Do people leave comments on blogs anymore? Or have readers moved on?
Only a few years back, you’d read a blog post and if you liked it, or had something to contribute, you’d leave a comment.
But now, if you like it, you’ll share it – with the comments and conversation continuing outside the original blog via the likes of Twitter, Google Reader and Facebook (which is particularly being driven by their recent global ‘like’ button).
It also doesn’t help that many blog comments are fully-moderated as a defence against the incessant, daily spam – which unfortunately, also stifles real-time visitor discussions after reading an article. Although when blogs are left open, they can often deteriorate into snarky anonymous comments and link-bait anyway.
Too often, we judge the quality of an article on the number of comments it generates, but that’s not really valid anymore is it?
I’d ask you to add your thoughts by leaving a comment, but well, I’ll just be happy if I’ve prompted a discussion on this in any arena. And that’s all for my commentary.
Scott Esdaile is BCM’s Social Media Manager
No comment. Scott, please refer to my Twitter account for my opinion.
SECOND
Maybe I’m just lazy, but my opinion:comment ratio is pretty out of whack. I read a lot of craft-y blogs and don’t comment all that often.
That said, I comment on Facebook constantly. Maybe because I’m already logged in and it’s super easy? Maybe because it’s just my wider friends circle who are the audience to my comments so I don’t have to really consider how my comments will be received?
There are so many other ways to determine whether a piece “did it” for people. Whether they comment or not, you can tell if someone read your piece just by checking the average amount of time they spent on a particular page for instance.