I’ve been a blogger since way back.
This is my second blog that I started after deciding to ‘rebrand’ myself to have a more “professional” persona online and came up with Activate Learning Solutions or @activatelearn back in 2014. (Standby, this will soon change again as I start change it from a business to a more personal blog over the coming months as I wind down this business).
Before then, I had a personal blog called Ramblings that I started in 2005 and wrote about general observations and my interests. (Funny that, I’m now doing that on this blog – it just goes to show that I’ve always never liked having two personas “a professional one” and a “personal one” – I’ve always wanted both. One that just personified ME. A sort of WYSIWYG.
Anyway, enough about that. I’ve written so much over the years about this but that’s not what I want to write about here.
Well anyway.
Blog Commenting.
Before social media, people wrote in blogs and commented in each other’s blog posts. I used to reply to many blog posts because I found it a great way to hone my own thoughts about what the author wrote. There was also a great sense of community too.
However social media changed all that. As did spam attacks and trolls to blog posts.
Every day, I would have to get into my blog and remove the dozens of spam messages. It was a pointless exercise so many people who were doing this, closed off the comment section in their blogs and instead had the conversations more openly on the social networks such as LinkedIn or Twitter.
Bad move. This was the demise of blogs.
As a result, conversations became scattered.
However, in the last few months, I decided to reactivate the comment section in this blog and take my luck with it all.
I figured that the people commenting on your blog posts are ones who really don’t mind not having their comments seen by the world through social media and instead, want to have some communication with you directly. In some way, I respect this a lot more given that they’ve taken the time to write their thoughts and reflections down and share them with you.
Sure, the comment section is still “open and public” but by value of the blog post not being retweeted and shared by others in the network as often as say, a tweet would, it means that it would be seen by less people. So then, it becomes more of a smaller more personal exchange between reader and blogger as opposed to the reader’s commentary being shared and retweeted out to their networks.
I wonder if I’m making sense here?
I understand the irony of the situation here.
How can you get your work out there without the assistance of your network and their networks WITHOUT social media and especially as many people don’t use content filtering methods such as RSS feeds or subscribe to your newsletters to be able to read what you’re sharing?
Part of me thinks you can’t. Unless you’re really famous and people subscribe to your blog or your newsletters, forget it. Many people don’t even know what RSS is and couldn’t be bothered replying to blog posts if their response is not seen by others in their network too.
What about me? Why did I reinstate the blog commenting?
My intention is to simply share what I’m learning and working on. I share my reflections but it’s not important to me that it is shared by others. I don’t care about the vanity metrics, the retweets, the likes, the follows.
Seriously, I couldn’t give a “rats arse” as they say here in Australia.
By all means, I’m happy if people gain value out of it and want to share it out.
How I measure my value is NOT how often my work is tweeted or retweeted. Or, how many likes I have received.
I measure my value by the amount of testimonials that are sent to me. For example:
- People who DM me about how something I did inspired them to change career, pick up a new skill, think about things in a different way
- People who ‘surprise me’ by providing testimonials for me on LinkedIn or introducing me to their networks through email
- People who send me tidbits of information related to things I love to do ““Hey Helen, thought of you when I saw this, is this something you’d be interested in?”
- People who give me quiet encouragement and support behind the scenes in DMs
So from a blog post that started about re-introducing the comments section for my blog post, I realise that maybe we need to review our “why” of using social media.
Is it to simply “push” our articles, blog posts, thoughts and reflections. (The bombardment approach and hope that something sticks). Or, can we have more meaningful responses and conversations in our blogs in exchange with our readers who took the time to respond to our posts?
In the past, I would have stuck to my guns with social media but now I’ll take meaningful interactions any day.
What do you think?
Good points Helen!
There’s no doubt that something was lost when blogging was taken over by marketing, and it all became about “building your personal brand”. I think most of us have gone through stages when we angst over what sort of vision of self we want to project through our online spaces, but in my experience not only does that limit what you can write, but in the end it can lead to inauthenticity.
I welcome the growing movement around “the small web” and “indieweb”, the rejection of the “content consumer” model and a return to authentic conversations.
That’s not to say those conversations can’t happen on the big platforms, but the nature of their algorithms, which are in turn driven by the surveillance capitalism model within which they all exist, makes it increasingly hard.
Authentic connections take time to find and nurture, and there is something more human about the pace of blog-to-blog discovery. Yes, it takes time, and in terms of vanity metrics it’s appallingly low ROI, but whether one is seeking to do business on the basis of shared interests/values, or simply to write for oneself and have conversations with people who are interested, I think this medium still has the edge over many others.
Links:
– https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/
– https://indieweb.org/
PS sorry about random spaces – breaking in a new keyboard!
Thanks so much Julian, I appreciate you taking the time to read and respond to the post and provide some links to explore about this situation that we’re all experiencing. How are you dealing with it? I reject the content consumer model too as over the last few years, it’s become evident that something is missing that wasn’t there some years ago. In some way, I’ve been trying to recapture those ‘good ol’days’ by having those more authentic conversations with people. I totally agree that this medium has the edge over others. Thanks again for commenting – I have not responded to blog comments since about 2014 and it’s actually a delight.
I’m thinking along the same lines for work. I am so sick of FB (out main work social media) which we mainly use to push out info (it isn’t very social except for people liking some posts). I would love to get rid of my personal FB but need it to monitor the work pages. I am thinking we should go back to maybe a blog, show people how to subscribe etc. We would have more control, it would take a little more effort to create valuable content (as opposed to some of the easy but low value stuff we put out now … ).
For me, blog comments were never to “measure my value”, but to get inspiring reactions. Even if someone only said “I liked your paragraph on XY” it was a valuable feedback for me to learn what it was that resonated.
Thank you so much for commenting on the blog. Do you know I have not done this since at least 2014! What a delight and a surprise to see that people have commented!
Until recently, I never left comments anywhere. In the early days of the web, I might have signed a few guestbooks when they started cropping up on personal pages everywhere, but that’s about it. Over the past few months, I have come to realize the value of comment systems on blogs and I’ve noticed a few things:
– A bunch of people use WordPress, which has a great comments system, but a lot of people don’t actually want random people commenting on their blog even if comments happen to be enabled.
– People using static site generators typically rely on a third-party service like Disqus to provide commenting functionality. Some services require registration and most people, including me, don’t want to deal with that.
– People who eschew elaborate CMSs and third-party service providers have to write their own comment system from scratch. If the number of bloggers is already small, then the number of people willing to do this is probably close to 0.
I have also been hesitant to make comments because I have been leaving a “paper trail” all over the web. I know that I could just make up a name when commenting but that can hurt the chances of having a good back and forth. I’ve continued commenting all the same because sometimes leaving a comment does actually lead to a good conversation. I don’t think that blogging is dead but in any case, people who feel that way or people who simply miss the web before social media took over should be the change that they want to see.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and experiences here. I had to smile when I went into WordPress (as you mention this is a WP site) backend and saw a whole heap of comments from people sharing their thoughts! I hadn’t seen this for many years and it was delightful. I could sit, read and digest then respond to each one in turn not limited by a character count. I do hope blogging is not dead – it’s the one thing that has been consistent despite social media taking over everything!
I thought I would take the challenge and comment. I have been blogging every week for 13 years now and I get very few comments. I have restrictions on comments because I got tired of deleting all the junk but sadly there not much interaction anymore. My posts spread via social media and they still lead to new contacts and sometimes discussions on Twitter etc. Have spammers and trolls killed the collaborative web we used to know? How do we allow comments but exclude the junk?
Thanks Alastair, I appreciate the comment AND the share too. I saw your post yesterday (I had written the post but forgotten to share it across the socials). When I saw your tweet, my immediate thought, “What? Do people ACTUALLY read my blog posts?” I forgot some may be subscribed to the newsletter (which co-incidentally I have no idea if it still works) or may have RSS. Regardless, I appreciate you sharing the post and sharing your experience of blog commenting. I’ll check out your blog too because I don’t think we’ve actually communicated previously. As for your question regarding spammers and trolls – yes, I believe so which is why I’m getting disheartened about social media in recent times.
I remember.
Yet I struggle to be optimistic it can be like that again. My comments have stayed on but for the most part they are quiet. A few regulars chime in. Stuff I write that I expect might garnish activity get none, and silly throw aways get maybe a few.
But every so often, an out of the blue, unexpected comment flies in like a delicate bird and chirps a song.
It should never about about the views, likes, reshares. Likes are cheap, very, very cheap.
I write because I cannot bear not to.
I found this post via Stephen Downes’ OLDaily. I might have expected a batch of comments sitting here, alas, just a few likes.
But never give up!
Alan! How are you? Hope you are well. I do remember the early days and the excitement of having great conversations online but over the last few years, there’s been a shift in a lot of things that I’ve been thinking about. Like you, it’s a struggle to get optimistic like I was in the early years and admittedly, there are times when I think “is it all worth it to be online?”. The one thing that kept me going is my blog. Dabbled in video and YouTube which admittedly is quite enjoyable for me but my blog is my space. I highly regard the work of Stephen Downes and I’ve learned so much from him (as I have from you too), so I’m glad you found this post and honoured to have you respond to it. It was such a delight getting into WordPress and seeing REPLIES to this blog post. I hadn’t seen this in YEARS!
And wow almost a tsunami of comment!
A couple of fellow commenters have mentioned spam and registration hurdles, and I don’t think there is a magic answer. Unfortunately any form a human can fill in is open to gaming by a sufficiently motivated attacker, and wordpress sites in particular seem to attract a lot of bad bots. Pingback and Trackback spam at least as bad too [1] – that’s why we need things like Akismet!
Philosophically at least, I like the Indieweb idea of sending webmentions for replies [2], so that instead of commenting on the original site you keep your reply on your own site, but send information to the original post site that lets them know and potentially display something. But even that has been hacked for at least 8 years… [3]
The only answer that seems to work is moderated comments, and we all know that can be a time commitment (perhaps less so, now that no-one comments 🙂 )
Setting aside all that tech stuff, the key thing is the idea of “blog as my own space on the web” – almost by definition those of us commenting here buy into that concept, and would probably blog even if no-one looked.
Last not least, a new person for my feed reader (Alistair!). I’m slightly interested that both of the other two commenters with site links in their comment (Alan and Matthias) were already in my reader – it’s a small world sometimes!
Links
1. https://theory.stanford.edu/people/jcm/papers/blogspam_CCSW09.pdf
2. https://indieweb.org/reply
3. https://twitter.com/tomayac/status/342680604573315072
Thanks again Julian. I had to chuckle with that third link you sent about the spammers winning. I think many of us felt that same way and over time realised, “oh, let’s just turn back on the comments because actually things were pretty good in the past! Maybe yes, moderating will not take that much more time because few people would comment!” (like you mentioned). I liked the Indieweb idea of commenting. Do you follow Stephen Downes? I think he has been writing about something similar for years.
Yes have had Stephen Downes in my feed reader for a long time – given his role in the formulation and exposition of the ideas of connectivism I think he’s a “must read” – sounds like you find his ideas useful & interesting too?
I find all his writing and videos useful. He’s such a prolific writer and sharer and he’s the one who got me interested in MOOCS and social learning, so yes, I highly recommend his work.
And just seen this by Corey Doctorow that speaks to why we do all this and who we do it for (ourselves) – the emergence of a n audience who are interested in what any of us writes is a useful byproduct, and the seeds of community…
https://link.medium.com/GuBcBJHHigb
Thank you for sharing this post Julian. My sincere apologies for the delayed response as I wanted to give it my time and attention to read. He has a point in that post about the idea of blog writing. I appreciate you sharing this as I will be referencing it in an upcoming talk about building a digital profile where I also share the value and benefits of blogging like this.
I find comments on my blog rare these days, even when my post resonates with someone. They’re much more likely to reply to a tweet about it or even say something to me offline, which is nice, but I suspect most of my readers don’t do anything at all. It’s a pity because sometimes I wonder if I’m blogging into the ether; not that audience response is my driving force for writing, but still, it’s uplifting to know I’m hitting the mark, and rewarding to discuss when I’m not.
I have the same questions Ryan. “Is what I’m writing read by others?” However, I realise that much of my writing is waffling on about what I’m doing, learning or creating. I then realise, “I’m writing for myself”. However, do you find that these blog posts that you write come back to you in some way? That is, a comment mentioned by someone about what you wrote (that you forgot about); or a comment by someone saying, “I loved your post on XYZ”. When those moments happen, I realise that people do read your blogs but they may not be actively showing that they do. I would just say, “keep doing what you’re doing!”
I have been wondering for a long time about the trends that resulted in people commenting way, way less on blog posts. I believe the most important one was the change from desktop to mobile access to blogs.
I started publishing online in 2000 and back then and up to ~2012 people commented like crazy on my posts. Even random visitors from the SERPs asked questions and shared their opinions.
Today, my posts have even more organic traffic and I have a large newsletter full of people who have been with me for ages. No one comments anymore. Sometimes I get the random question from someone who needs my help with something no the nice exchange I used to have with my readers is long gone.
My audience uses social media, but they are not the types with huge followings that would care about others seeing their comments. Most don’t use Twitter at all, they’re mostly Facebook and Instagram users. So I don’t think that is the major cause of less comments.
I really think it’s about people accessing blogs from their phones and typing on phones being slow and uncomfortable, so there’s more fricction to write a comment than it used to be to do it on a desktop computer.
Thanks for sharing your experience of this Carol. You may be right. It’s easier to type in a keyboard however now, people are mobile and the phone is used for everything. It’s harder to tap out a longer from comment or even have people take the time to sit, think and reflect on what’s been written and then write out something in response.