Are readers obligated to appreciate bloggers?
In this article I would like to talk about the importance of knowing when giving and returning appreciation is necessary, and when it is voluntary. This post was inspired by Snoskred’s comment to a post by Ronald last week.
Recently Ronald wrote an article regarding appreciation through notification and by giving credit. Snoskred responded to that article with very nice questions regarding how far and how much appreciation should be given by readers to bloggers. That brings me to my question that I I have been thinking of for a long time: When is a reader obligated to appreciate, and when is a reader obligated to give credit?
When is appreciation by a reader necessary?
If someone benefits because of something directly or indirectly, then appreciation can be a nice voluntary action. If someone benefits solely because of using something directly or indirectly, then appreciation can be a necessity in many views. How can one figure out when appreciation is necessary?
Appreciation at its simplest can be a simple act of letting someone know they did something that pleased you in some manner, which in turn may result in that person feeling appreciated, or feeling thanked by others. That can be like a motivation, prompting that person in question and the thanker to appreciate either the topic or the person, or even both, on a more connected level. However, thanking someone is voluntary. Earlier this year Ronald talked about the concept of thanking bloggers as a response to my post about 5 ways to appreciate bloggers. Soon after that, Darren also talked about e-mailing a blogger to say thank you.
Karol Krizka from Krizka.com lists 4 free ways to thank bloggers. Now the question is: if you have the opportunity to thank a blogger and you decide not to, are you a bad unappreciative reader?
National Survey Example: According to Synovate, 54% of blog readers who are Americans are not loyal to any specific blog.
According to a Synovate/Marketing Daily Survey, forty six percent of all online Americans are loyal blog readers. If other countries are surveyed also, we can guess a list of current readers, at the time of surveys, who actually stick by the blogs they currently read.
The survey also shows that around 54% of the blog readers who are Americans are not loyal to any specific blog. Thus, those 54% of blog readers, for various reasons, usually visit other blogs to find new blogs to surf and participate on.
That brings me to an important question that involves blog readers from all countries and planets: Does a blog reader have an obligation to comment on a blog? Does a reader have to link to a blogger? Does a reader have to agree with a blogger? Does a reader have to even read a blog in some manner? Does not being loyal to a blog mean one is not appreciating a blogger? Is there no middle ground and everyone is obligated to give credit and link backs at all times, as if we were handcuffed to the obligation of appreciating others forever?
To help you decide, I will list here a few ways to appreciate someone when appreciation can be voluntary, and a few ways to not appreciate someone when appreciation can be more than just voluntary.
Appreciating when appreciation is voluntary
- Reading a nice article and e-mailing the blogger to congratulate them on the article
- Liking a site and linking to that site - an example is a post by Mert on “Almost Somewhat Positive” called “Thank you, thank you!” where she is thanking 2 bloggers, one of them being her reader also, for appreciating her
- Commenting on a site to support someone
- Commenting on a site to offer a different opinion - this can be appreciation in many ways
- Standing by some site or some blogger when there are critics illogically criticizing that site or blogger
Not appreciating when appreciation is expected
- Using someone else’s ideas and not giving credit
- Taking away credit from someone in a group project just to gain more personal benefit
- Not linking to someone on purpose because of a personal prejudice, to cause harm to someone
- Criticizing someone by not telling others the whole story
- Appreciating only people who are supporters regardless of what they write or do, and not appreciating who may ever disagree even if they do something that deserves appreciations
Personal example: a friendship not based on reciprocity
A few months ago a friend of mine who has a small online business came to me for some help on how to expand his business. I gave my friend some suggestions. After that, my friend never called me. Last month, I found out that my friend had used all of my suggestions to expand his business, without letting me know and without appreciating anything.
My friend is, well, my friend, so I can easily talk about things and not let friendship be affected at all. “Hey you! How come you never said thank you? Now you have to buy me something or pay me!” You may be able to say that to a friend easily, but what about people who are not friends, and what about situations when you are dealing with strangers? What about contacts that we simply like calling friends? Is there a fast and hard rule to know when giving credit and appreciation is necessary, and when it is not?
Conclusion: Giving appreciation and credit depends.
There is no single and absolute yes or no answer that caters to all situations and questions. Thus, an ideal reader could appreciate or not appreciate an ideal blogger in different ways, and vice versa. Some key elements in any situation can allow appreciation to be voluntary, meaning if someone does not appreciate or if something is not appreciated, there will be no grudges or bad feelings of any kind. Similarly, some key elements in any situation can make appreciation more necessary than voluntary, meaning if someone does not appreciate it could be damaging to someone else.
What do you think? Thank you Snoskred for inspiring and helping with this article. 
Simonne says...
This is interesting, I did not know about the Synovate survey. I imagined the number of loyal readers is bigger.
Speaking as a reader, I read blogs pretty much like I read books or magazines, thus I don’t feel the need to leave a lot of comments. However, I have a way of showing appreciation: I use the StumbleUpon toolbar to give a thumb up for that article. I never thought to e-mail a blogger who wrote a great article (although there were a few cases when I felt like jumping into the computer and kissing that blogger for writing such useful things).
Bes says...
Thanks for the response Simonne. Reading a blog “pretty much” like a book or a magazine does have many advantages, like treating content observation the same as any other content analysis and not giving it preference simply because it is online, unless it is related directly to the nature of the online medium of communication. Thus, appreciation in such a case can be like appreciating a book author or a magazine article writer or editor through a letter or something else.
The Synovate survey is indeed interesting, and I hope we can have more surveys like that. The survey does not mention how the respondents are surveyed or how many respondents were interviewed, which is an important thing to consider in my view.
Stumbling a post can be a good way to show appreciation to someone. Jumping into the computer would be cool.
John Hunter says...
Great post. I especially think the points on giving credit where credit is due is important.
I thought, when I read the title that you don’t owe anything to a blogger for just reading their blog. If you read it and enjoy it and don’t say thanks, that is fine. But if you use the ideas you should give credit. And in the online world that includes a link. That said saying that is always nice.
I also think people should use links to show appreciation. Bloggers actually do this a fair amount. Regular web sites are very stingy in this regard, which is a shame.
Bes says...
John, thanks for commenting. I really appreciate it. I am glad you find this post interesting.
I also think that if specific ideas are used for our benefit, ideas that were created by someone specifically on a specific blog and we know about it, giving credit should be more than just a voluntary thing. It can still be less than an obligation, but we can think that the other person will benefit also if we create a situation to allow both the idea-originator and ourselves to benefit from the idea. Do you think linking back is sufficient for a credit back to someone?
Many bloggers simply link to more popular blogs in order to get more quality links solely for the purpose of getting a higher search engine ranking. I also think such a thing is not always beneficial to the readers, and many readers [vice versa] doing the same is not always beneficial to the bloggers [keeping in mind that bloggers are readers also and vice versa].
Autocamp Dalmatia says...
One of the biggest advantages of the blog are comments. People can discuss about topics, give their impressions, experiences that could really help someone. Giving credit is tricky but if done right, very powerful method to animate commentators.