Social media is about interaction.
So what does it mean if your post or blog does not get any comments?
I ask because there is still a news paper or broad cast angle to blogs. People read and take the information but do not leave a tip or thank you.
Can the success of a blog be judged by the number of comments or not?
That’s a good question. I work on the Transportation Security Administration blog (www.tsa.gov/blog) and we get lots of comments – about 50-100 per post. I don’t think that alone is a sign of a successful blog. We get about 3,000 views of each post, which I think is a good way to measure success – it shows people are reading our blog. Often, bloggers don’t post a comment on our blog, they write abour our blog or the topic we’re talking about on a given day on THEIR blog. That’s great, but doesn’t help if you’re measuring success based on comments.
Our commenters include random people that are incited to comment based on a specific post, but we also have about five dedicated blog commenters that enjoy criticizing us on a full-time basis. We’re on a first name basis with them. 🙂 They’re not participating on the blog to be educated or contribute anything constructive – they just enjoy knocking us. On the positive side, we also have a group of our transportation security officers from around the country that comment and provide advice, which is great. Our overall goal is to provide two-way communication on the blog that can’t be done at the checkpoint.
I would say that a blog should regularly ask readers for feedback or ideas on timely topics in order to generate comments. In one of our posts, we asked people to submit a question and then we did a post on the Top 10 questions asked. On the TSA blog, we also respond to comments in the Comments section, which shows we’re not just putting information out and then walking away.
Hope this helps.
It means nothing.
Case in point: On March 22, I blogged about the importance of monitoring your name which has seen 27 comments to date, whether in-thread comments or cross-posted Twitter comments via link. But my Google Analytics for that page indicates 331 unique page views.
Comments are important for interaction, but views are more important. Keep in mind that if someone adds your blog post to their delicious, magnolia, or other social bookmarking tool; or diggs or stumbles it; or emails it to a friend; or prints it for posting on the refrigerator; etc… these are all as worthy, if not more worthy than a comment.
If you’re not running analytics on your blog, that’s the first place to look. Nobody can comment if they can’t see. If they’re seeing, you can gauge what gets more views than others and determine with fair accuracy what to write next.
Also, if you ask people to add a comment, they usually will.
Lynn,
Hi. That does help. First it gives a metric of 3,000 views with 50-100 comments.
Second, as you mentioned, when HHS posted all their comments there where alot of stupid ones. Sadly that may come with the turf.
Thank you. You post helps alot. BTW, I feel better since my post did not go un-answered.
I highly recommend analytics. I don’t post blogs for comments all the time, sometime, its just to inform. So no offense is taken if no comments are left. However, as a blogger, I do respect other bloggers and if I have the time and something of value to add or a constructive comment, I will leave it. I think its nice to let them know you were there and you value their time to have written something that was valuable to your time.
I agree – some of the best blogs have very few comments. You just absorb the information. Other really bad blogs are just instigation on purpose and draw tons of comments. I like to look at lots of measures – one measure doesn’t incorporate everything.
Andrea, GovLoop,
Hi and thank you. It is good to get feed back and rule of thumb. People forward email jokes without expecting anything in return. The joke or website is of value to them so they send it off, release it back to the world, to make others smile and enjoy what they did.
It also helps level the group so eveyone has heard about “____fill in the blank____” much like broad cast news.
Andrea as a blogger if you have any other ideas or comments please post them.
Allen
Sure thing, I might just write up a post on blogging and commenting etiquette as I see it and ask for others to chime in.
Wow, talk about a quick response! 😉
Andrea, its not just for me. One guy stopped blogging because he did not get any response. When he did the eMails came in asking “What’s up, you have not posted in a while. Are you ok? Have you been sick”
I just hate to think that good infromation or talent is held back because they do not think the audiance is listening. As social creatures we like to know we are not alone.
If you’d like to probe your readers to leave a comment, I suggest something along the lines of asking people to de-lurk; you can click that link to see what I mean and the responses it received.
Ari,
HI. I like your idea about “Pay homage to your lurkers” Many are new to the web. Its good to break the ice and welcome them as well as nudge them to comment.
Thanks.