Blogging sure is tricky.
Getting comments is even trickier.
I can blog and blog till I'm blue in the face (keyboard?) and be totally happy with it, think it's interesting. But still, no one will comment. I suppose this is why I should just post a lot without thinking too much about it.
For my post I sort of over thought it. I was dead set on trying my darndest to get the comments in a natural way. I thought: what are people talking about? what might get them all riled up?
First thought was Sarah Palin. I thought, "BRILLIANT".
Not so much.
Still the comments didn't really come to me. I hadn't thought out that my Sarah Palin hate post would likely get lost in the shuffle of many others just like it.
So I resorted to advertising my blog on facebook and twitter.
I had one friend, Jeff, challenge my thoughts on Palin, though only on FB, he kept promising to comment but never did. I'm still waiting for the day he defends her... because I really am interested. Also it would be amazing because this guy is the king of procrastinating writing to me. Worst Las Vegas pen pal EVER.
On the other hand a few good friends of mine put their two cents in for me like Kelsey, Teresa and Mike. A few class mates chimed in too. I responded to the posts as much as I could. I still have a hope it could be commented on even more.
Scott Brodeur brought up in class that the subject of Sarah Palin will just be sort of dated. Thus hard to get any comments after a while. Also - politics is often something that people are reluctant to discuss or feel intimidated to respond to.
I certainly feel for that.
I was a bit surprised that my post didn't draw more comments. I thought people would vehemently agree or disagree with me and start some all out posting war. No such luck.
I think that in the future I will try to do more posts where I put something out there, and don't say much about it myself. Then ask the readers to make their own assumptions in responses. That seems to work pretty well. The more open the post is, the more people respond it seems.
I wish that I had went with something funny and random like Katelyn did. She got 24 comments! So jealous!
3 comments:
I had never thought about reading blogs until about 2 years ago. Somehow I ran across a blog about UMass football (written by a person who had graduated in my own UMass class) and because I am the ultimate UMass sports fan, I started reading. The person who writes it posts nearly every day, so I started looking forward to taking a peak every day, then sometimes, more than once or twice a day, checking back for people's comments. It became really interesting to read other people's opinions. The blogger includes links to online news, articles, and websites and one can get caught up in checking out everything. The blog is: www.umass74.blogspot.com. Check it out. Frank Smith, who writes the blog, collects the articles you want to read about UMass football and puts them all in one place so the reader does not have to check a hundred sites for the information. The fan has everything he needs in one place.
I also was led by this blog to Bob McGovern's blog: http://mullinsandmcguirk.wordpress.com. Bob is a 2005 UMass grad who wrote sports for the Daily Collegian and he writes very well. I can always count on him to write what I am thinking and that is pretty uncanny.
The bottom line is that I like these blogs because they provide a service to the reader, they do it in an organized way, and they provide food for thought so that people can feel free to comment. Of course, it helps that I am an alum and I feel a kinship with these 2 bloggers.
I do think that if you write about what is important to you or about what you know best, it will most often be your best writing and you will be likely to receive many comments. Thanks for listening!
as your homie, I must say that for me to read a blog, it has to stick out. So I think your comments about the Palin piece getting lost in the shuffle is dead on.
I read the blog quite frequently but feel almost intimidated to post comments because the topic matter has been so overdiscussed, I feel like I'm rehashing the same old arguments and comments, and so on.
I think perhaps you need to bust out and write about some different stuff. That way the reader can learn something new instead of just reading your perspective on a current event? Just a suggestion, keep doin your thinggggggg.
~Mike~
Thanks guys.
Yeah. I was doing more of my own stuff. But the debates were a hot topic in class and using twitter...
I'll make some better posts soon.
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