Here’s a question for the blogosphere.
Why do some bloggers ignore those who comment on their blogs ?
Can it be sheer ignorance ?
Well, if it is, here’s a message to those of you who do it – STOP IGNORING YOUR CUSTOMERS !
I spend my day finding customers who are being ignored or taken for granted. They are very easy to switch over to my company’s services.
Your readers ( customers ) are easily led away from your services, also. They will not stick around and be made to feel unmwanted.
There are about a gazillion blogs out there and there’s more coming every day, so if you want to post for the sake of your mommy and your ugly sister reading, go ahead, but there won’t be any other readers for you to run off.
Can it be that they don’t want to get involved ?
If that’s the reason, why didn’t you write a book instead of a blog ?
Here in the blogosphere, we talk back to you and expect you to respond to us.
If your post invokes a response, somebody out there will let you know how they feel. If you don’t like it, don’t post anything worth reading and we’ll go away.
Can it be that they don’t read their posts and see that they have comments ?
Gimme a break ! Most of the bloggers out there are their own best customer. They click over to their blog about 6 times per hour and they call their mommies and tell them that they wrote another post.
Why do they ignore commenters ?
I don’t really know the answer, so why don’t you tell me what you think the reasons are.
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I run a reasonable succesfull danish blog and I ignore people if they don’t contribute to the original post at all. I mean… all comments are more that welcome but it would be a little much if the blog author should comment on all comments – even the short funny stuff, that would be just noise. I comment the comments if I have anything to say to that person.
Morten,
Thanks for stopping by !
I can appreciate your point. I was more befuzzled by those who never respond to comments on any post they do.
I call them serial ignorers.
Come by again and I appreciate your time and effort.
I tend to see the behaviour you describe on the big blogs by blog ‘celebrities’. They post only once a week (if you’re lucky) and they hardly respond to comments. Not all of them but there are quite some that fit this description. It makes you wonder what it is that gets them to draw 20k or more unique visitors every day. It’s surely not their posting frequency and it’s not their interaction through the comments either. It makes one feel like ‘why am I bothering with my sad little blog with 300-500 uniques per day’…
(not that I plan to give up though
)
Apparently there’s no need for them to comment. They can just drop by every once in a while and read the 100+ comments every post they make will generate (even if it’s a 10 line post).
Marco,
I wish I knew how they get all that traffic.
I have a small financial blog, and I judge how many comments I recieve as the number of readers I have. Even though I have only a few comments, I actually get discouraged to write about my financial journey if I know that I’m not going to get any positive comments back about posts. I try to pose questions at the end of every post, too. Perhaps it’s because I have just started or perhaps it’s because my blog truly is nothing special, but maybe I’m just asking the wrong questions?
Russell,
I checked out your site and will email you some thoughts.
You’re on the road to success, it just happens to be curvy
Thanks for coming by,
I just started my blog and it wasn’t until I started commenting on other blogs of related topics that I’m slowly bringing people to mine. I do try to reply to the comments as quickly as I can.
I realize that because my topic is delicate I need to be careful of what I respond and that will take a little bit of my time. I’m looking forward to answer many questions but I realize that with time it could get overwhelming. I’ll do my very best to maintain and attract others to my blog in the near future.
What you say is true, there are many out there that don’t respond to their blog’s comments and still they drive a lot of people to them. I guess they create new blog entries answering some of the questions and comments instead and in that way they answer everyone at once. It might be a good idea.
Clary,
If and when the number of comments get to be too much, answering them enmass with another post is okay.
For now, maybe a hands-on personal touch will be all you need.
I prefer the personal touch and with a subject matter as delicate as yours, it will be very much needed.
Good luck and thanks for stopping by.
Hi, first time poster to your blog.
I’ll admit if I miss responding to a comment, I am likely being hammered with my work. Commenting tends to get shuffled down my priority list when things get hairy…
Hey Brad – Using a WordPress blog enables me to see comments in chronological order and I can see whether or not I’ve responded.
Personally, not responding would be the same as not returning a call from a customer.
Even on a post that’s 9 months old and with a first time poster, upon checking comments I find this one and say:
Thanks for coming by and for taking time to comment.
Funny you say that. We are starting a convert over to Wordpress next week! Hope it does make things better like everyone says.
It does, it will, it rawks !
I always email a thank-you note to commenters and I find that’s appreciated.
There have been lots of blogs I’ve commented on several times where I’ve never received one response. Personally, I think that’s rude but then again, to each his own. I also have no idea how they get such a loyal following but hey, no-one said life was fair, right?
Organising Queen blog and
Take Charge blog
Thanks for the comment Marcia.
We appreciate you taking time to add to the conversation.
Come back soon.
Our site gets over 1000 comments a day, I can’t respond to all of them… i’d love to though, passively I allow folks to reply to and interact with comments by way of voting.
EN
Thanks for the info Eric. Good to hear from someone who sees it from a different perspective.