I’ve been closely examining this blog over the last few weeks in several areas. One of the areas I’ve been looking at is interaction. Most posts here get several comments, some even a few dozen or more. So it’s been easy for me to assume that this blog has a very active and engaged community.
But it doesn’t. I started really looking at the people that were commenting and interacting, and noticed something: They weren’t regular blog readers, for the most part. They were people that follow me on Twitter. Another hint was that whenever I write my posts ahead of time, I will schedule them to publish the following morning at 8am. At 9am, I will tweet out a link to the new post for the first time. I almost never get the first comments on my new post UNTIL the link gets tweeted on Twitter.
Another thing that I’ve realized is that I’ve been cultivating my Twitter network at the expense of my blogging network. Up until a year or so ago, I used to comment on other blogs on an almost daily basis. I stopped doing that, because I rationalized to myself that I could get more ‘accomplished’ by tweeting out a link to a post I liked, instead of commenting on it. My thinking was that pointing my 25K+ followers to a post would be more appreciated by the blogger than me commenting on their post.
And maybe it would be, but by not commenting on other blog posts, I’m also decreasing the number of comments I get here. See the dilemma?
So moving forward, I am going to start investing more time in cultivating a community around this blog, instead of just trying to get my Twitter network to come here. One thing I did over the weekend was de-activate the LiveFyre commenting system. I loved the customer service they gave me, it was exceptional, but at the end of the day, I didn’t like that LiveFyre doesn’t support Comment Luv, and it doesn’t let you click on the commenter’s name and go straight to their blog. These are two very powerful community-building tools that I prefer to use, and will be from now on.
I’m wondering, have the rest of you noticed this as well? Are you also cultivating your Twitter network at the expense of your blogging community? It’s so easy to simply point your network from Twitter here, but if Twitter goes away, does your blog readership leave with it?
Great question, Mack.
I think building a blog platform has to be (mostly) independent of Twitter. Once you build your blog platform, then you go to Twitter with links and your “already” followers will tweet and engage on your blog. Also, for me, Facebook is huge for connecting to my blog.
Good thoughts!
Hi Sarah Mae! I think your Twitter network can help build your blog readership BUT I agree with you that your blog community needs to be separate from your Twitter presence. I think that’s the mistake I have been making, to assume that activity driven from Twitter was actually activity generated on the blog itself. Working to correct that, thanks for your thoughts 😉
Wow Mack, you seem to be examining all of my inner struggles – thank you. 🙂 I definitely agree that Twitter, Facebook and even G+ have fractured conversations and our blog communities have suffered. Like you, I was a frequent commenter in the past but stopped because of the time commitment. Feeling guilty about not having time to be a community member, I also stopped blogging for a very long time. As you noted, commenting is a big part of cultivating an active community, if that is your goal. For me, I love the interaction of conversation but I also need to refocus my blog on my potential clients and unfortunately my customers are not bloggers or those who comment publicly. I have heard that many have had success with Facebook commenting – fewer comments but real live, engaged people. I have been toying with that idea as well. Thank you again Mack for sharing your challenges out loud, you are helping more people than you can imagine.
I know Karen, there’s only so much time and we independents and small business owners want a vibrant blog to help us get more business, but often we can’t devote as much time as we’d like to it, because we are WORKING on business for clients. It’s like the cobbler’s children having no shoes 😉
We can’t assume that “if we build it, they will come.” We need ways to market our blog, and Twitter is a good way to do so.
The best way, in my opinion, is still email marketing, which is why building a mailing list is so critical. So what if I see a bump after I send out an email? That’s what I want to happen.
If we are deliberate about our strategy, then we’re in fact doing it right.
(And I saw today’s post because of Twitter.)
Thanks Wade, you are right, the idea that ‘if you build it, they will come’ was one of the blogging mistakes we talked about last night at #blogchat.
I think that the perfect storm would be for the blog to attrack people with SEO, while the tweets attracted them through retweets and folks felt the need to share it all on facebook. 😀
But, until that day I will try to write posts that provide benefit to readers and get attention with at least some SEO. I will tweet and retweet things that amuse, entertain or inform, and I will try to update facebook with a balance of friends, families and work.
No problem.
Funny…after I finished read this post, I was just going to retweet it. Then it sank in that I was about to do the exact thing you were writing about. So here I am commenting. Thanks for the great reminder that we need to take the time to interact with people beyond those short 140 character tweets.
Thank you Jennifer! But I wasn’t trying to ‘guilt’ you into commenting, more I was thinking that *I* need to give you more of a reason to WANT to comment here more often.
Off to read your blog 😉
No guilt involved. I just realized I am not investing the time I should or want to spend actually interacting. It has become more read and retweet. Rinse and repeat. There is less benefit to myself or others if I am not taking the time to have those great conversations! So thank you again. 🙂
p.s. I love reading your blog and will make an effort, at least once and a while to have a conversation!
Thank you Jennifer, you can always email me if you don’t want to comment (that goes for everyone here ;)) – [email protected]
Hi there Mack,
I think bloggers have become lazy, full-stop. The tools – whether they be Twitter, Livefyre, Google+ or whatever – are just part of the “malaise”. If you spend more time on another platform than you do your blog, it makes sense you’re going to get more interaction there.
If your blog is going to be your main homebase, and everything else built around that, you need to treat it as such. Much like your house will become a mess if you don’t vacuum or dust it, and folks will stop coming over, your blog will become a mess if you’d rather hang out at other bars all day and have fun with people there, as opposed to welcoming friends over to your house.
I’d disagree with you on Livefyre – for me, it’s the best comment system bar none, and truly encourages interaction, social connections (via the @ option to bring friends in from Facebook and Twitter). It also has its own version of CommentLuv which, while only open to Livefyre users at the minute, is a great addition.
Often I wonder if the blogger’s made a big enough effort to explain how Livefyre can really work to their readers, when first installing it. Most people who mention issues with Livefyre haven’t written a framing post, when I’ve checked through their archives.
Just a thought.
Hey Danny, good thoughts as always. Not going to argue with you on Livefyre, if it works for you, more power to you. I know a lot of bloggers swear by it, and I’ll say again, the support give by Jenna and the team has been absolutely exceptional. But at the end of the day I think the tools can’t build the community, the blogger has to do that, and that was a lesson I’d forgotten for a bit.
Oh for sure, mate. Just that some folks never look inward at why their community isn’t responding, and quickly blame the tools around them. Maybe they should look in the mirror a little harder… 😉
(PS – Not saying that about you, by the way, just some posts I’ve read lately elsewhere).
Agree completely, and that was actually why I wrote this post, in part. As a reminder to ME that the tools can’t build the community here, *I* have to do that.
Ideally, the tools can make the process a bit smoother, but we have to lay the groundwork ourselves. Thanks for the reminder!
Astute post, and I am so utterly guilty of this, both as a blogger and as a blog reader. It’s just too dang easy to hit the tweet/re-tweet button and call it good. But in my experience, it’s the commentary and back-and-forth that mark a great post.
Thanks for the needed kick in the butt, Mack!
Thank you Laura, yes the comments, at least here, are usually better than the posts. That’s why I really look at this blog as co-created content between myself and y’all. I just need to do a better job of giving you smart people a reason to comment 😉
Mack…I think you have articulated something that I think many people are feeling. To be honest, I was thinking about something similar to this over the weekend. I am finding myself using Twitter as a way to scan through blog posts I want to read…then proceed to the blog to read the information. I know I have a column in TweetDeck just for my favorites that I like to read, and when someone tweets their newest post, I will decide to read based on the headline. To your point, I do not think this is a good way on my part to engage in the community aspect of blogging…engaging in a community where the blog is the technology that connects people to ideas and thoughts. Twitter is making me a bit lazy, using this services to scan topics and articles, then deciding what to read. Instead, I should be going to my favorite blogs, reading and commenting. I think many of us have fallen into this rut of writing, posting on Twitter, and moving on. This is causing us to scan Twitter for new information just as fast as we post our blog posts…which is not about community. I think we have to do what you are doing and remember that a blog is a place to connect people more than it is a place to market our ideas. Thanks for sharing. ~BR
Bobby I started thinking about this over the weekend, so many of us use Twitter to promote our blog and blog posts, but if Twitter was down for a day or two, what would happen to traffic on your blog? If you have an engaged community, it wouldn’t really suffer, but if you are using your Twitter community to drive traffic back to your blog, then the traffic will disappear if Twitter does.
Something to think about…
I one hundred percent agree…COMPLETELY. It has almost become a crutch, this AP News feed that we depend on. I am the first to admit that I should spend SO MUCH MORE time cultivating those who read my blog. I am noticing certain IP Addresses and I have not taken the time to really reach out and give a reason for people to have a conversation right on my blog. It is the one place I pour so much of my heart, soul, and creative juices. I preach these things we are talking about yet sometimes I do not practice very well. It is almost like it is time to get back to the basics and ask ourselves, including myself, why do we really blog. Why do we use this outlet? If we are truly truly trying to connect using this medium…then we should find better ways to really learn who are readers are…BTW, I am preaching to myself.
Bobby that is a GREAT point about getting posts from Twitter. Think about it; How did we find out what to read before Twitter? Most of us literally went out and SEARCHED for interesting stuff to read on blogs. And I think that led to us commenting more on blogs, because we were already there.
So it’s a trade off, sites like Twitter or even AllTop do a much better job of aggregating content for us, but in a way they also distance us from the content, and I think it hurts participation and interaction.
In my situation, I write about local history and genealogy, and feel I have a limited amount of readers. When I post a new blog, I will “promote” it on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. Personally, I feel I NEED social media as a tool to gain readers – or should I say keep the readers I have. I’m not writing about technology or business, so in my opinion, my potential readers are limited. I have yet to find a means to promote my blog WITHOUT social media, and if I do find another way to do so, would still use the tools currently used.
I’m sure there are people who would be interested in my blog, it’s finding them that is my problem.
Blake I’m curious, since your topic is LOCAL history and genealogy, have you ever thought about organizing some local meetups/tweetups? I would think that would be a great community-building tool for you, and since you are blogging about LOCAL history, seems like you could do local tweetups and still bring together your readers and those interested in your content. Maybe you could talk to a local library about hosting a tweetup after hours?
Mack, that’s an area I need to improve. I’m fine when it comes to 1-on-1 situations, but I’ve never been comfortable being the center of attention in a group (meetup/tweetups). There are actually several historical societies in my area that pertain to various locations in the county. I’ve considered opening up the lines of communications with them about my blog, and learning of potential topics they would like to see addressed.
There are times when my blog gets mentioned on the blogs of area newspaper personalities, which helps me get publicity. I also mention other area bloggers when it fits into the topic I’m writing about. Last week, a blog post I wrote was mentioned on a MAJOR online genealogy newsletter. Their website gets 40-60,000 unique visitors monthly. In 2 or 3 days, I received 1,000 hits to my blog from their reference, which is a HUGE increase in my normal traffic. Let’s hope I’m able to retain some of those readers.
Blake I completely understand when it comes to not wanting to be the center of attention, I am the same way. And congrats on the recent mentions in the newsletter, I know you were excited about that.
What a great helpful conversation! Blake, have you tried pitching a guest post to one of the local publications? I use this all the time for my PR clients, readers not only get the link but get to hear your voice and get to know you. It’s a great way to build credibility and readership. Thanks Mack for reinvigorating us all!
I might have to comment twice tonight. I don’t even know how I stopped by here tonight. But right now I just want to tell Blake that he has a wonderful niche with his blog and he might be surprised how many people would like to know more about York, PA. When people research their family history they end up searching in a lot of places. Ancestry.com is of course pretty helpful, but if anything was misspelled along the way…from the ship’s manifest, to the census taker’s handwriting you can be looking till the end of time. Just about a month ago I published a post in honor of my husband’s grandfather. http://judysoped.blogspot.com/2011/09/jacob-meisler-september-22-1891-march.html from this post I have met some interesting people.
Think about interviewing some of the older residents. Also, create a label that says “York County PA”. Always use it…do you know how many York Counties there are in the US? Maine, Virginia, South Carolina…PA just to name a few.
You get the idea. I love your blog. I’ll stop by and read more.
Judy
Karen and Judy I have to echo your thoughts, I think Blake has a very niche topic, but one that would be fabulously interesting to locals. I think Blake is in a different situation where his readership could be very local for the most part, but I think it would be a great way to leverage those connections into offline meetings and to connect with people that share your interest in your local history. Perhaps even establish a local preservation/history society?
Judy and Mack, don’t ask me why I didn’t add your replies to the one I wrote to Karen. I’ll use the excuse I just woke up and I’m still groggy. Anyway…
In York County, we have one large historical society, and at least 10 smaller societies for various municipalities. I actually have a draft I’m working on in which I’m briefly detailing each to give them some much needed exposure. In the future I would like to highlight each with their own posting, where I can go into more detail. My theory is show them some kindness, and perhaps have the kindness returned.
I’m constantly asking myself the same questions over and over again. Am I doing enough to get exposure for my blog? Am I using adequate labels? Am I promoting it enough on the social networking sites I use? How can I get my readers to share the postings I write with others?
Mack will be proud to know I am to speak at a meeting of the local Daughter’s of the American Revolution chapter. I’m nervous but know it will open more doors for me.
Thank you all for the very kind words. It’s greatly appreciated.
Blake congrats on the speaking! I think you may find that you enjoy it a lot more than you think you do. When I started speaking at social media events, I was absolutely petrified, but I knew it was something I needed to do in order to get my name out there.
But over time, I fell in love with speaking. Some speakers love speaking because they love having the audience’s attention. It’s really like an ego-stroke for them. Obviously, I don’t care about that, but what I found in speaking is that I LOVE when I am speaking to an audience, and I see them get that ‘A-Ha!’ look. When they grasp my ideas, and understand why they are important.
THAT is so rewarding and it really is a gift, so I think you may see the same thing happen when you start speaking, Blake. When you start to spark the interest of others in local history, I think you’ll be hooked 😉
Good luck!
Karen, I’ve never “officially” attempted to write a guest post on one of the newspaper blogs, but…
I was recently contacted by someone who asked me to research something for them. The person informed me they previously wrote to one of the newspaper bloggers who never replied to their request. I know this blogger, and understand she has quite a backlog, so I gladly did some research (with her blessing), posted my findings to my blog, and had it mentioned on her blog as well. In the end, I added a post to my blog, helped clear the newspaper blogger’s backlog, but more importantly, helped a reader find the answer she was seeking.
I’m glad you are using CommentLuv; LiveFyre was the one thing I didn’t like about your blog. I rarely use Twitter by the way and I’ve been interacting here without seeing your tweets.
Thank you very much, Mary! I think Comment Luv is really a great way to not only reward commenters with an extra link, but I think it’s a great discovery tool to help us find new blogs to read!
Hi Mack,
Me again. Thank you for this post. Also, thankful to understand more about Livefyre. Are you saying that it won’t link to your last post, unless you are using Livefyre on your blog? I don’t even know if that question made sense, but I do know I have been frustrated by it.
Here’s the thing…I don’t make a living from my personal blog. My business blog I post occasionally…but I have enjoyed meeting others via their comments, by links they would insert or with commentLUV. Anymore, it seems like Disqus and livefyre are not very friendly with links and you must sign-up (get a profile) or else…you are just talking to yourself.
Oh, well…I have projects to work on and soon I will be meeting you in person.
Welcome back…
Judy
Hi Judy! Comment Luv is a plugin for WordPress, and currently Live Fyre does not support it. Jenna has told me they are working on getting support for it up soon, though. I always liked that when you left a comment on a blog where Comment Luv was enabled, that you get two links to your blog: One with your name, and another with a link to your last post at the end of the comment thanks to Comment Luv. But with LiveFyre, you don’t get either of those links, which always ‘upset’ me about using it.
If LiveFyre changes its system to allow those links, I may go back to using it. Thanks for the feedback Judy, see you soon!
Hey Mack!
Im not sure if its made us lazy bloggers, but it has made us lazier community members. As you stated, its much easier to hit the retweet button to put your ‘stamp of approval’ on something and share it with your following. Quite another to take a few minutes out of your day to focus on a post and leave a comment.
I guess I am guilty of being part of your Twitter community as well and hope to spend some more time with you here on your blog. Your endeavor to focus some time and energy on other blogging sites is spot-on. I make it my goal to leave at least one comment on another site every day. If I do more, then that’s great but the 1 number I can live with right now with everything else I have going on.
Looking forward to seeing how it goes! Please give us an update post in a few months!
Christina I just love it when you comment here 😉 The sad thing is, I think I left more comments on other blogs yesterday, than I did in the previous month, and I only left a handful of comments. It’s so easy to forget to do this, but I think it really does make an impact with bloggers. I think we all need to remember how to be involved in a community in a way that resonates with that community, versus how it benefits us.
I’ve rationalized my cut back on leaving comments on blogs too. The comments on my blogs have taken a dip too. It’s hard to balance everything, but I have to make a better effort to reach out to other bloggers. I expect people to comment on my blogs, but if I don’t take the time to learn from other bloggers and interact with them then I’m not building good blogging Karma.
This is a very interesting point that I have yet to really think about. But I have noticed a drastic cut in comments on my blogs now vs 2 years ago. I think I’ll start commenting more on the actual post as well and see what happens. Viva la blog!?
I call link bait!
All kidding aside, if we want comments and community secant just work the creator side. Community is about building together.
I just started a blog less than a month ago, so it’s interesting to hear all these thoughts about blogs and other social media. Right now I have been focused entirely on getting content out every day, and not yet even improving various design and navigation aspects of my site yet (on my to-do list), but I do notice that very few people subscribe to my blog or comment on it. But I get hits from posting links to my blog posts in various places. I am curious to see whether as I tighten up organization and content, there will be more sharing on my blog.
Franklin I think you will find that a lot of sharing with social media, especially with blogging, is reciprocal. Meaning, if you start reading and commenting on my blog, I am more likely to start reading and commenting on your blog. But this is good, because if you know there are certain bloggers that you want to start reading and commenting on your blog, if you start reading and commenting on their blog, it encourages them to do the same.
In general, the more social you are, the more social people will be with you 😉
Mack, you are absolutely right! I got that advice from various sources and have been applying it, by commenting on blog posts every day when I have something to say, even if basically just “thanks, I am going to use that idea”. I wrote up a one month retrospective about things I’ve learned and applied and still to do: http://franklinchen.com/blog/2011/10/21/one-month-anniversary-of-my-blog/
Mack,
Just wondering, why does it have to be one or the other? I Tweet each post I comment on. I’ve always figured that, if I find a post important enough to comment on, shouldn’t I also share it with my friends and students on Twitter?
Kenna that’s actually a good strategy, and one I should be doing more of. My ‘problem’ is that I look for as many posts as possible that I think are valuable enough to share/tweet to my followers, but I don’t often comment. I should do both more often, as you suggest.
I remember when you wrote that post about your twitter follower and the essence was not about the numbers (although many people thought it was) but about the quality of your content. You made a great point then.
I can reiterate that we tend to focus on one or 2 social platforms because that may be what is humanly possible without ending up not being authentic. Unless someone is paid to be on all platforms and doesn’t work elsewhere, it is very difficult to dedicate time to all communities.
Karima thank you for remembering that post 😉 I agree, as I told someone on Twitter today, we can’t plant seeds in every garden. I think this also goes back to deciding which platform is most important for us. We can be active in multiple places, but there still needs to be a way we can prioritize the importance of each, which also helps us prioritize our time with each.
Thanks for always making me think 😉
Hi Mack,
I bookmarked this post earlier this week so that I could go back in and leave a comment. (In my defense, at least a little, I was in bed sick much of the week…).
I’m glad you’ve backed off LiveFrye, because it often seems to be less about community and more about making your own comments “social.”
More importantly, however, I wanted to comment on your broader question, which is an interesting one for us all to ponder. I really don’t think those of us who care about community (versus counting comments) all lazy or becoming so. I think we’re just increasingly fragmented, distracted by the need to at least make sure we’re being social AND promoting other people’s work on Twitter, Google+, etc., so that we’re not just promoting ourselves.
In my case, I agree that I probably comment less than I once did. But I think it’s more a factor of HOW I read blogs today. Having more and more stuff in my Google Reader, I tend to skim through blog posts when I have a few minutes (or need a mini-break) — and then “mark unread” the stuff I want to go back in and comment on later. Often (as with this post), there are then so many comments that I don’t always feel there’s something really noteworthy for me to say. I don’t mean that I devalue my ideas — just that not every idea I have is so original that it needs to be comment #47. And just saying “great post” or “I agree with what John Doe said” seems a total waste of everyone’s time.
Not sure I’m going to catch Blogchat tonight, but this is definitely a conversation we all need to pursue.
Hi Daria, sorry you were sick, hope you’re feeling better now.
Maybe asking if we are ‘lazy’ is accurate, but maybe it’s more about understanding when we are building exposure for our content, and when we are building engagement and interaction. And with tonight’s #Blogchat topic, I think a lot of us think if we have X number of comments, that the post was a ‘success’, but maybe we shouldn’t be looking for X number of comments, but simply asking if there was a conversation happening in the comments or not.
If we made cultivating a conversation be the top goal over getting X number of comments per post, it might change how we approach that content and our reader’s contributions. And could affect our ability to create a sense of community with our blog’s readers.
Something to think about!
Hi Mack,
I’m most definitely not even close to a social media expert – my professional love and passion is in physical therapy.
I know, I’m really, really late in responding, please forgive me. I am a huge fan of RSS feeds and highly depend on my Google Reader. Everything is categorized so I can hone in on blogs or journals based on my time for that category. Since I am so late in responding, you can obviously see my “social media” category isn’t a huge priority.
For me, taking the time to comment depends on my relationship with the blogger, the time I currently have available or the blog topic/content and how enticed I feel to comment. My goal a lot of the time is to actually share information and through that sharing have an opportunity to engage in a short conversation. So… although you may not notice tons of comments when you blog on a particular topic, my behavior patterns are more in line with sharing via Twitter, Facebook & Google+. There are also times that I will email or even text message something to someone personally. If I’m on a mobile device, I’m highly unlikely to comment anything. With more and more people using mobile devices, it’s probably a bit more unusual for thoughtful comments to occur.
In my mind, you really can’t easily or immediately measure the value of a blog post. Comments allow your potential customers to become familiar with you. What’s more important is the impact the written word had on your readers – something completely immeasurable.
I guess we’re just increasingly fragmented, distracted by the need to at least make sure we’re being social AND promoting other people’s work on Twitter, search engine+, etc., so that we’re not just promoting ourselves.