This was going to be just one post but it seems that I got a little carried away and think I'll have to extend it into a mini series. Hope you enjoy it - and find it useful.
A big part of being a better blogger, for me, is visiting and reading other blogs and participating in the blogging community which, by virtue, means that commenting is an integral part of this process:
Last Autumn Amy of Wolf Whistle set herself the target of leaving 500 comments a month. At IFB Ashe Mischief took up the challenge too and called other bloggers to do the same. I decided to follow Grechen's lead and took the happy medium option and challenged myself to leave 10 comments a day.
I wrote about the subject of comments in a recent Friend Friday post, in which I referenced Chelsea's (of Dear Winnie) great post on the same topic in which she laid out her own 4-step plan to writing the perfect comment.
When taking up this challenge I was conscious that my 10 comments a day would not be two-word, "great post" comments that were effectively meaningless. It seemed I was not alone, Amy told Ashe:
"I promised myself when I started this that I wouldn’t leave comments such as ‘Nice blog!!!’ as I generally feel that these type of comments are a bit of a let down."
While Ashe concluded that she would:
"leave 250 meaningful, thoughtful, useful comments."
Earlier this year, Ashe revisited the comment challenge at IFB and asked:
How did it go? Was it more challenging than you expected?
Did you find many new blogs to visit? Build up any new friendships, find a lot of duds, or something in between?
Did you sustain the momentum and keep going? Have you built up new blogging habits from doing the comment challenge? Are you more or less active at commenting now?
In response, I didn't find it challenging so much as time consuming - when I have a quiet week, it is easy to leave more than the target of 10 a day but when I have a busy week or two, it get difficult to leave even 10 comments a week.
I found straightaway that in order to leave enough comments I have had to go on the hunt for new blogs to read. It's been good to have a purpose to find good blogs that compel me to leave meaningful comments.
Like Ashe, I didn't do this to increase traffic, or to get more comments on my blog but that has been a rather pleasant side effect. However, despite it not being my principle reason for undertaking the challenge, if I have visited a blog and I have commented on posts for a month or two and not heard anything back from the blogger (a reply to a comment, a comment on my blog, or a tweet) I do still think twice about returning to said blog.
I'm not so strict as I was about 10 comments a day but I do still comment as much as possible and visit those blogs that I have discovered over the past six months.
Did you take up the comment challenge? How did you find it? If not, do you have any sort of a strategy for commenting on other blogs?