Thing #12 (Creating Community Through Commenting)

Part 1- These are two comments from blogs that resonated with me:

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog

You show the blog author that "you hear them"

Sometimes authors (like me) feel like they are only posting to themselves. You can actually influence those you admire with a meaningful comment, blog writers change their opinions all of the time. You can also reinforce opinions you agree with when you have real world examples.

From 10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog

Ask Questions – Including specific questions in posts definitely helps get higher numbers of comments. I find that when I include questions in my headings that it is a particularly effective way of getting a response from readers as you set a question in their mind from the first moments of your post.

I agree that bloggers sometimes feel that they are on an island all by themselves, and comments to their postings can let them know that they are writing for a real-world audience--and that someone values their opinion (or disagrees with it).

Questions automatically spur action from readers, and bloggers would benefit from including them in their postings. (Gotta remember this for myself.)

Part 2- I commented on 5 blogs from Library2Play.
Part 3- I found 2 blogs of personal interest. One belongs to a friend who is blogging about his weight loss journey. My attention to this blog was drawn by our friendship (and his insistence that I follow his success). The other blog I found deals with cheap world travel-- which is a HUGE draw for me. I can't wait for some free time to explore some of the places I read about.

http://transformations-mcushing.blogspot.com/ - my friend's blog about his weight loss

http://travel.booklocker.com/ - Cheap Travel Blog