The People Connection
The living web is built on relationships that grow through conversation. A certain magic happens when blog comments turn into conversation. When a blogging conversation happens, ideas, thoughts, and information gets passed from person to person. In the process, we find a human connection.
The Four Keys to Reader Comments and Conversation
These won’t surprise or stun you. You already know them. They’re what we all do when we talk to any person we value.
- Come down from the podium. Talk to me like a person who can listen. Let me be as smart as you are, even when I don’t know what you do.
- Leave what you say a little unfinished. Then I can add a word in. When a talking person fills in every idea and detail before anyone else talks, that’s called a speech. The response becomes applause or that awful noise.
- Blog your experience. I’ll respond to what you tell me. I don’t have to agree with you for what you say to resonate.
- Hold up your end of the bargain. Respond to my comments as you would my conversation. It’s only polite.
They say “no blog is an island.” But a blog can be one, and blogging is not the same in isolation. The ideas, thoughts, and information that we share in blogging conversation make us stronger and expand us, as people, not just as bloggers.
Therein lies the magic — we meet and make each other better.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you make a plan to meet your goals, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.
Related
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Hi Liz! Another thoughtful post, as usual. I’m afraid I’m guilty of often not leaving enough room for someone to jump in and comment. I’ll have to keep this in mind.
Perhaps one of these days, I’ll be able to catch up on the Open Mic Night again! 😉
Hi Monique!
How wonderful to see you this morning!
I learned that one by doing it wrong. Actually I learned all of them that way I think 🙂
Sure hope you make another OpenMic Night. I’ve been thinking up challenges for you. 🙂
I’ve started to unsubscribe to blogs where the writer never responds to comments. I can understand it if you’re getting hundreds a day but, in these cases, they’re getting 5-10 a day. There’s no excuse not to respond, as far as I’m concerned.
Hi Mike,
You’re not the first person to tell me that.
One friend of mine wrote a blog post about such an experience. My friend had asked a question and sent someone over to answer a question asked at the end of a post. When neither went answered. My blogger friend checked back several months and found no response to any comment. At that point, that blog lost one subscriber who felt that the subscription drop would go unnoticed just as the comments did. 🙂
Hi Liz, I’m with Monique, I think leaving enough space is the biggest challenge. I try and ask questions as prompts and encouragement – but that’s not the same as leaving space. If I think of a ‘real’ conversation I’m less likely to respond to a direct question than a gentle, open invitation to join in. Need to practice working this into my writing style 🙂
Joanna
Hi Joanna.
ITo me, leaving things a bit unfinished is the toughest challenge because it’s counter to everything we’ve learned about writing well.
It helps to think that when we publish for print that is the end, but when we publish a blog that is when things start. The blog post is like a well-done final draft ready for an audience to offer additions. 🙂
and sometimes critique and revisions. 🙂
Just to add to the conversation this blurry morning (my head) leaving someone the opportunity to finish the thought in my replies is something I really have to work on. I don’t have a huge amount of traffic but I definitely need to work on leaving an invite for future comments in my replies. Funny how after a year and a half I’m still getting a handle on things. I’m sure a lot of it is due to only being able to devote an hour or so a day to blogging (weekdays) and only about 3 hours a day during the weekend…maybe. It can be frustrating especially when I love doing it so much.
Hi Kirk,
I’ve found that some of the leaving room for people to talk really is not trying to hard to finishing things up. I used to explain a thought, trying to get it totally complete — over editing, going back to make sure every detail was there, checking and rechecking, trying too hard, trying to make sure that I didn’t leave anything out — that was a lot of work! The thing I was leaving out was my readers’ chance to talk.
A sign of that is too many “great post” comments that say nothing else.
Sometimes getting every detail in is important and necessary . . . a how-to without them would be, well, insufficient and bad advice at the least.
Now I find, though, that to cover my own point of view well and to acknowledge what I know of other points of view is a better plan and far stronger than trying to show every detail of all of them.
Hopefully. this is making sense. 🙂
Good morning all
If you blog for conversations you must make that clear to your readers/guests/contributors IMHO, even when you have a busy day-job. If you invite comments, you have responsibilities too.
So what about having a conversational blog and a busy day job at the same time?
I have a few ‘practical’ ideas about this, like having an auto-reply on your email that sends a courtesy email back to any commenter, simply letting him/her know that the comment is very appreciated and the ‘blog-host’ will reply asap.
Not everyone lives in our pc’s like Liz does 😉
Karin H. (keep It simple Sweetheart, specially in business)
Hi Karin!
Keith Dsouza has a wonderful plug-in that he’s made just for that. Thank you for reminding me. You just talked me into featuring it tomorrow. 🙂
Yea!!
Hi Liz,
Just found your blog via MyBlogLog and it looks you have some wonderful information here!
One of the things that I thought was really cool when I started reading people’s blogs and leaving comments, is that most of those people actually responded to me?!?! I guess had the impression that they would be way too busy to talk to little ol’ me. It was like I had a personal relationship with them right away, and I really liked that.
So now I’m trying to build my blog readership, and one of the things I’m making an effort to do is to at least respond somehow. Even if it’s as simple as thanking someone for their comment and letting them know that I do care enough about what they have to say, to at least respond. I think that’s really important and you’re post just reinforces that.
Great topic and I look forward reading more of your posts. I’ll subscribe now!
Chris
Hi Chris!
Welcome and thank you for coming!
Answering comments is one of my most favorite things to do and one of my biggest worries is that one day I won’t have time to spend doing it the way that I want to.
It’s the people that’s what blogging is all about.
You’re not a stranger anymore. 🙂
Hi Liz,
I think we are having experiencing a thought parallelism here 🙂 (Wonder if that is even comprehensible English?)
I post about why blogging should be about community on Monday and you post about conversations on Wednesday. We even used the same analogy although to a different extent.
Perhaps is it me reading your blog for quite a while or perhaps we are coming from the same place or going in the same direction?
Who knows, but as I write at the end my post is it all about the journey and may it be a long and enjoyable one!
Perhaps a small challenge at the end: What is the difference between seeing blogging as being about conversation and seeing blogging as being about community and why does it matter?
(I allow myself to link to my blog post from Monday with my name and would welcome your comments)
Hi Jan,
I think that as we share conversation and thoughts we, like-minded people, often come to similar conclusions. We might get there with different words and from different directions. Our answers might carry sligtly different flavors.
In there is my difference between conversation and community.
I think there is a lot more to it than that, but then again I am being such a nitpick when it comes to words even if my English is full of errors. I haven’t gotten to why I am nitpicking yet on my blog, but I eventually will 🙂
Since it is late here and I am tired did I forget to change the link to point to the post, but since it was the latest that I wrote you should have trouble finding it should you be interested.
Have NO trouble finding it I meant… Sorry, about turning into a one man conversation 🙂
I finally realized that I could actually just update the link on this post and be done…
Talk to you soon, now off to ZZZZZZ…
Hi Jan,
No problem. I understand what you’re saying. Sleep well I’ll be over when I can. 🙂
Hi Liz,
Sorry for the late comment. Just getting back on my feet and sometimes just have to take a breather.
Your reply makes lots of sense and is just about what I was beginning to realize. I’ve spent my whole professional life having to include all the details and making sure all info was there and correct. I never imagined that “easing up” would be so difficult. I’ve always been a good listener, I just need to work on the replying aspect. I can see where my experience can be a benefit in the long run, it’s just learning how to use it that’s going to take some time. 🙂
Hi Kirk,
It’s like when you meet someone for the first time. It’s not a good idea to tell everything about you. As a friend once explained folks like a little mystery to unconver, something to discover.
Holding back from laying out every detail keeps me from feeling like I’m being a “know-it-all,” and also lets me feel like I might not have to be the only one in the room who knows something on the subject.
What I’ve found is that what people bring to the tiny holes that I leave is a wealth of information that I didn’t know and would never have heard if I hadn’t left that little space empty. 🙂
I am definitely guilty of filling in ALL the gaps!! Those are great points Liz..now I just need to put it into practice. I do try to ask questions, but maybe I am giving too much info to start with, and there’s not that much left to say for my readers!
This is food for thought! Thanks!! 🙂
Hi Melanie!
Welcome and sorry you had to wait in moderation. 🙂
As I’ve said earlier, I learned all of these by doing them wrong — especially this one. Publishing for print taught me to make sure every detail was considered and weighed into the article so that the picture was complete. But print ends when the piece is published.
The goals are different. 🙂
I’m giving all of my secrets away. 🙂
You’re not a stranger anymore.
I try to be just ‘over the line’ enough to stimulate without irritating … although a well-placed irritant is sometimes a reasonable gambit — that’s where pearls come from.
I want to stimulate conversation and am beginning to get some responses from my readers. More, of course, is better.
For a long time I had NO commenters. Now, they are starting to trickle in so I have to change gears and check my comments more often (I moderate first posts) to keep the ‘comment luv’ flowing. I also use ‘do-follow’ so that my commenters are properly ‘paid’ for their efforts.
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