There must be some reason why some blogs outperform others. If we say that another way, if two equally talented people operate a blog… why does one get higher repeat visitors over the other?
The theme of the blog could play a big part in the overall performance, but I believe it’s based on how often the blog owner interacts with his/her audience. When you think about it, blog comments can be a one-time thing or an ongoing conversation.
The person who controls the direction of this conversation is YOU. You have the power to make the comment section “come alive” with engagement. Humans are interactive creatures, but you must take the initiative to respond and ask additional questions.
Yet, every day I see blogs missing the queue! Bloggers write a post, attract traffic, and receive comments. But instead of engaging with the commenters, the blogger never responds! You see countless comments go unanswered.
That’s bad mojo, baby!
In my family, this form of behavior is considered rude. You speak when you’re spoken to! So isn’t a comment the start of a conversation? Someone is speaking to you, yet you don’t feel it’s necessary to respond back. Why?
What Happens After a Comment?
Once a comment is provided on your blog, how do you handle them? Do you moderate each comment or do you let them go live immediately? (Leave a comment below and let me know!)
For me, I like to moderate each one. Not because I am worried about spam, but because it’s important to me to respond to EVERY comment. If it isn’t possible for me to respond instantly, I like to reply within a short period of time. In order to do this, I need to know which comment was written first.
Patti asked me how I handle comments, which is why I’m addressing this issue right now. She only requires the first comment to be moderated and after that the rest go live, immediately.
I don’t have any qualms about comments going live immediately, especially if a previous comment was moderated. Though, I choose to moderate each one because my mind isn’t what it used to be.
By moderating each conversation starter, I am given the peace of mind that my audience will receive my reaction and undivided attention.
The Pros & Cons
There’s always two sides to every story, so let me explain some of the benefits and disadvantages that are associated with allowing your blog comments to go live, immediately.
The Pros
Saves time. There isn’t a need for you to sit down and moderate each new comment that gets placed on your blog so naturally this saves you time.
Provides instant gratification. Some visitors may not like having to wait to see their message go live. By not interfering, the writer instantly witnesses the message being shown to the public.
Displays immediate social proof. By allowing live comments, you gain social proof to show your blog has visitors interacting with your content, even if you’re away from the keys.
The Cons
Invites spam. Let’s face facts, there are unscrupulous people floating around the Internet. If you give them enough rope to hang themselves, they usually do. Don’t open your blog up to spam by allowing your comments to go live before you read them.
Allows opportunity seekers. By allowing messages to go live, you may be inviting others to take advantage of you. Either they’ll post something totally off topic or they start placing links in the comments that lead back to personal product pages or affiliate sites.
Missed opportunities. If you’re away from the keyboard while new comments are posted, you may miss out on critical opportunities to interact with the latest commenters.
I’m sure there are other pros and cons; though, these are the most important for me.
I honestly believe if you want to engage and build relationships with an audience, you need to respond to every comment on your blog. The most efficient way to see that this happens is to moderate the comments and respond in kind.
My Personal Perks
Realistically, it boils down to what you’re willing or not willing to do to build a community and interact with others. For me, it’s important that every comment left on my blog receives a remark.
When I see a blog that has comments and no responses, it sends a message that the blogger isn’t interested in building relationships with an audience. Why then do you have a blog if not to interact with your target audience?
Moderating and responding to comments can help make you a better blogger. You can easily uncover the needs of a target audience, ask additional questions to open the lines of communication, and engage with like-minded people to build community and passion around your area of expertise.
Your turn! Do you moderate and respond to your blog comments or let them go live immediately? Leave a comment below and let me know!
Thanks for reading,
– Bonnie
P.S. Did you enjoy this message? If so, please share it with your friends so they can benefit from schmoozing. Then, if you want to get more messages like this one, connect with me via my social links below or hop aboard my notification list. I would like to keep in touch.
Video Sunday – Episode #13
How do you moderate comments (like on your blog) with commentluv?
The same way I moderate all the blog posts. They don’t show unless I approve them. 🙂
Hootsuite! Which I will do a post on another time….
Ah, okay. Thanks Ginny
Keeping up with comments…
I could do better. I moderate the first comment then let everything else go through (unless there’s links). I do try to reply same day to comments but that often doesn’t happen when I am busy simply because my stuff gets pushed to the back of the queue.
That’s another reason I let already approved commenters go straight through, I’d rather people see their comment there and give others the opportunity to add to or discuss the comment than wait a few days for me to approve if I get sidetracked 🙂
I need to get more organised!
A few days to approve comments? I don’t let them get them far behind. Perhaps, I wait until the mid-day to approve something that was posted earlier, but I try to make sure nobody waits a full day to get them approved.
Bonnie, this is the best! I really didn’t understand the “blogger” response etiquette and to be frank had a lot of spam and opportunity seekers. That’s cleared up now. You have taught me today to be more personal and respond. Noted and thank you! Do you schedule a particular time of your day to moderate? Where do you find the time.?
It’s imperative to build community online and nothing works better than schmoozing!
Whether you do that through your blog or social media websites, it needs to be done if you hope to CONNECT with people.
Video should be in your future, too! It also ramps up the ability for you to connect on a more personable level.
It’s great to have comments so I moderate as soon as I can. Those people have taken the trouble to comment so the least I can do is moderate.
Yay! I like to hear that others are responding to comments. It’s the right way to build community around your blog!
So agree about good manners Bonnie – I think it’s essential to reply. I take the same view with my Facebook page and Twitter account too. People will stop commenting if they think they’re talking to the void. Nice pros and con list too – thanks.
Thanks Ginny!
I find it harder to keep up with Twitter comments than I do FB or the blog. How do you do it?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. Of course, I’m also happy that my question contributed to a great blog post for you.
I can see the benefits of moderating comments as they come in, and I may start doing that, especially since I do want to start focusing more on my blog and it’s not just sitting there in cyberland like it has been.
I also like blogs that send an email reply when your comment is replied to, but I can’t afford Premium Comment Luv right now, and I doubt there’s a free alternative?
Thanks again for sharing. It gives me some solid reasons to reconsider how I’ve been doing it. 😉
Yes, thank you for the contribution girlfriend! 🙂
There is a free alternative called ReplyMe, but it hasn’t been updated for over 2 years. Use it as your own risk comes to mind.
HI Bonnie
I like to moderate my comments, I don’t get onto them as promptly as I’d like to as I work, but I do them as often as I can.
I would like the comments to show up immediately, but to indicate that they are waiting for moderation. Haven’t worked out how to do that yet. (Ok, I haven’t actually looked yet!!)
I love Comment Luv’s ability to send a response when you reply to a comment. It makes it easier to engage in a conversation then having to remember which blogpost you commented on and what has been said about it! I think it allows for more interaction!
I love CommentLuv too, but of course only the premium version allows the Reply to feature. I bet you’re glad you got it now, huh? 🙂
You betcha! It’s even better with those who have it as I then get a reply to a comment that I made 🙂
I agree! 🙂
I never used to respond to comments unless they were asking a question but after realizing that my favorite blogs are the ones where my comments get responses I started answering each and every comment. It’s really helped build more of a community and allowed me to get to know my readers better.
One thing I still need to figure out is how to let people get an email when someone replies to their comment. I know I like it when sites do that because I don’t always remember to check for a reply later.
That’s exactly why responding is so important (i.e. building a community) but I see so many blogs that don’t answer/respond to comments. I scratch my head every time I see these blogs. I’m like, what is the point?
Jetpack has a feature where people can subscribe to comments, but I heard it slows down WordPress… I can’t say for sure. I didn’t like it when I had it installed, but that’s me.
The first few comments are moderated then the rest go live. I do this because I know that it could take a while before I can get to responding so I like for people to see that there comment has been accepted.
At the moment,there isn’t a problem but this could change if I started getting spam leaking through.
I don’t mind moderated comments. There are some sites that don’t confirm that your comment has been accepted and there is just a blank space. So you don’t know if your comment has been registered or simply deleted.
I also find it odd when some bloggers go on and on about wanting to get big numbers on their Facebook Fanpages but then have zero interaction with the comments on their blog. I find that odd.
I dislike the blogs that don’t let you know if your comment is accepted. I sit there most times wondering if it went through. ROFL
I agree Victoria. Why bother with getting thousands of fan page LIKES and then you never reply to a single blog post. (And some never even respond to their page comments either). How rude!
I moderate. I get distracted frequently by baby/dog/cats/phone/etc. and forget to respond if I don’t have something to remind me.
Been there, done that Katie. 🙂
Ah, another lesson learned, thank you!
Only today I was surprised to find a comment published with no reply from me. I agree this is rude and it was never my intention to do it. (It’s not just polite – it gives me another comment, if I reply!)
Reading your post prompted me to check my settings and I see I had allowed immediate approval for anyone who had already been approved. I have now changed this and hope I will be replying to every comment.
Again, this harks back to my “bad-old-days” when I had so many blogs I just couldn’t keep up with the flood of “awesome post” comments (that I should probably have been trashing anyway!!)
Living and learning. Thanks for the tip Bonnie.
Joy
You’re welcome Joy!
With participating in Sue’s Facebook groups you should find more comments that are longer than your previous “awesome post” comments. (I would venture to say that most of them were spam posts.)
Good for you in deciding to moderate and respond to all comments!
I do moderate a visitors first comment. After the first approval their comments can go live immediately. But, I always try to respond to comments and I still check every comment for spam.
I check for spam as well. My problem lies in the fact that some of my posts get 22+ comments, while others get more or less. If I let the comments go live instantly, I’ll need to check the dashboard fro latest comments to respond.
The problem lies in the fact that approved comments are white. It’s hard for me to choose from the others. At least unapproved are still yellow and easier for me to see them.
Have you always done your blogging this way Angie or was there a time when you did moderate?
Things evolve constantly, Bonnie. This month I removed CommentLuv from my site as I was literally getting 100-200 junk comments every day. I think I must be on every ComLuv list on the internet. Sifting through comments that are only there for a backlink is not a good use of my time.
The minute I removed it, the abuse stopped (I call it abuse because that is what it is – improper treatment to gain benefit.) Yes. My comments are down, but I can also rest assured that those that are commenting are doing so authentically not for a backlink. Quality over quantity. 😉
I’m sorry to hear you went through all that, Angie. Thanks for letting me know why you do things the way you do.
See, that’s an interesting statistic (and one to look into for another blog post) – the spam from being on a CommentLuv list. 🙂
As you know, I have CommentLuv installed (so does Tiff) and we both moderate with the Akismet plugin installed. Once you flag something as spam, Akismet doesn’t let the same credentials come through.
Though, I rarely get spam – even with CommentLuv installed. Without further testing, I can’t readily say it’s because I moderate and others don’t. It would be good research for a new blog post though.
Great post. I do try to comment back to folks on my blog. It can be time-consuming so I tend to do it every couple of days.
I know exactly what you mean Arwen. It’s hard to go back and sift through recent comments just to be certain you didn’t miss one.
But, if I am inside the WP dashboard and see a yellow message, I know I haven’t responded to it yet. 🙂
I love and appreciate all comments. They are the readers thoughts. I go live with mine right away and monitor mine very often. I always thank the reader for reading my blog and commenting. I have never had an issue with going live right away with the comments. Thank you for posting this wonderful blog, a lot of helpful ideas. I am moving more in the direction of interacting with my readers. Thank you again! 🙂
I don’t have anything against the idea of making comments go live immediately, if that’s what some bloggers prefer to do. It just doesn’t work for me. 🙂
I would rather moderate the comments and know that I haven’t missed responding to a single one.
Hi Bonnie, I do respond to every comment but find moderating comments before they’re published tedious, and not fair to the blog visitor. I have a spam filter; I delete comments that slip through that filter. As a blog visitor, I find the delay in my comment being published a turn off — I’m just being frank. Hope you understand!
You’re certainly allowed to moderate or not; that’s the great thing about our blog spaces – we have our say on how we use them.
I know that having only one eye makes it hard for me to decipher where the new comments are coming in at, so it’s best if I stick to moderating through the yellow dashboard. that way I know I won’t miss a single response. Yellow are comments that need attention, white ones have already been attended to. 🙂
Youngsters with better eyesight and the ability to keep track of new comments coming in are more than welcome to do what works best for them.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate it, Beth!
I moderate all comments on my blog – but at Squidoo I let them go live right away.
I like how you have your comment replies set up to be sent to my email after you reply to me. I would like to learn how to do that!
Mary
I do the replies to email through the premium (paid) version of CommentLuv, Mary.
I am going to have to add that to my Wish List!
Mary
Good girl. 🙂
Mary, if you install Jetpack, which is a free plugin for WordPress, it will give you the option of letting people subscribe to follow-up comments. It also does a huge number of other things. Definitely worth checking into!
Thanks for your suggestion Katie! I’m sure people who want to add the “subscribe to comment” plugin can do so with your suggestion.
Jetpack has a few useful features, but it doesn’t have the one Mary’s asking about. She wants the author of a comment to receive “her” reply in email, which lets the author read the comment in email.
CommentLuv premium currently offers this feature.
There once was a standalone plugin called ReplyMe, but it hasn’t been updated in over 2 years and may be incompatible with the current version of WP.
When I comment I actually hope for some kind of feedback. I know there are those that comment just for a backlink, but I participate for a purpose. I may want to know more about the topic, have more to share that may not have been covered and often I like to leave a question.
All of those can turn into additional topics for the moderator blog. In fact, may lead to a short report or tutorial. I can’t imagine having too many comments. As of today, I speak with pure confidence in this response as I don’t suffer from too many comments. ;>
You’re absolutely right Kate!
I love getting questions off of the content I write. I think it provides a great way to mingle with the people who comment and gives me food for thought for future posts! Win/win for all.
I think you now my view on this 🙂 I think it’s bad manners to not respond, too. Someone took time to engage with you, so you’d better engage right back. It’s like hosting a dinner party – you don’t just open the door and then let everyone in and leave the room – you mingle 🙂
Yes, we are two peas in a pod on this issue. 🙂