 hits? I think at that point, I would be pretty blase about comments myself, LOL.
@KB/KT Grant:
Agreed, but I think this has changed since I started blogging. I do think number of comments roughly correlated to how popular a post was when I started in 2008.
@Miranda Neville:
Contests are definitely a way to boost visitors and get comments. But I never know if that translates into real readership, which is what I want, so I rarely do them.
And yes, we all have to balance commenting with the many other things demanding our attention.
@Amy @ My Friend Amy:
Me too! And yet, it’s kind of irrational, because I don’t always comment even on posts I really love.
@Ariel/Sycorax Pine:
Agreed.
Also, I think I am in love with D. And congrats on finishing the thesis. I hope you are employed.
I agree that sporadic posting does a number on momentum. I also agree that niche blogging – or focused blogging — works better than being all over the place. I have started posting more reviews of outside romance, and I know they won’t get many hits or comments, but I have blogging goals which occasionally conflict with the desire for popularity, so I am going to keep diversifying.
@Wendy: Weekends are low traffic for me as well. I love your Sunday posts because they are just interesting little snippets. They don’t demand too much time and yet I come away with something interesting. Yet I never comment on them!
@Lori:
I think this is it for many many people. It makes a lot of sense. So, surfing the net on a smartphone is a major cause I completely overlooked in the post.
Also, I do not use analytics. I guess I thought my WP stats told me if someone was looking at my blog, from whatever device. No?
@Moriah Jovan:
Hmm. I never thought of it this way. I do see a lot of things I think show desperation … like having a contest to get more subscribers. but whatever. To each her own.
As far as stats, I think it was Karen Scott who posted once on the stages of blogging. You start with not knowing what stats are. Then you become obsessed. Then you don’t care. Then you get balance. I am in the last stage right now. I am still so grateful to have any readers.
@Mara:
I have a lot of sympathy for authors who find themselves forced to become promo and marketing whizzes when all they wanted to do was write a book.
But you are right — there are lots of reasons not to comment, many of which have to do with the reader.
@Kerry D.: thank you, Kerry, for an important reminder that blog readers may be in varying states of mental and physical health and that commenting poses challenges for some beyond “I don’t have time”.
I also have days when even clicking through is too much to deal with.
@Shiloh Walker:
Good, because I loved your post on Beg Me!
@Julia Rachel Barrett:
Oh me too! I feel like I MUST not comment unless I have read every one. I always think it’s kind of cheeky when people start a comment with “I didn’t have time to read the first 50 comments, so this might be a total repeat of what 50 other people have already said, but …”.
I also feel like if I comment on a long thread I have to come back in case anyone has responded to me. When does the obligation end? What counts as “leaving in the middle of a conversation” on a blog?
@Keishon:
In the comment box? I will have that fixed right away!
You and at least one other person on this thread have public blogs you don’t really wish to publicize. I find that to be a fascinating liminal internet space to occupy. You folks are an enigma wrapped in a mystery.
@kelly:
Hi Kelly, thanks for delurking. I am not sure what you meant here, so if you have a sec, come back and clarify. It sounds like an important distinction that I cannot grasp.
Also, while I do like getting comments, I have to be careful of what I wish for, for 2 reasons:
1. The time it is taking me to reply to everyone here is about an hour. That’s an hour I could be reading or writing a new blog post, etc.
2. More comments means a higher chance that things will go south. I REALLY don’t want to host wanky threads here.
@LVLMLeah:
I try to, I really do. But sometimes shit hits the fan right after I post and I just cannot get back to the blog for a day or two. I agree with you that it is a good thing to do when at all possible. If we are asking for comments, the least we can do is acknowledge them.
@aq: Wow. Thank you. I am going to threaten to ban you at least once a week from now on.
@Mandi:
Yes, I think this is the way it is now. And again with the phone! Clearly I need to get a better phone so I have this handy excuse, LOL. But I don’t mean to dismiss the twitter thing. I really appreciate it when people RT or talk about the post on Twitter.
I wonder sometimes if it would be okay to quote the tweets on the blog, but then I think if people are tweeting it rather than posting their comments here, perhaps there is a reason.
@Tumperkin: Let me think. I will research what is the most pathetic day of the year. Stay tuned.
@Jill Sorenson:
You are a very funny and humble woman, Ms. Sorenson.
@Vi:
It was inevitable that this post would make me sound needy, but honestly, I am in a state of thrill over this blog 99% of the time.
Also, I think the DA bloggers are the gold standard for staying engaged with comments on their posts.
@Susan D.: Wow. I think that comment pretty much illustrated the phenomenon it was describing. There’s a word for that isn’t there?
Seriously, I completely understand, and am grateful you read the blog. thank you for emerging from the comfort of Twitter to comment!
@Merrian:
I feel like the Twitter button — or the other buttons at the bottom of this post, under “Share and Enjoy” — kind of functions this way, but not everyone is on Twitter. Does anyone know if there is a Like button for blog posts?
@Victoria Dahl:
This is definitely emerging as the major issue. I think it is very funny that your first impulse was to respond to this post on Twitter. Thank you for having your irony sensor set to “high”.
I’ll be real honest … ok, when am I not LoL? I’m more likely to post a comment on a blog where I know the writers aren’t on twitter. Two examples: Tumperkin and The Uncrushable Jersey Dress. Twitter is just so much faster. There are a few blogs — Sarah Tanner’s, SuperWendy’s, Promantica, yours JUST to name a few!!, where the comment threads are involving and fascinating — occasionally take on a life of their own — and I just have to plunge in.
For back and forth discussion, I’ll occasionally post on the AAR message boards but my “home” group is the Book Lovers Message Board — I know so much about the reading tastes of that group of readers (altho there are always surprises) and I love a big ole take on a highly anticipated book. And it’s all reader generated so I don’t have a feeling of blog writer –> comments emerge. It’s like all comments all the time, connected to a topic.
@Janet W:
that is undeniably a huge advantage over blogs. I should participate more at AAR or BLMB. but there’s the little factor of time…
I read your blog for intellectual stimulation, and I do get that, I then mull over what you have said. I rarely come back to make a comment because I’m moderating a Dog Rescue forum most of the time I’m on-line and something always crops up that needs attention. However my involvement in the forum is one of the reasons I really value what you write, while the forum does useful work, the level of debate can be pretty basic and being made to think harder is very good for me. Second ‘however’ is that I find writing comments on blogs like this very exposing and somewhat intimidating, absolutely no reflection on you and in view of what you’ve written here rather selfish, but then my blog is open to about ten friends and that won’t change. I suppose I’m rather a wimp!
I’m a lurker. I read over a hundred blogs on my reader, but I very rarely comment. Maybe because I’m not an active member of the community or I don’t have an opinion either way. Also, this is my play time before I go to bed and I really don’t have much left to say at the end of the day. I read book blogs to get recommendations. I read craft blogs to see what other ppl are doing and get inspiration for my own stuff. I read diet blogs to see others’ struggles and find new recipes. I appreciate the people who put their stuff out there, I just don’t have a lot to say either way. Now giveaways . . .
I think a new year’s resolution will be to comment more, even if it’s just to say “thanks for putting that info in my head.”
At SBTB, Sarah will ask a question like “How has reading romance affected your relationships?” The content is in the comments, which is what I meant by a crowd-sourced blog. I will read the comments because I’m interested to know what people had to say. You are doing your own legwork so the content and ideas are in the post instead of the comments. Sometimes people have good responses that add to the discussion and I would love to see that part of the blog grow, but at least right now the posts seem more important. The posts are where the good stuff is.
@Jazzlet: thanks for sharing your perspective. It’s not wimpy not to want to comment. I think we all choose in different ways when and how to stick our necks out. There are some things I will not blog about now because I just don’t want to deal with the fallout. And thanks for the good work you do with the dogs!
@Laura: Thank you for delurking to share your view. I am sure lots of folks are invested in multiple communities online. I have been on one forum — not romance related — since 2002 and have only made 1500 comments, while I have made 6000 tweets in under a year!
@kelly: Thank you, that is a perfect explanation. I guess you could say this post is one of my rare crowd sourced post! they are certainly MUCH easier to write, LOL. And if I had someone paying me for my real content, I might think twice about putting so much of it out there.
I’m Twitter- and Facebook-free, with no inclination to join – I’m at my outermost social media limit already, between blogs and my tiny amount of Goodreads interaction.
It’s hard for me to figure out if the level of commenting on my blog has changed over time, since my blog has changed so much since I started it in November 2005. It started out as a knitting/cat pictures blog. Over time, I started to add my book reviewettes and some occasional book-related contests. Ravelry (comparable to Goodreads, but for knitters) came along and really cut down on knitblog posts and comments. But by that point, my blog was focusing more on books than on knitting.
During the past year, my blog became primarily m/m romance focused (but still with cat pictures!) and I developed a regular schedule: Mondays = Misadventures in Stock Photography, Tuesdays-Thursdays = contests, and Fridays = Linkity. Of course, contests get lots of comments. The Misadventures and Linkity get their fair share of comments, but they also get more pageviews. But hey, the average visit is over 3.5 minutes, which I think is decent. While I only intermittently respond to comments in my own comments section, I do respond to all comments via email.
I try to comment on other blogs as much as I can. While I subscribe to nearly 500 blogs, some percentage of them don’t inspire me to comment (newsish sites like Lifehacker, TeleRead, Dear Author, etc).
Two reasons: Google reader, and circular discussion fatigue. When I first started reading romance and ect blogs, I commented my ass off because every discussion was new and interesting. But even the internet turns out to be really local and I started to run into the same people with the same agendas, the same intellectual axes to grind, and I realized that I was turning into a one-trick pony too. So unless I have something really worth saying, I’d rather pour my time into reading more, or writing in a more polished form.
Now that the river has been crossed, though, thanks for your blog- it has been my hands-down favorite on romance and ect since I found you a couple of months ago.
@Chris: Thanks for sharing the evolution of your blog. I had NO idea it was a knitting blog at one time. And I am still trying to figure out the concept of a Goodreads for yarn…
I admire you for having a schedule. I can’t even keep the schedules I set (see Ham/mukah schedule!). But it would probably make my life easier if I had one.
@Liz L: Circular discussion fatigue is a new one on this long thread. But I agree with you that there are certain issues that get hashed and rehashed over and over. Like you, when I started blogging, I was fascinated by each and every one. Now there are some things I would rather scratch, my eyes out than discuss again. I agree that you get to know people, and get to know their perspectives and biases, but I hope that with new people coming in to the mix, we all have a chance to change it up a bit and learn form each other. Idealistic and bordering on naive, I know.
Thanks for the kind words, too!
@Jessica: How glad am I that I didn’t name the blog “Chris’s Knitting Blog”?! Very, very glad.
And due to several free knitting patterns on my site, knittingpatterncentral.com remains the top referrer to my site…
Whereas on Goodreads, you really just add books (ebooks, audiobooks, paper books), on Ravelry, you add knitting books, yarn, needles, and knitting projects. You can see what your friends are knitting, etc. The forums are diverse and are not limited to knitting-related discussions.
You have a schedule! Monday Morning Stepback.
It might be a simple schedule, but still…