The Reader Invasion
Most of the personal bloggers I know place a very high value on being responsive to their readers. When the numbers become too great, it’s hard to adjust your expectations of yourself and do only what you can.
This insightful quote comes from Lani Giesen from Blogging Personal. Lani asks, “How much traffic is too much?”
Lani further equates a personal blog as a sanctuary: a living room where a reader can sit down and have a drink. However, when that living room gets too crowded, the conversation is no longer tolerable. The individual reader isn’t getting that personalized attention anymore.
I share Lani’s analogy on my own personal blog. I don’t post there everyday (not lately anyways), but I am thankful for the readers who take time to post their thoughts on my thoughts. I’ve even geared my masthead image to show that I’m just sitting down and relaxing with my readers.
But Not All Blogs Are Personal Blogs
A question I’ve been asking myself lately is: can reader appreciation only be applied on smaller blogs?
In other words, when a blog take off and attracts hordes of readers, is reader appreciation no longer possible? Does the blogger have to put out the number counter and put a sign up that says, “Take a number”?
It’s a question others have asked recently as well.
Mark Ghosh from Weblog Tools Collection asks, “Who comments on blogs, and why?” Mark’s blog is extremely popular and shows up in almost every WordPress dashboard. He also has more than 9,000 feed subscribers.
One of the readers here, Sue @ TameBay, responded to Mark’s question:
I don’t comment if I have to register, and I tend not to comment on blogs that regularly have hundreds of comments per post; the commenters there tend to have their own little community and it’s very difficult to be a nooob interrupting that.
And Mark’s response:
Sue: I am glad you said it and it makes a lot of sense. My question for you is, how does a blog with a lot of comments make new commenters feel more welcome?
Sue’s comment set off a nice conversation about how difficult it is for a blog with a lot of comments to make new readers feel welcome. And I admit it is rather difficult.
In another example, Vivien (one of our readers and contributors) asked John from I Love Typography (an extremely popular blog) a question regarding his readers:
gosh, John, I really admire your dedication in answering every single comment on your site. I bet it took you longer to write this detailed reply to everyone above than to many bloggers it takes to write and publish a post. Thank you.
And John’s response:
Thanks, Vivien. I’m impressed that you and so many others take the time to leave a comment. It’s a pleasure to read and respond to them.
John’s response is quite priceless in the area of reader appreciation.
RA Project and the Reader Invasion
I’ll be the first to admit that RA Project is not the most popular blog out there, but I like the atmosphere this blog brings. And hopefully it’s a place where readers like you feel comfortable.
We may not be a living room, but at least we can be a comfortable coffee shop with free WI-FI. 
Reader Appreciation? On Popular Sites?
This is a question for you: do you experience reader appreciation on only less popular blogs? Have you seen bloggers on popular sites going out of there way for their readers? If so, please let me know about it. It would be nice to write a spotlight post with some of the bloggers mentioned.
Thank you for reading and for being a reader of RA Project.
Sue @ TameBay says...
how does a blog with a lot of comments make new commenters feel more welcome?
Unsurprisingly, I’ve been thinking about it too. It’s difficult. I think there are two aspects to achieving this:
Firstly, the blogger. If you have a zillion commenters, it’s hard to notice a newbie. Even with our relatively small circle, we have a LOT of “Mark”s - if we have a new commenter called Mark, I’m likely to assume they’re an existing Mark unless they leave a URL too. I’d love to see a tweak to Comment Relish or a new plugin, that would notify *me* so that I could welcome the newbie in the comments (rather than spamming them).
But the bigger problem is the other commenters. They don’t have the vested interest in reader appreciation, and how you say to them “if someone’s a newbie, don’t go for the jugular”? I don’t know. On some of the blogs I was thinking of when I wrote the comment, the regulars have got so used to each others’ pet issues, and their arguments are so well-rehearsed, that a newbie is almost like ‘fresh meat’ to play with.
Lani says...
I think your two examples show that reader appreciation can (and does) happen on popular blogs, but perhaps not always the individual response to every comment. In some ways, I think that when things get to that size, and you have to limit yourself, the same etiquette that moves people to comment, moves the blogger to respond. ie; They have something substantive to say, or wish to express gratitude for what a particular commenter has posted. Then the rest can be addressed generally.
I also think that as your blog grows, it becomes harder to reciprocate visits and comments, which is another thing personal bloggers place a high premium on, and also a form of appreciation. If you can’t do everything, I think occasionally writing and appreciative post is a nice thing to do too. On my personal blog, it is just getting to the point where I can’t keep everyone straight in my head, which is made more difficult by having multiple projects, so I’m trying to set up a system for myself which reminds me of the appreciative tasks I need to do, along the the line’s of Jon Dyer’s process for links. (How To Reward Your Fans (And Make The Web A Nicer Place))
As far as commenting goes, I think the more comments there are already, the more substantive we feel our comment needs to be, especially if we are newbies. So if someone braves the crowd and if we can’t respond to everyone, making an effort to respond to new commenters should probably be a priority.
I think I’ve now written half a post in response, so you must be doing a great job with your coffee shop atmosphere! As for other popular bloggers who do reader appreciation well, I really like Chris Garrett. There isn’t always a personal response, but his responses are meaningful and I find the tone of all his work very inclusive.
Thank you for the link, Ronald, and for this post.
Ronald Huereca says...
Hey Sue,
Check out my post on automated methods of appreciation. You can modify the Comment Relish plugin to e-mail you instead.
Ronald Huereca says...
@Lani,
I agree that it’s really difficult to keep up with commenter on a more popular blog. I write for WeblogToolsCollection, and usually I only respond to comments if they directly reference me. Otherwise it’s a little much.
On my personal blog there are times I don’t respond as well. If all I can think to say is “thanks for your comment” I usually don’t respond. I’d like to have something meaningful to add, just like my reader did. I appreciate you bringing that up in your comment as well.
Thanks for bringing me to the attention of Chris Garrett’s blog and also Jon Dyer’s post. Chris does do a good job of responding to his readers.
I’ll have to think about this some more. I liked Sue’s point about all the different Mark’s out there and how to be able to tell them apart. We have Gravatars enabled here, so that helps, but maybe there’s a better way.
You’re welcome on the link and the post
Sue @ TameBay says...
Aha, brilliant! Thanks Ronald, I’ll be editing Comment Relish this afternoon