Imagine: You’ve just written what you consider to be your best blog post. It’s funny. It’s poignant. It even teaches something at the end. You hit publish, and wait for the comments to arrive.
Then nothing happens.
No comments. No retweets. No online reaction whatsoever. It’s like you dropped the atomic bomb and it evaporated before it hit the ground. What happened?
As bloggers, we live for feedback. We constantly want people to read what we write, spread the word and add their opinions. If we weren’t selfish, egotistical narcissists, we’d stick to writing books and journals without the capacity for immediate feedback.
Here are five things I do to get comments on what I publish online:
- See if anyone read the post - You should be using an analytics tool like Google Analytics to begin with just to see how much traffic you’re getting. Set it up, and see if anyone is reading. If no one reads your posts or watches your videos, there’s no way you’re going to get any comments. Get off your lazy butt and start shamelessly promoting your posts.
- Don’t Have All the Answers - If you are too thorough and too knowledgeable, people won’t want to comment. No one wants to come across as dumb. They also want to be able to contribute. Leave room for people to fill in details or their experiences.
- Ask for comments - A lot of people don’t know when to say something. For every one person who will jump in and say something without a second thought, there are at least two more who aren’t sure if it’s ok to go ahead and speak up. End the post with a call for people to respond with their own stories and ideas. Your readers will then feel free to dive right in.
- Be Bold - Most people don’t write just to say “Great Post!” They want to either add information, relate a story, or disagree. Getting people to say I disagree is a great way to stimulate conversation and get people thinking about opposing ideas. If you don’t say something that gets someone angry, you aren’t trying hard enough.
- Reply to the comments you get - Get a comment? Great. Now reply to it. Even if your reply just says “Thank you,” your readers will appreciate knowing you actually took the time to read what they wrote. Chances are they’ll come back for more.
I know there are more ways to get people talking. What do you do to get people commenting on your blog posts? (See, I even took my own advice there!)
