This is a guest post by Jeevan Jacob John from TechPupil.com.
One long and valuable comment is always better than 100 short and useless comments.
Comments are the life blood of a blog. They add more value and information to the article that you write. People have always placed importance on the number of comments (rather than the quality and length of each comment). The blogging world has always talked about getting more comments (the length and value of it didn’t really matter at all).
We, bloggers have used many different techniques to get more comments for our articles (Commentluv, Keywordluv are all examples of techniques that have already been used, a hundred times). That’s why these techniques aren’t so “good” now (so, we need to improve. We need to do more to get more comments).
In this blog post, we are going to talk about getting more (number of) valuable (and lengthier) comments from your active readers. We will also talk about the various techniques through which you can “keep” your loyal readers.
Note: To apply these techniques, you need to maintain a list (list of new and active commentators).
Give-n-Get NEW Comments!
Giveaways have always been popular. They help you to get more readers and comments for your blog. Run giveaways for your commentators. Reward them for their effort (yes, I know that there is nothing new in this. But, let me get to the best part). Run giveaways only for “new commentators” (In this giveaways, you can’t reward anyone who is already an active commentator at your site). Note: To run this giveaway, you need to have tracking plug-ins for your blog (IP Tracking and Comment Count).
Redirect your new commentator onto a special page (in which you tell them about the giveaway). You can do this through reply notification and thank you messages. Tell your new commentators that you reward him/her for being active on your site.
Retain Your Loyal Commentators!
Here comes the best part. Once the new commentator has been active for some time (say for a month), add him to your active commentators list. The next step in the process is to retain your loyal commentators. For your loyal commentators list, you can stop the giveaways and start “surprise” rewards.
Here is how it is going to work :-
- Tell your “new” loyal commentators that they are no longer “qualified” for your comment giveaways. You also need to tell them about the surprise rewards program (to ensure that the loyal commentators stay loyal).
- Run surprise giveaways every few months (don’t tell it your list). Run it and announce the winners (in a post or something).
Let me tell you why you should keep it as a surprise :-
You don’t need to run the contest/giveaway every month. Instead you could do it for every 2-3 months (be sure not to follow a pattern). This allows you to retain your loyal commentators, get more valuable comments and save money (you don’t need to spend on rewards, every month).
Get New Subscribers While Doing this!
Now, you can also apply the same techniques for getting new subscribers. For instance, you can run surprise giveaways for your loyal subscribers who actively participate in your list (by participating in list discussion etc.)
You can also get new subscribers by adding a twist to these techniques. You can convert your loyal commentators into loyal subscribers by telling them that the rewards are only for people who are on your list (or that you have special rewards for people who are on the list).
You can always read my article – How to awe your visitors to subscribe? to learn more techniques to get more subscribers.
Ensure The Value Of The Comments
Now, when you run comment giveaways, it is very common to get more spam. So, you need make sure that you mention quality of comments as a requirement for participating in the giveaways.
Let YOUR Comments Be Long!
As usual. If you want to get lengthy comments, you need to do so. Consider comments as Mini guest posts (you get the same benefits – saying that the site supports Commentluv and Keywordluv). Note: I thank Ryan for this idea. Write comments that are valuable and that trigger response. Ask questions in your comments. It is a good way to ensure replies.
So, Do You Get Long And Valuable Comments?
Use the techniques that I mentioned above. Just experiment with it. I can guarantee that you will get results. Also, let me know what strategies you are using to get long and valuable comments. Does your blog have a loyal commenter base? Are you trying to build one? Then the above techniques can surely help you.
I hope that you find my articles useful. Do let me know of your comments and thoughts about it. Thank you for reading! (If you don’t mind, please do share this post as I am participating in the guest blogging contest). Thanks!
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Great ideas, Jeevan. I am actually doing that for my subscribers list already, from time to time I give away some prizes to people who open my emails. Good thing that Aweber has that tracking option, lol. The strategy definitely works so I recommend everyone to try it out, it is worth the time.
Hey Brankica,
Thanks!
Yeah, I know. I am one among your email subscribers 🙂 I am glad that you found success with that, Brankica!
Anyways, thank you for the comment! Appreciate it!
Your ideas to get active comments are quite intelligible. Its better to run contest and rewards like best commentator of the week and surprise them with gifts.
Hey Jeevan! My commenting efforts have been seriously lacking of late. I agree with your synopsis however. On my blog, I get a lot of one liner comments, though they are on point they don’t add anything of value. My first year blogging I made the effort to reply to and acknowledge every comment like that. Now, though I still tend to approve the majority of them, I only reply to comments that are adding value and sparking some thought/opinion. A longer comment suggests someone is actually reading your content, and is now engaging you. We all know those one liners are mainly backlink grabs… something I’m so tired of! Never thought of a comment giveaway… interesting! Have a good one.
Hi Jeevan,
You present a whole new twist to rewarding readers who write long and valuable comments on blogs. Normally, it is enough for me to be rewarded for commenting by being featured as one of the top commentators in their blogs. I can’t say I’ve won any blog commenting contests though, just came in 3rd place that time.
Comments should be on topic , and meaningful which can read and understand by others . In this way the blogger and the commenter both can easily identify the difficulties and roots .
In addition to rewarding the readers or commentors with some surprize gifts, I think the post should be well written and at the end of the post, the writer should open the post for discussion. Seeking readers view on the subject or ask readers to share their experiences might do well.
Long thoughtful comments should be rewarded with recognition that the person has something to say and engagement with them. Not sure giveaway programs are as relevant as initial post content and follow-up discussion. I tend to check out the blogs of folks who have made meaningful remarks on my articles. Days, weeks months later I check back to see what they have written lately. Then, when I see a thought provoking post, I will comment.
Do you just give a portion of an info product away as a prize or do you write something separate?
While I think that long comments are great, the content should still be the main focus. I would rather have short comments because a conversation is going on in the comment section than very long comments. Still, longer comments are great.
Long and valuable comments are few and far between now. I’m am often faced with a large number of comments to approve and they are usually only a couple of words, some longer comments would be great. However i do value the content of comments more than the length.