Do You Kill The Blog Conversation?
July 20, 2007 | By Lorelle VanFossen | Filed Under Blog Relationships, Blogging, Features
Are you one of those bloggers who answers the question completely, leaving no room for others to answer? Are you killing the blog conversation?
I’ve had a lot of appreciation and debate over the following statement from my article on How NOT to Comment on Comments:
Make your comments add to the conversation. Don’t just chime in because you want to see your name published on the web. Contribute. Give. Share. Exchange. Keep the story going. Keep the ideas flowing. Help us help each other by continuing the dialog.
At the time it seemed a new thought that it is the responsibility of bloggers to keep the conversation going on other blogs, as well as on their own.
There are two ways to kill a conversation on a blog:
- Write a Complete Blog Post: When you write a complete blog post, you leave nothing unsaid. Thus, your readers have nothing to add.
- Write a Complete Blog Comment: Whether on your own blog or someone else’s, if you say all there is to say, you leave no room for anyone to say anything.
Guess what the answer to this is?
Shut up.
Well, not totally. Just don’t finish your thoughts. Leave them guessing. Leave them with an answer to offer. Leave them room to breathe and reply.
About the author: The author of Lorelle on WordPress, as well as several other blogs, Lorelle VanFossen has been blogging in one fashion or another for over 14 years, covering travel, nature and travel photography, web design, web theory and development, blogging, and WordPress extensively as web technologies developed. Lorelle is also the author of the fast-selling book, Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging, available in the new Blog Herald Bookstore. Lorelle will be speaking at WordCamp Dallas March 29-30, the Alliance for Distance Education in California Summit April 2-5, 2008, and the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers Conference May 2-5 in Chicago.
Comments
18 Responses to “Do You Kill The Blog Conversation?”
Leave a Reply
Sponsors
News
A BIG Reason to Read a Pet’s BlogMay 16, 2008 | By Andrew G.R. | Leave a Comment
I’ve often taken a snarky approach when it comes to people who set up blogs for their pets. I barely want to read about humans’ mundane lives, let alone issues with litter and pooper scoopers. However, there might be a new reason to subscribe to Lucky, Fido or Buddy’s blog.
Animals’ ability to prognosticate […]
Yahoo Nabs Safari Plugin Inquisitor
May 16, 2008 | By Thord Daniel Hedengren | Leave a Comment
Inquisitor is a cool plugin for Safari, and now Yahoo owns it. The developer, David Watanabe, won’t be joining Yahoo, but will continue the development.
I look forward to assisting Yahoo! in refining and extending the Inquisitor user experience beyond where it is today. I truly believe that Inquisitor and its users can only benefit, both […]
YouTube Gives You Insight
May 16, 2008 | By Thord Daniel Hedengren | Leave a Comment
Now you can get some more statistics for your YouTube videos, with the recently launched Insight tool, available in your YouTube account (under Manage my Videos, which is probably temporary). The new stats feature is described like this by Tracy Chan, YouTube product manager:
For example, uploaders can see how often their videos are viewed in […]
Google the New Number 1 in the US
May 16, 2008 | By Thord Daniel Hedengren | Leave a Comment
I thought they were already, but obviously not so. Google has been the leading search engine, but overall Yahoo is the most popular web site according to ComScore’s rankings. No more though, according to an AP report:
According to comScore, Google’s unique U.S. audience in April was 141.1 million, an 18 percent increase from the same […]
Blogging from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
May 16, 2008 | By Thord Daniel Hedengren | Leave a Comment
Stephanie Stockman is a NASA contractor working at the Goddard Space Flight Center, which is cool by itself. What’s even cooler is that she’s blogging it, talking about rocketships in voice and text, as well as posting photos, something every space nerd should follow for sure. Her blog is Geosteph, which incidentally is her Twitter […]
SocialMediaPop Mashes Social Media Sites
May 16, 2008 | By Thord Daniel Hedengren | Leave a Comment
Ryan Caldwell, of Performancing fame, had an idea:
Why not build a tool that only shows the stories that went popular on at least two social voting sites?
The result, via Suffolk Software, is SocialMediaPop. Cool project, in beta for now. I wonder what the social media sites think of services like this?
Digg it
Patrons
Sponsored Links
Recent listings from Blogger Jobs
MBA Blogger WantedWe got this from MBA Channel: MBA Channel is looking for passionate bloggers to write weekly posts for our new community MBA Channel Insider. You c [...]
A Slew of Blogger Openings
This batch is courtesy of our sister site, Performancing.com: Mom Blogger Openings — “Type-A Mom is currently hiring mom editors for a [...]
Horoscopes Writer Wanted
We got this from Jeffrey Kishner: Horoscopes Writer for astrology blog. Write 12 Sun sign horoscopes weekly, plus a General horoscope. $130/1300 wo [...]
Wanted: Tech Blogger
We got this message from from Veselin Nedeff: Hello folks, We need a tech orientated blogger to write on mobiletopsoft.com’s blog. We look for [...]
Call for Writers
Renowned Filipino problogger J. Angelo Racoma is looking from writers: Here’s a great income opportunity for individuals or teams looking for work [...]
More at Blogger Jobs
Contributors
- Andrew G. Rosen
- Andy Merrett
- Anne Helmond
- Arvind Satyanarayan
- Chris Garrett
- Darnell Clayton
- David Krug
- David Peralty
- J. Angelo Racoma
- Jason Kaneshiro
- Jonathan Bailey
- Lorelle VanFossen
- Matt Craven
- Thord Hedengren
- Valeria Maltoni
Latest Reviews
Submitted News
- BusinessWeek Says: Why Twitter Matters
- Free Story Theme For WordPress
- Why Performers and Entertainers Should Twitter
- What Do You Really Need to Know About a Blogger to Admire Their Work?
- Partnering With a Larger Publisher - Week 3
Our Blog Metrics
[…] Do you kill the blog converation? […]
Great advice, as per usual. Thanks Lorelle. I’m really enjoying your book!
Wow, I never thought of that. :O
Still, I get more comments than I post, so this is still helpful for me. Thanks. :)
Hi Lorelle.
Yes, I know what you’re saying and I’ve been trying to implement this on my blog too, by asking small questions. It’s a great incentive for people to come to the blog, read, and be read.
Writing a complete comment cannot be a disservice to the blog community if expanding the collective intelligence is a goal. While extending inane chatter may be gratifying to someone looking to see a lot of words, I find pursuing truth as directly as possible much more so. I hope I am not alone in a the wish that critical thinking be applied in discussion. Quality of speech over quantity! Cheers.
Good point. I guess it depends on if garnering additional comments and conversation is one of the goals of your blog.
I would call this “strategic blogging/commenting”. To act the fool… Maybe, a good marketing idea, but it’s not exactly brilliant for a trustworthy conversation.
[…] incites a dialog between the blogger and the reader. It doesn’t give you all the answers. It leaves room for you to answer. It challenges you to come up with answers. It is designed to get you thinking […]
[…] you don’t know and to learn those many things you can teach me. At the beginning I was killing the blog conversation, instead of making use of my comment […]
[…] lider också av ett annat bloggproblem och det insåg jag tydligt när jag läste Lorelle, som bland annat har BlogHerald. There are two ways to kill a conversation on a […]
[…] you don’t know and to learn those many things you can teach me. At the beginning I was killing the blog conversation, instead of making use of my comment […]
[…] they weren’t commenting on other blogs, why should anyone comment on theirs? They learned that comments make the blogosphere go […]
[…] VanFossen wrote that too much completeness in a blog post or comment can kill the conversation. (I’m probably guilty of doing […]
[…] 它留下空间让你回答。 它挑战你提出答案。 […]
[…] something you don’t know and to learn those many things you can teach me. At the beginning I was killing the blog conversation, instead of making use of my comment […]
[…] isn’t about body language. It’s about language. Have you thought about what you do to stop the blog conversation on your blog before it even begins? If you aren’t using body language, what signs do you use? What are the […]
[…] eher dämliche Antwort auf die Frage, ob Autoren von Weblogs bewusst oder unbewusst Diskussionen auf (Blog-) Artikel bereits im Keim ersticken oder gar nicht erst möglich […]
[…] conversation that can happen in the blog comment box without your intervention or participation. Don’t rush in to answer every comment. You may be strangling the conversation. Let others respond and direct the conversation. Let there […]