C as in Community, Communication, Commenting
Starting from an article published by Eric at InternetDuctTape, Community Starts with Communication: 5 Tips to Building Your Readership, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts, as a blogger and as a reader, regarding the e-mail contact with commenters.
This is what Eric says from a reader’s perspective:
When I first started commenting over at okdork.com, Noah Kogan would personally reply to me by email. I thought this was a little strange, even after a year of blogging this was the first time it had happened to me. I thought it was just that he was bored and killing time. It’s only now that I understand the genius of his technique: by going out of his way to contact me he went from “nameless stranger on the interweb” to a person I had one to one conversation with.
So, Eric the reader was impressed so much, that Eric the blogger started using this technique on his blog. He also stresses out the importance of using hand-crafted responses, and not the automated ones made possible via some plugins. (However, Eric mentions the Comment Email Responder Wordpress plugin, which allows you to send a personalized email to a commenter and to publish your message as a comment on the blog as well.)
Do you e-mail your commenters? How often does it happen? Were you ever e-mailed by a blogger, following a comment you left on that blog? How did you feel?
noah says...
I think people forget how valuable their readers are. I think of them as friends. I also realize without them it would suck to write without comments. Kind of reminds me of that quote about if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it does it really fall. Or something like that….
Simonne says...
Hi Noah, it’s good to have you here. Lots of trees are falling every day, but we care only about the ones that we see or hear falling. Readers are the reason books, or newspapers, or blogs are written for.
Ronald Huereca says...
Simonne,
I usually do a combination. In the case of Ajax Edit Comments, most of the people I have e-mailed. Sometimes I do both since my e-mail may end up in their spam filter. If it’s a non-technical issue, usually I’ll just reply back. If it’s someone who has an issue with me or my article, I usually e-mail them personally to see what is up and offer to talk with them live on Skype or G-Talk.
This Reader Appreciation thing is definitely a thing that’s catching fire isn’t it? It’s just a natural extension of customer service onto the web.
Simonne says...
This is nice of you Ronald. I never thought to email my readers, but now it seems like a good idea. Actually I did not imagine that readers would feel appreciated if I contacted them. The first time I was contacted by a blogger, I was amazed, I did not understand why she did it. For me it was like reading a book, and getting contacted by the author. Nice and scary in the same time.