There’s a big battle going on out there. It’s for your attention. It’s for your engagement. It’s happening everywhere online. It’s happening right here, right now.
Ohhh LOOK! A video!
I’m writing this post in hopes to capture your attention. Not because I’m some sort of blog coach looking to make the blog world a better place, far from it. I build blogs, websites and facebook apps and with you reading this here, I’m hoping you’ll notice that and buy stuff from me – you get that, right?
So while there really isn’t 17 ways, the title did part of it’s job. The image I used as a “Featured Image” did it’s job, and my opening statement did it’s job (I hope).
I then distributed and broadcast this post on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus all in hopes of getting people to click on the link and read the actual post. Production and Marketing and Distribution. We get that, and we do that all the time. But did you stop there?
No matter how good you are at the other things, if you stop there, that’s where you start Sucking!
Follow Up is KEY. Heck, it might be the most important part. You are NOT #1 and YES you need to try harder. In all seriousness, and to keep this brief, here’s just a few things you should be doing so you don’t SUCK as they relate to…
Comments
IF you are going to allow comments (did you know you don’t have to?) before writing your first post, set up comment notification. This applies to you and to those that have left comments.
For you. Do the notifications go to an email address you check often? Response time is critical. Worried about Spam? Akismet does wonders. Did you setup comment moderation? Is that a manual thing? Just how long until you get around to approve someone’s comment? Do you know how someone feels when they take the time to leave a comment and you slack off approving it? I know you were busy doing whatever it is that you do for a living but you just lost a potential client. We, your audience, don’t understand why you moderated us in the first place. Comment Management Systems like Disqus can help automate that for you automatically.
For Them. # 1 At the very minimum, give them the ability to ‘subscribe to comments”. Without that, do you really expect them to find their way back every hour or so to see if anyone left a reply? Really?
# 2 Comment back and do so ASAP. Put yourself in their shoes for just a minute. They just saw the tweet or the facebook post (yay for your distribution plan). The title or the image was compelling enough to get them to click over to here (yay for your marketing plan). Once here, they read your article (yay for your writing talents). They decide to add something to the conversation and leave a comment (yay). They sign in with their Facebook Profile to avoid comment moderation (Yay for your comment management system). They leave a well thought out, well written point and even tweet their comment (another yay for your comment management system). And what happens next? Dead Air? I guess you didn’t really appreciate me after all. Lesson learned. Always comment back, and do it as soon as possible and always encourage continuation of the conversation.
BONUS:
Want to be a super awesome blogger / human being? Don’t be selfish. It’s not always about you. When they left a comment on your blog, follow them back to their blog. Subscribe to their RSS Feed. Find a post of theirs and add to the conversation. Don’t do so just to check it off your to-do list. Don’t check to see if they are “Do Follow”. Don’t leave a link back to your site in the comment. Don’t add an email signature either.
Do so in a real way, take the time to do it right, to find something that strikes a cord with you.
Phew! That was just focusing on comments.
Of course I’d like to hear what you say (as in leave a comment, eh?). And then share the post via twitter, FB or G+. Oh, and then buy something that I make.
Mike Mueller
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