What do you do when someone leaves a comment on your blog for the first time? Do you send them a quick reply comment? Do you email them? Do you reward or acknowledge them in some way, shape or form? For example, I use the Top Commentators Plugin to hi-light regular readers/commentators here on the blog (it’s on the sidebar).
Making a good first impression…
When someone takes the time to comment on your blog, they’re effectively saying you matter, this post matters, thank you for inspiring some thought. They’ve taken the time to comment when they really didn’t have to. The least you could do is take the time to acknowledge them by posting a reply comment (to say thank you or engage in a discussion) or better yet, send them an email to acknowledge them, welcome them and thank them for taking the time.
I’ve done this before using a tool called Eyejot and the Eyejot this Bookmarklet! Basically, it allows me to send a quick personalized video email to someone and using the bookmarklet, it allows me to play the video and share a site with the recipient. Here’s a quick video I created to show you how this works: (please excuse the disconnect with the video/audio)
What effect did this have on my readership/commentators? I noticed that it dramatically increased the likelihood of my readers coming back to the blog to comment on a regular basis (or better yet, stay subscribed). For the most part, people who received a video email were pleasantly surprised that I took the time to do so. A select few even joined Eyejot just to send me a video back.
The Lesson: If you genuinely engage your readers, you increase the likelihood that they’ll subscribe (and stay subscribed) to your content. Doing something as simple as responding to comments and reaching out to say “Thank You” goes a long way! So, that leads us to today’s task in the 31 Day Blog Challenge…
Today’s Task:
Look at your recent blog comments and spend some time emailing them. Thank them for taking the time to comment but be sure to include a link to the original post so that they remember what you’re referring to. Close with an invitation to subscribe to the blog (via email or rss) if they haven’t done so already.
Now yes, there are some tools/plugins that do this for you, but the more personal you make this interaction, the better!
Make this a part of your daily routine…
Get in the habit of:
- Responding to comments (quickly),
- Emailing your readers every now and then to thank them for leaving a comment for the first time and welcome them to the blog (the more you do this with new readers/commentators, the better).
Don’t have any comments yet?
Some of you might not have very many comments just yet and that’s ok. Your task for today is to visit other blogs (both inside and outside of your niche). I’d target (at least) 10 of them. Spend some time reading through their post and then, leave a few genuine, insightful comments with a link back to your blog. The more helpful and sincere your comments, the greater the likelihood that they’ll drive some traffic back to your blog.
When you’re done, report back with your results. Did you send folks a personal email? Did you reply to all of the recent comments on your blog? How’d you do?
So, do you email your blog readers?
Do you make it a point to reply to all of your comments? What’s more, do you take things a step further by emailing your blog readers or do you think that’s too much? I’d love to hear your thoughts. So as always, the comments are yours… 🙂
You've definitely got some fresh ideas on how to treat commenters. I've never heard of Eyejot before. As it becomes more difficult to get your content read and commented on, it's a good idea to treat each visitor royally. I'll start using Eyejot for Two Hour Blogger!
Responding to each comment is a great idea, even if it's just by email and not on the blog itself. In fact, I've found that really interesting conversations start happening when I get into an email discussion with someone that's totally offline. Something about the one-on-one that gets people feeling special and more likely to continue the discussion.
Thanks for impressing the importance of this aspect of the blog!
Eyejot is awesome. I love their bookmarklet feature (it's a pro feature but certainly worth it). If you give it a spin, let me know what you think of it.
As for comments and treating new visitors royally… I totally agree with you, doing so is a great way to keep people coming back!
As for replying to comments, tools like Disqus make it really easy to stay on top of things 🙂
Gotta admit, Disqus is awfully tempting. I haven't activated it because I like how clean the native Genesis comment form is, and Disqus tends to make a site appear just a tad cluttered.
That being said, it's got some awesome features. I especially like how you can reply to the email notification and have it appear as a comment. For example, I'm typing this on the go in my iPod mail client…
Native WordPress comments are great, but yep, how you can reply on the go is primarily the reason I use it. I respond to a lot of comments view my Blackberry while I'm on the go. 🙂
Ricardo, thanks for sharing. I must admit, this is something I have been pretty sucky at. I am going to try and suck less, though. I bookmarked the Eyejot site and will see what I can do. Thanks!
Heh, it's all good. It's something I used to do daily, without fail using Eyejot. When someone new would drop a comment, I'd shoot a quick 30 second video email reply. I don't do that now (at least not as often) but it certainly was very effective.
As for comments, using something like Disqus makes it pretty easy to stay on top of things too!
Hey Ricardo, I love the insight here — the more you can engage and touch people in meaningful ways, the more success you'll have with your blogging efforts.
It's a bit more work, but certainly worth it if you desire to create value for yourself and others.
Thanks for this tip!
That's right. The more connected you are with your audience the greater the likelihood they'll be more receptive to your messages and refer you to their network(s)! All it takes is a little nurturing and care simply by replying to comments even 🙂
Thanks for the comment Mark!
I was very ambitious and wanted to use Eyejot tonight however I may need to update my flash! Arg–it's always something. LOL. Nonetheless, I totally agree that commenting on other people's blogs is a great way to connect. I love what you and Martyn were saying as well with regard to making your visitors–new and old feel appreciated. They have many options online and yet they are coming to your site! It's a two way street; provide them with great content, if they have something to add to it or say about it, engage in that dialog further.
So, I will attempt Eyejot take II tomorrow after some shut eye. In case you have trouble pointing tips, I am on a Mac.
When I have readers, I use reply and sometimes, I take their email and write back. Spam seems to be higher right now even though I have spam filters. Lots of people promoting their own sites where I find their content inappropriate. Right now having this challenge in front of me is going to help me get motivated again.
Getting my blogs up to date with all the new gadgets and getting them working has been time consuming and then I let the posts go which is not good. Now I am catching up with this challenge. I replied to several post today and visited several blogs and commented on their postings. Finding topics of interest to comment on sometimes it difficult.
Promoting some other posts on my site http://www.freelancetourist.co…/
I am good at commenting on my own posts but I have room for improvement in sharing my comments on other blogs and emailing my subscribers more frequently.
Ready aim fire… day 6
I've found that something as simple as a follow up “Thank You” email to welcome a new subscriber goes a long way! Especially in the case of using something like Eyejot to give it an added personal touch. It's also an opportunity to welcome people to subscribe to your blog.
Thanks for the comment Mitchel!
I reply to their posts and depending on what they wrote, may email them. Still get spam which I wipe out. Looking for real comments. Working on comment on others more ofter and more meaningful
I thought I would have to skip this one because no one had ever commented on my blog…until TODAY! I made sure to email my reader and reply to the comment. (I’m a little excited – does it show?!?)
Jess: Congratulations! You’re excitement is contagious… I’m sitting here smiling ear to ear as I read the news. Well done!! Now keep it up 🙂
I’m so excited to try Eyejot! Thanks for recommending!
Honestly Amy, it’s one of my favorite products evar! Their bookmarklet feature is totally awesome and efficient!
Mhmm, I tired to sign up with eyejot twice and it didn’t work 🙁
Got the following error message:
“We were unable to create a new account for you. You are welcome to try again, perhaps with a differnet user name and/or email address”
Anyone else having problems? I like the idea and wanted to try the video message thing right away, is there another web site that offers something similar?
Hmm… I’m sorry Claudia, that’s a real bummer. Unfortunately, I’m just not sure of another website that does video to email delivery like that. I never really bothered to look to be honest.
Try shooting them an email or even a Tweet – they’re really very responsive 🙂
Have to take a pass on this one..I will save the information for later though. Since my blog commitment is in it’s infancy I have only received a few comments and even fewer followers…but, hey, it’s early.
I send a ‘thank you’ email to my blog commenters….but rarely do people feel compelled to comment. if they do, it’s to ask a question. They seem to just pick up the phone, which is actually what I prefer. My blog doesn’t thread the comments so if i reply in the comment section to their comment, they are not alerted to my response.