Terry Heath started a blogging meme yesterday, inviting bloggers to explain why they blog. An additional point of this question is to - hopefully - start a tagging wave. The two simple rules of the ‘game’ are:
1. Answer the question, “What do you expect from your blog?” and try to be as specific as possible. Avoid warm-fuzzy answers unless that really is your thing. Link back to the blog who tagged you so your readers can check others’ answers.
2. Tag at least five bloggers with the same question.
In that way Terry (me too) hopes to get as many reactions as possible in an interesting topic.
So why do you blog?
- Surely I like traffic and billions of zillions of subscribers. This blog is my little creation and I find it very rewarding to see it grow. So, yes, that is a point - a minor one, but still a point.
- Blogging is about interaction. When I see 300 unique visitors and just 2 comments on my post, it kind of dissapoints me. To be honest I would rather have more comments and less visitors. (and I don’t mean 300 comments and 2 visitors).
- A variable that directly derives from my previous point is diversity. Surely, it boosts my ego when I read mail and comments praising my writing. I really do, and hope to get more of it. But I also like (constructive) criticism. I like to see my readers, posing questions that show that they have really concentrated on the post. Diversity helps me improve my writings, encourages discussion even more and brings the debate forward.
Who do you tag?
And for the second part of the meme, here are my tags:
Wayne Porter on Attention Revenue,
Every single one of us is a little civilization.
Terry Heath responded on 05 Jan 2008 at 5:43 pm #
I feel the same sense of disappointment when I get 200 visitors to a post but only a couple comments. I’ve had a boost in readers lately because some of my posts have been submitted to StumbleUpon by wonderful readers like yourself. But so far, none of those new visitors have commented and I can’t tell if they have subscribed to my feeds (my subscriber numbers are growing but nowhere near the rate of new visitors). The comments I do get are from those who are already becoming regulars.
Of course, I’m very thankful that readers are starting to Stumble my posts. I’m sure some of the new visitors will become regular readers.
But I don’t think the lack of comments is a reflection on your blog. I don’t think the low number of conversions to subscribers is either. I think those who follow social bookmarking are more likely to watch StumbleUpon or Digg for things to read on a daily basis instead of subscribing to an RSS feed. I’d do a survey to find out if that’s true, but if they come from a social bookmarking site will they answer my survey? lol