digg

Join DiggAbout

Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.

99% of your Blog's Readers are Lurkers - How to Get them to Comment

problogger.net — 10 techniques for getting the silent majority of your blog's readers to leave a comment

Bury
show profanity settings
expand all
  • Gardenhead, on 10/12/2007, -31/+12...
    • vudicarus, on 10/12/2007, -26/+5nicely put.
    • SundayTrain, on 10/12/2007, -20/+1I cannot comment for fear of incinerating myself...
    • RadiatedAnt, on 10/12/2007, -24/+9My hand... its typing without my consent.... O_O it works mwhahahahahaha my God!!! It workssss

      /action tears of joy
    • JoshuaGross, on 10/12/2007, -19/+5heheh.... mod the previous poster up.
    • joank, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@ SundayTrain

      Incinerating? As in fire?
  • thekak, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Well he's correct in that a large percentage of readers don't comment, I don't think all of his solutions really do the trick, but better than hoping.

    If they like your content enough, they will comment.
    • schrodiggity, on 10/15/2007, -6/+20they are more likley to post if they disagree. ass.
    • LR2_, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8@schrodiggity

      That is so true, a friend of mine wrote an article for his podcast about how Fullmetal Alchemist sucked. So many people wrote back cussing him out, some of the language was so bad that he ended up deleting some of the posts. To this date it is his most commented on post.

      Here is the link if you want to check it out. It's great. http://www.animepodcast.org/2006/02/10/full-metal-alchemist-raged/
    • cviebrock, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2@schrodiggity

      No they aren't.
    • Lewie, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4@cviebrock

      I wasn't going to comment on this topic (because it's not interesting to me). Until I saw your comment. I disagree with you.
    • Fedge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Or just do what Engadget does, offer (really good!) prizes for your comments. They've been giving stuff away for a week or two and they've got 5000+ comments on some of their posts. Cheating? Not if I get a free HD tv outta the deal!
    • TheReport, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I personally dont think there is one main formula that works, I think its just a right place right time and right format that gets people to post. Whether it be over diagreeing over a topic or by adding and contributing to an exsisting topic. I find it that alot of people dont post because they really have nothing to say and are just content on waiting for someone to speak up whats floating around in their minds, that or they just dont care enough to comment
  • VMark, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3Seriously? This is interesting?
  • nimski, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13Why must people comment?
    • Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I just comment because I like typing. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party.
    • awesom0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I just like to see my name in the comments section.
    • DJcrayon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
    • joank, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I sound smarter when I comment...
      even if it's "I think I wet my pants."
  • cannibal, on 10/12/2007, -8/+17Don't blog. There's your answer.
  • miaow, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2add polls. or 'rate this' polls.

    thats a nice looking blog. maybe my approval will wear off tho.
  • exobyte, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2A better way is to appeal to the fanboy segment by making wild assertions, like how Google's planning on buying Apple to integrate iTV and youtube.
  • moonwell, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3although I hate bloggers here is a good advice: want more comment, then piss the visitors off with something or let them argue on every topic, don't moderate and don't delete comments, seems like peeps love the anarchy nowadays.
  • capajc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Blog comments aren't money. They're not love. They're not food. Someone reads a blog, they've done their job. Good blogs will attract readers. Bad ones, even if trolling for comments using techniques like this, won't.
  • tardmongerster, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11No comment.
  • dickeytk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2the article fails to recognize the importance of blog comments... ummm... yeah there isn't one.
    • joank, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I disagree.
      It's one of the few ways a blogger will ever get know his readers.
  • miaow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5do a lot of fake comments with multi-usernames. its bascially either cos they are bored or dont want to be the one and only.
    • eric1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Haha, reminds me of my first website... an Age of Empires fansite. I set up a forum I really wanted people to use, but no one did. I actually created multiple user names and had an 'argument' with myself, hoping other people wouldn't jump in.

      They didn't :(
    • RevoltPuppy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Then you hoped right! You win!
  • Fizzledizzle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Some people just don't like to comment. Some people are shy. Some people are just staring at the screen.
    • joank, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0And some have nothing to say about the topic.
      They go "that's nice dear" and move on.
  • phatalbert, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1www.duggmirror.com
  • Arkonnan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I can reduce his entire article down to one point: Start a flame war. Seriously, nothing gets people to jump into the fray easier than offending their fragile sensibilities. Hell, Madonna got rich doing it.
  • jmkiii, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It seems to me that it is pretty much like teaching or giving a speech. The more people who participate, the better job you have done in getting your point across. When you address a room and they say nothing to you, you have done a poor job. That is a terrible feeling. Conversely, when there is an obvious give and take going on in the room it is exhilarating!
    • dacheetah, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2#10 would help... I agree entirely, 95% of the time I run into a blog that requires me to register to post, any comment I would have left there is left to the wind.

      But I'm the kind of person who would think. "Hmm, If I make it HARDER to post a comment, then that will stop people who are not committed from commenting, and that should increase the quality, while decreasing the quantity of comments."

      But then, I'd actually have to start a [public] blog before I start worrying about such details.
    • texpundit, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2"#10 would help... I agree entirely, 95% of the time I run into a blog that requires me to register to post, any comment I would have left there is left to the wind."

      And you have to realize that we make registrations necessary sometimes because:

      a) We're getting HAMMERED by blogspam bots and our spam catchers aren't keeping up with it. Easiest way to stop that is make comments logged-in-only for a while.

      b) Some anonymous troll is ***** stuff up for everyone else. Same solution as #1.
    • dacheetah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I understand that often it's neccessary to have required registration, hell even my own websites guestbook, which I wrote myself was spammed by bots (after I abandoned it).
      One of those graphics with a short code to verify the human-ness of a poster helps there.
  • GerryDaman, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Weird, I read this post from Problogger.net last night and here it is on Digg.
  • blubolls, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1that's it, i'm never gonna click another digg front page dead link again. that means i have no reason to read digg anymore. cya wouldn't wanna bya
  • ga7sh, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0thank you
  • elijahalcantara, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Visitors usually don't have much time or too lazy to comment. Spammers however post comments regardless of the article ...
  • talledega500, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Not getting religion involved. There is a passage which goes something like this.

    Dont throw your pearls to swine. Your blog is probably crap and the comments are crap and nobody is reading it anyway.

    Dont digg this story. It sucks.
  • AudioPhil3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0# 11. Get Dugg

    # 12. Get Farked
  • sparkjack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think this is a great list with some good advice, we do most of this with our blog now but we can certainly add a few of the suggestions here. Well, perhaps be more consistant about doing them is a better way to put it,

  • crimemastergogo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0whatever you people say, the points are logical and can definitely help one stimulate a discussion about the particular posts.
  • spacyt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm def... a lurker...R U?
  • mcrowl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Problogger seems to me one of the most sensible 'teachers' on blogging on the Net. I've got his site bookmarked, and come back to it regularly. His point about not having to register to leave a comment is very much to the point. It's a great irritant to people who'd like to comment.
  • claudecf, on 12/08/2007, -0/+0I've been a regular reader here but definitely a lurker. I joined digg a long time ago and have never done anything with it. Too complicated to use on my wordpress.com blogs.
  • Sophielc, on 01/04/2008, -0/+0Why so many nasty comments? I found this article very useful.
  • planethappiness, on 01/30/2008, -0/+0I found this very useful and plan to act on some of the suggestions. Thank you!
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.