To tell the truth, I'm a bit confused about comments these days .. When I first started blogging, you got a comment along with an email address to which you could reply. That doesn't seem to happen now, email addresses never appear with comment even in my email inbox and so I find it very hard to reply individually and am confused as to whether it's worth going back to the comment box to reply - I never check back for replies on the blogs I read - do you?
So I am really not sure about the ettiquette these days, except for what The Coffee Lady wrote here - in particular her paragraph which reads
"If you leave a comment, and Blogger gives me your email address, I'll email you back. Blogging wisdom says this is a big no-no. Blog popularity charts and PR people look for high engagement, which means everyone chatting animatedly in the comment box. Now I love comments - who doesn't? - and as you came over to my blog to find me, it seems only polite that I come and find you in return. (If Blogger gives me no email address I respond in the comment box, but I do wonder - does anyone ever come back to check?) A lot of my favourite bloggers do it this way, and I don't actually mind if that means my blog doesn't rank quite so highly. Some of my best blog friendships have been forged in my email account."
I couldn't put it better myself - I am still in touch via email and even Facebook, with many of the people I blogged with when I started but since blogger stopped giving emails, my personal correspondence with 'new' commenters has been disrupted.
So what i'm trying to say is this .. I will try harder to reply to the comments box whether I think anyone is listening or not!
And just to prove that, here is a tutorial on how to do a mood board. It's a bit different to how I did mine - I used a combination of Mac software and Photoshop to get a quicker result - and there's a downloadable pdf to go with it!
13 comments:
I have actually wondered about this myself and I think diferent people will do diferent things. I always check back for replies when I post a comment in someone's blog. I often click the "Email followup comment to…". I often reply to my commenters on the comment box as it's easier and means that everyone else can see what's being said. But yes, you often see that way those that do not come back. I think there's definitely room for improvement for blogger developers. Maybe a similar system like twitter where a @username send a instant noticifaction to the person.
Thanks for posting the mood board tutorial. I loved yours so much and am going away now to play :)
Hmm, the tutoriallink is not working for me. Is it just me?
I have to admit, I never, ever go back to look at comment boxes. As I said to Coffee Lady, it's enough for me to read all the blogs I want to without having to remember where I've commented and go back to continue the conversation! (That said, I have been rubbish at replying to comments recently too. Must Try Harder.)
Hmm.. having difficulty with that link - here it is in full: http://manyadventuresofbran.blogspot.com/2011/09/mood-board-tutorial.html
Hi
I have doen all three, emailing replies, adding a comment reply n my own comment box and replying by commenting back on the visitors blog. It does depend on whether I can leave comments or indeed find an email. I have had problems thanking new followers for joining as well. So a do a special post every now and then to make sure that they see I appreciate it.
xx
I try and respond to the email of the person and to the blog at the same time. I use Disqus, but I think it probably works pretty much the same as Blogger comments. I use the auto-reply feature that allows you to respond by email and then just copy and paste in the email address of the person alongside. Two birds with one stone! Some people respond (if they do) via the blog, and some just by email directly to me. I like doing it that way because it's kind of annoying to have a look at comments to a post and have people asking interesting questions but there is no answer - you don't know if the blogger can't be bothered to reply or if they've done it privately. Either way, you don't know the answer! I like Suzy's idea of the @ tag.
Thank you so much for sharing my link for my moodboard tutorial. I happen to agree about this subject. I try my best to follow up through as many channels available. I however, think it would be easier to have links that email me when there are new comments, because like Suzy said, I do not always remember where I put a comment.
@Suzy - I think that sounds like a good plan - perhaps that could be USEFUL change they could make! @Wendy - the link works now.. sorry :( @Andrea and Val I have your mail addresses! @ Jacqui - I just tried Disqus and couldn't work it so erased it :( any tips? @ Brandy - it's a great tutorial - thankYOU!
Perhaps it is cultural thing. Here in Finland most bloggers reply only in comment section and very rarely via emails. Mostly due to the fact that quite many commenters are anonymous and don't even want to leave their email behind.
One reason for this might also be that especially the most popular blogs get same comments/questions over and over and over again (sometimes even hundreds of times) it is less work for the blogger to answer on the comment section when sometimes one reply is enough instead of many. And especially if the commenter is asking something, readers who come later can easily find the answer aswell, which is very handy in my opinion.
I always reply on the comment section. I only reply via email if the question was sent by email in the first place. And yes, I always go back to the blog to check if I got a reply, but unfortunately in many cases there's no reply at all, especially when it comes to blogs outside Finland. Sometimes I might forget where I have left a comment but usually I always go and check.
BTW, your comment secton doesn't work with Firefox browser for some reason. I usually use that but if I want to comment your blog I have to open it in IE.
I'm so glad you posted this - I did wonder if I was completely out of fashion with my approach to comments!
ARgh!! I hate the new blogger spam filter!! I always miss messages!
Thanks for all your comments :)
I always click "email follow-up comments to...". I get somewhat disappointed if there isn't that option. I go to so many places each day, it's impossible to keep track of everywhere I've commented and check back over the course of the next week to see if there's been a reply, so, unless I *really* want to see a reply (in which case I leave a tab open with that page), I'll not come back. The "email follow-up comments to..." button (which you have, by the way!) not only means I'll see whatever the blog owner emails to me, but also means I'll see any responses to my comment from other commenters or the blog owner on the post itself. I'd say it's the best option.
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