Motivations for commenting

90% of the people who comment on this blog have a blog.

Why is this so?

a) they understand the pain of posting
b) they understand the reciprocal relationship building nature of posting
c) ????

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

A little from column a and a little from column b...

There is no doubt that the most social media savvy online users are more likely to be bloggers and visa versa. Wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a disproportionate amount of bloggers on Twitter, for example.

Anonymous said...

I think (c) and (d)

c) Writing your own blog gives a sense of confidence in your (written) voice, so perhaps more likely to leave a comment

d) Simple (or not so simple) technical understanding of how to leave a comment. If you don't blog or frequent the interweb, it may be a bit daunting

Zac Martin said...

e) People who read and comment on a blog like yours regularly already understand the potential of writing their own blog.

jyesmith said...

Agree wih katie's c.

f) these people are generally more compelled to comment and voice opinions

g) it demonstrates that they value other conversations other than their own

h) it demonstrates their knowledge (or lack of ..) in a certain public space

Ben Shepherd said...

i think some bloggers have a need to be heard ... and utilise whatever channel they can to do so.

i find on my blog i get a very small amt of comments relative to the daily readership ... which I am fine with. Most people just want to read/digest content.

Tannie said...

I agree with everyone elses comments However I believe there is something that has yet to be said, odd thing is it's the first thing I would have expected to see since we are in the marketing sector.

What I believe to be a big part of it is personal brand image. The basis for all this is that you run a quite successful marketing blog. Therefore point 1 is brand image by association, by having a comment on that page everyone else who reads will see your name and if it's a blog you like then that may just be +1 image points.

The second bit is advertising yourself. By expressing yourself in comments you are expressing your opinions and also to a degree your brains. So readers will then see your post, consider the insightfulness you may just convince others to see what you have to say on your own home soil, on your blog.

These aside my actual personal reasonings for commenting most of the time is because I have an input on the matter and wish to have my thoughts considered by someone I consider a superior knowledge wise in order to learn.

Kate Richardson said...

I also think

c) a bit of old fashioned self promotion

d)some community backslapping

Anonymous said...

Commenting could also be viewed as another form of conversation. So by commenting, we're actually speaking with the author (and other commentators), rather than just making one-off observations that don't contribute to a discussion.

Why bloggers more so than non-bloggers? Katie hit it with (c). We're confident enough to voice our written opinion, and we enjoy a good comment thread because we're learning from each other.

And a bit of subtle self-promotion never hurts either!

Unknown said...

I don't think that there are many active blog subscribers out there other than the writing community.

Most of the traffic that comes through comes off search engines, so they are your typical dumb internet surfer who doesn't know what a blog is.

Google analytic stats are very interesting. From the 3,500 visits I had this month, only 15% stayed for more than 1 minute. This supports the dumb internet browser hypothesis.

Wags said...

Maybe, just maybe, the blogosphere is a walled garden, and the majority of people reading blogs are bloggers themselves?

Julian Cole said...

Wags, who let you into the Bloggers garden, someone left the key out for Podcasters! ; )

Josh, I dont know about that, I get a really small percentage of search traffic and if they are searching it tends to be after Adspace-Pioneers.

Adam, I like to look after your promotion for you, I was speaking to Steven last night and I realised that I haven't actually ever met you in real life, but the way I speak about you on my blog it is like we are old mates! For anyone interested you should seriously check out The Body Shop blog the best Australian example of Platform creation going around! ; )

Tannie great point on personal branding, I think alot of the time, I read something and I will really dig it but then get to the end of it and have nothing to say but 'Nice post', I feel a little lame and then try to think of something better to say. I think that I am a typical male and can only do one thing at once!

Ben, I noticed that my video for Malcolm Tunrbull got way more hits on your site than mine and Gavin Heaton's, I was surprised with that but then realised that is just your reader style people like to comsume your messages... I wish I could write as much as you, my english skills are not that great hence one of the reason I don't post as much

Jye, I would have to say that I think blogging makes you very opinionated, before blogging I was not so sure in my knowledge of marketing but since I have had to write about it, I am more than happy to enter into a conversation/debate on social media marketing

Zac, Kimota and Katie I think understanding how to use the technology is definitely a barrier to people commenting.

jyesmith said...

JuJu,

I think that people who blog naturally have a tendency to voice their opinions. I don't think blogging has made me any more opinionated, just let me do it more openly.

Although I do agree that it can make you more opinionated by giving you that share of voice.

Julian Cole said...

eeek, you know when you write something and then dont read it and it may come off sounding the wrong way! YEP ... I did it just then.

I hope you dont think I meant to say that I think you have become opinionated, umm I think I was just trying to say that I think that you are better able to articulate yourself and when you see someone else write something you are better able to join the conversation.

Julian Cole said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Stanley Johnson said...

Because it's not as easy as you might think.

Us blog types do it all the time.

Look at the bewildering options you have for people to muddle through:

CHOOSE AN IDENTITY

Google/Blogger
Open ID
Name/URL
Anonymous

If all that doesn't scare people off what would?

MrTruffle said...

I agree with Stan Lee but also your audience is probably all bloggers. If you ran a blog on cupcakes you'd probably get many more comments from non bloggers.

Put your question into another context
"Why does a blog about Trent Reznor only get Goths commenting? Is it because Goths understand blogging?" :)

Gavin Heaton said...

It also comes down to style of writing. For example, are you writing an "authoritative" post or are you writing a "conversational" post. They are quite different and will elicit very different responses from your readers.

The other aspect is to do with the ratio of readers/subscribers. Sites with a high subscriber:reader ratio tend to get fewer comments as their content is being consumed "offsite", making commenting more of a commitment.

And while I use a reader fairly extensively, I prefer to read onsite.

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