Tag: blog-comments

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Blog comments from start to finish

I’ve got so much information packed into old posts that sometimes even I forget what I’ve already written about. But I was talking to one of my sisters about comments on our craft blog the other day, and I remembered that I’d posted at least a couple times about blog comments on here. Yeah, it was more than a couple. Here are some of the highlights on my posts on blog comments

Four Ways to Encourage Comments on Your Blog
Are you making it harder for people to comment on your blog? Make it easier for people to comment (and get more comments?).

Protect Your Blog with a Comment Policy
You can protect your blog from comments that are mean-spirited or reveal sensitive information so easily—and never feel guilty for deleting those comments!

Subscribe to comments to follow blog conversations
Ever leave a comment on a blog post and want to see the replies? How easy is it to forget to come back later? Don’t let that happen with this easy trick!

Handling negative comments
It happens: people disagree. How can you handle it and move on when someone disagrees on your blog?

Follow through on comments
Show your commentators some love (and maybe get more comments?) by following through on your comments.

What’s your best advice on blog comments?

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MetaBlogging

Connecting with blog readers

Over the years, we’ve talked a lot about building communities around our blogs—connecting one on one with our readers, and encouraging them to connect to one another. I went back through some of the best posts we’ve had on those topics and gathered up the best advice.

From Michelle at Scribbit:

  • Commenting on other’s posts is the best way to build community–but beyond that choosing topics is the most important.
  • Choose topics that are relevant to your readers. Put yourself in their shoes and think about what you’d want to read.
  • Paying attention to other people’s posts and then responding to them in a post of your own is a good way to promote discussion and build community.

From MommyZabs:

  • I believe that if you desire people to comment on your blog and see your comment numbers going down (over a period of time, not just one post) you need to make sure you haven’t given off signals that you don’t want others’ input. The easiest way to remedy that is to invite opinions, comments.
  1. Pay attention to the types of post content that gets people talking, make sure to commit to that type of post regularly.
  2. Write posts relevant to your readership.
  3. Talk back, respond. No one likes to talk to someone who just stares back. That is what it can feel like when you put yourself out there on a blog comment and know one acknowledges you.
  4. Post on a regular basis. This is important for 2 major reasons.
    • The more people see something the more it is on the front of their mind. If they are coming to read your blog daily because you post daily, it is less likely to creep toward the back of their mind.
    • Let’s face it, though feed readers are an excellent way to track the blogs you read, there are still those that don’t use it! If they click day after day and barely see a post, chances are they will stop coming.

From me:
I think it’s also good to let your readers know how they can connect with you. A blog community doesn’t just have to stay on one site—and neither do your friends!

Guest blogging is another way to find new readers who might like to join your blog community—people who are interested in what you’re writing about.

Finally, you can help to encourage more comments on your blog by asking questions in your posts.

And now I will: what bloggers do you think have great communities? What have you seen those bloggers do to reach out to their readers?

Photo credits: plug—Rennett Stowe; clasp—Bao Ngo

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MetaBlogging

Handling negative comments part II

Table of contents for Blog comments

Maleficent doesn’t know anything about love, or kindness, or the joy of helping others. You know, sometimes I don’t think she’s really very happy.

—Fauna, Sleeping Beauty

It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten negative comments, but last week I had a few. Some were allowed to stay. But they progressively got worse and violated the written comment policy here on MamaBlogga and some were deleted.

While we’ve discussed handling negative comments here before, I’ve seen a few good posts on this around the blogosphere lately. Last month, ProBlogger had a guest post about dealing with negative comments. The author reminds us:

A good rule of thumb is that nasty or negative comments are never about you or what you’ve written, they are always about the person who wrote them. (Even if people disagree with what you’ve said, most of them can do it in a sane & respectful fashion.)

(Hence the quotation from Sleeping Beauty above.)

She addresses both the drive-by troll (“Delete their comment & if what they’ve said is really nasty, just ban them. You don’t need the strife!”) and the long-time commenter turned nasty (to whom she sends a friendly email).

Just last week, Scribbit posted about this issue, too. She said:

Be careful how you treat readers, even the negative ones. Not just for fear of them never returning—rude ones probably never will anyway—but because it’s common courtesy and because they’re people too with thoughts and opinions that won’t always mesh with yours and darn it, that’s what makes the world so exciting. Who knows? Maybe they’re even right once in a while.

She also included a very fun flowchart for guidance on whether to delete nasty comments.

On my work blog, I delete almost nothing but spam and blatant self-promotion—and I get a lot more nasty (and dumb) comments over there. I’m slowly learning to walk away from people who simply aren’t listening to me while trying to engage in a “debate” (though this would normally be called a “monologue”).

But here on MamaBlogga, a personal, mom blog, I can delete with impunity, and I have deleted more than just spam comments. I still feel a little weird about it sometimes, though. Do you have any qualms about deleting rude, mean or simply borderline comments?

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Handling negative comments

Table of contents for Blog comments

I haven’t had to do this on here very often, but pretty regularly on my work blog, I have people comment who are . . . well . . . less than nice, we’ll say (or just wrong). While sometimes it’s pretty easy to handle comments I don’t really appreciate over there (often with more facts to back up my story), it’s a lot harder to do that in the realm of mom blogging.

If you’re posting about how cute your kids are or how you’re struggling with this behavior or how you’ve come to a self-discovery, it’s more than just annoying to have someone contradict you or treat you unkindly. It’s a bit of a personal affront—sometimes even an attack on your children or your parenting!

There are a few ways you can handle this. The best ways (the ways you would tell your children to handle this):

  1. Ignore it. If you’re really lucky, your bloggy friends will even come to your defense. Just the other day, I saw a friend of mine share a personal story and someone called her out for being unchristlike. I was the first person there after that comment was left, and I vehemently (but hopefully respectfully) disagreed. Several subsequent commenters did the same.
  2. Settle it privately. If your blogging platform allows, email the person directly. You could explain that, while you don’t particularly appreciate the way that they’ve phrased their concerns, you’d like to know if there’s something you could do better in your blogging (or parenting, if you’re really feeling generous) in the future.
  3. Use concrete facts. If the person is disagreeing with a factual assertion (instead of just your opinion), you can provide more information on the facts you’re citing, such as their sources.
  4. Point to your blog comment policy. If you’ve already written one, and this comment violates the guidelines you’ve set forth, inform the commenter privately (via email) or publicly (via the comments on that post). Take whatever action you say you will in your policy (deleting the comment, banning the commenter, etc.)

Possibly less productive:

  1. Call them out. In the very next comment you make, point out that they’ve been unkind, that that kind of behavior would be unacceptable from your children, and it’s unacceptable on your blog.

Downright counterproductive:

  1. Tit for tat. Reflect everything they’ve said back on them in your next comment or, worse yet, track down their blog and make a similar comment.

There are a few other solutions that I’m not sure what category to put them in:

  1. Play the martyr. Face it, we’re moms: we can do this with the best of them. As we should all remember from being children, guilt trips and the martyr card don’t really solve anything though.
  2. Delete it. If your comment policy says you’ll delete abusive comments, or negative comments, do it. If you don’t have a comment policy, the general bloggy community shuns deleting comments just because they disagree with you. However, on a personal blog—it’s your blog.
  3. Block that commenter. Depending on the nature of the comment, it may take only one comment to warrant blocking them, especially if it’s in your comment policy. Even if it’s not, it’s your blog, your family and you. Protect them if you feel you need to.

What do you do when you receive a negative comment? What has worked for you? What hasn’t?

More WFMW.

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You have spoken . . . about speaking

Table of contents for Blog comments

I’ve had a couple polls on here lately, and I figured you might want to see some of the results!

The first poll was about Blog Comments and You.

With more than 100 total responses, the blog comments poll was designed to help me (and now you) understand how you prefer to interact with blog comments. The most popular responses:

  • I notice and appreciate it if the blogger gets involved in the comment conversation 27% (33 votes)
  • I read blog comments from time to time 21% (26 votes)
  • If I see there are comments on a post, I’ll almost always read them 18% (22 votes)
  • I often check back on a post that I’ve commented on 15% (19 votes)
  • I get involved in a conversation with other readers in the comments 13% (16 votes)

What does this mean for me (and you)?

  • People notice if you, the blog author, respond in the comments. I need to be better about this!
  • A lot of people read comments very consistently—but a lot read them intermittently.
  • A good amount of people will check back on a post they’ve commented on to see responses.
  • Some people get involved in a conversation with other readers in the comments.

So what should you do?

The second poll, How often should a blogger post?, requires a bit less analysis: 77% voted for two to five times a week. The four-five times category was a little over half of that group. (I was asking because I was worried that I might be posting too much—or pushing myself to post more often than I needed to!)

For more insights on the polls’ responses, read the comments on each post (Blog comments and you and How often should a blogger post).

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