Comment Self Audit:Comment08
Day 1 of the 31 Day Blog Comment Challenge is over in Australia from where I’m writing. I’ve picked up on the overnight posts which include the task for Day 1: A Comment Self-Audit. So … here we go
Do I comment daily? Well … yes and no. I try to make it habitual to comment in a conversational-like way on matters that catch my attention. This usually happens within my own niche areas (e-learning and theatre) and I like to contribute especially to a new blog/blogger: encouragement is vital. If I find nothing to comment on, then I don’t. However it’s not a habit of mine to search out new blogs, and I think it should be. A week or so ago I did a WordPress tag surfer search and hey presto, found another like-minded blogger in the UK. We blog-roll each other and chat occasionally, so perhaps I should make search-out part of the weekly blog routine.
Gina Trapani is a bit of a goddess for me. I love Lifehacker and read it regularly though it’s incredibly prolific and Google Reader can overflow from time to time. Like the fangirl I am I bought her book Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day last year. Not that I particularly want my day to be any more turbo-charged, but you get the idea. So when Gina noted in her tips about commenting on blogging:
Longwinded lectures are for college professors, not blog comments. Stay short and to the point. Everyone appreciates brevity.
I kinda feel I need to comment. I probably won’t of course; she makes her point nicely. This college professor however loves brevity: it’s the soul of wit after all!
So how do I track the conversation on my comments? Usually I hit the ’email me with follow-up’ options since someone can contribute to a particular ongoing thread weeks after I’ve left mine. I especially find this useful in a couple of sites devoted to the blog themes I use. I tend to check Google Reader (my feed-reader of choice) intermittently when I’m busy. Having an email ping into the feed box in Mail (my mail client of choice) works for me.
Am loving this task-based workflow. Time to think between posts but not long enough to lose the impetus.
May 2, 2008 at 8:50 AM /
Wow Kate – looks like I’m going to have to watch out for you. Already completed the first task.
So I’m going to do some comment cheating and grab my comment the I put on Michele’s post and put here (but with a bit extra padding):
Gina Trapani’s Guide to Blog Comments is a really good article. I hadn’t heard of Gina so it was good to hear you Kate talk about how much you like her posts and book. The other aspects of the article made me think that it might be interesting in a few weeks to get everyone to write their top 5 tips when writing a comment.
Don’t totally agree with “Know when to comment and when to e-mail” – I think this gets back to the type of blogger – sometimes if you know the person and you’ve noticed something it’s okay to say hope you are okay? What are your thoughts?
Definitely fail this one “Be succinct” — even with this comment. The trouble is I read lots of great posts that I want to comment on. The better etiquette if you want to write a long comment is to write a post but I don’t always have the time. So whats the answer? No comment? Or long comment?
Hope it was okay cross pollinating the comment but was easier that way. And have added extra.