Comments on: Building Faithful Readership

By: Cara Hurley

Cara Hurley — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:26:45 +0000

Great tip.

By: Recommended reading for December 12 - Blogging Expertise - blog design, installation, and consulting

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 13:23:26 +0000

[...] Building Faithful Readership – respond to commenters [...]

By: Lindalee

Lindalee — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:15:35 +0000

Great tip. I don’t have that many commenters, so it will be easy for me to drop them an e-mail. I’m just so happy when someone leaves a comment; I’ll try not to gush when I write… :)

By: Thomas Holmes

Thomas Holmes — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 15:18:14 +0000

Nice tip Shawn! Just got to lure someone in to comment first!

By: Shawn Blanc

Shawn Blanc — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:49:47 +0000

@ jhay – That’s exactly the circle of people that it has helped keep faithful: those without blogs of thier own.

A plugin would be great.

I have to spotlight thier name through my email folder with all the comment emails I’ve gotten from wordpress to make sure it’s not someone that already commented a while ago and has been lurking for 3 months. The plugin would also need a delayed response. If they get an e-mail 10 seconds after commenting they’re going to know something fishy and impersonal is going on.

By: jhay

jhay — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 12:54:25 +0000

Great tip. This works best if the commenter was just a pure visitor not having his/her own site or blog. I’ve had an experience where my non-blogging friends were a bit reluctant to visit my site because they thought blogs are just for bloggers.

By: pcunix

pcunix — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 11:22:31 +0000

There’s also the issue that you are requiring them to provide an email address.. yes, most comment systems do require that, and I suppose most of us are used to it, but I took that requirement off my comment system and increased commenting activity.

People don’t like to “register”, don’t like sharing personal info..

By: Jack Humphrey

Jack Humphrey — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 11:18:23 +0000

Seems like a plugin would be in order. Why do that by hand? It is a GREAT idea, but the same thing can be said for every single commentor without having to email them manually.

If someone created a plugin to respond automatically to all commentors you could implement this strategy no sweat.

Let me know when it’s done! lol

By: Encouraging Your First Time Commenters - JohnTP.com

Encouraging Your First Time Commenters - JohnTP.com — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 08:35:46 +0000

[...] Shawn Blanc from Fighting to Stay Awake had got his ‘quick tip’ submitted on Problogger.net today. It’s a simple tip that I used to do in my first few months of blogging – When someone comments on your site for the first time, send them a thank-you email [...]

By: JohnTP

JohnTP — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 04:54:31 +0000

I used to do this in my first few months of blogging but then it gets harder when the number of commenters on your blog increases.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 04:34:47 +0000

I’ve used this idea very successfully on my three blogs. I believe it helps to build a loyal readership.

By: Caydel

Caydel — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 03:16:34 +0000

That’s actually a very good tip – the more you make your readers feel appreciated, the more they will appreciate you (and your site).

By: brem

brem — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 03:15:32 +0000

Nice tip. Although you don’t want to sound too desperate for commenters.
I think this is probably more effective than replying to commenters. I’ll try to implement it. Thanks.