Local Resolutions Part 21 of 29
This is the twenty-first in a series of 29 ways to help your local community online in 2010. If you missed it, you may wish to read the introductory post.
In this post, I suggest that leaving comments on local blogs is a great way to help strengthen your community while you’re online. This series has included recent posts about reviewing local restaurants and service providers, shopping local on Etsy, and sharing certain photos.
Today I saw yet another blog post titled “How to Get More Comments on Your Blog.”
Bloggers love them some comments
The post, by Alisa Bowman, mostly contained the usual warmed-over tips (bribe people, say something controversial, go off-topic, ask specific questions), but it was remarkable for her over-the-top description of how much bloggers love getting comments.
Bowman tells of her first post that “generated 23 comments. As the comments flowed in, I danced around my room saying, ‘Who-hoo. People really do read my blog. Who-ho. People love me.’ Let me tell you something. I. Did. Not. Want. To. Come. Down. From. That. 23 Comments. High.”
Yes, she described the sensation of getting blog comments as a “high.”
Preserving local assets
Learning that all it takes is comments to keep your community’s bloggers going is kind of like learning that all it takes is a few cups of water to keep your community’s park green.
Writing comments on blogs you already read is easy. And, by and large, comments are all it takes to preserve the local assets that bloggers are. If you offered me the choice between $50/week to blog or at least five comments on every entry I wrote, there would be no contest. It’s the comments that keep us inspired, on track, and ready to produce more.
Blog recommendations
If you’re not currently following any other Lancaster blog besides this one, here is a selection of what I read that are often specifically relevant to our geographic community and worth your time and attention (and comments!):
- SCORE Lancaster is the local chapter of the Service Corp of Retired Executives
- Matt Groff has a strong personality and good humor
- Brian Allain is almost always funny
- Lo-Fi Tribe is Shawn Anthony’s blog on a different sort of current-day Christianity
- Lancaster PA Real Estate Blog is Jeff Geoghan’s look at the county from a real estate agent’s perspective
- Lancaster from the Inn Side tells stories of tourists and a bed and breakfast
- The Traveling Food Critic is written by the Sunday News’s Lina Bierker
- Keystone Conservative covers Pennsylvania-wide politics but is edited locally by Ethan Demme
- Capitol Punmanship is also about local, state-wide, and national politics, by Tom Murse
- B.B. Bellezza tells of hand-made jewelry and crafts, by Kimberlie Burkhart
- Sara Bozich writes of things to do in the mid-state
- That’s What I Was Going To Say is Bryan Rutt’s blog on music
- The Mad African is Hiram Ring, musician and world traveler
Bloggers: Do you agree with me that you’d rather get comments than cash?
Readers: What other Lancaster blogs you recommend to others?
Related posts:
Thanks for linking to my blog (the Alisa Bownman post).
In addition to loving comments, bloggers also LOVE it when you link to them. So linking out to other relevant quality blog post is a great way to get noticed and make friends.
This may be the best post of this series so far, Daniel! And Gerald is correct – links also provide joy. If you as a reader don’t have a blog or site of your own on which to provide a link, sharing those quality blog posts on Facebook or Twitter, or through a social bookmarking site like StumbleUpon or Digg, is another way to recognize and reward your favorite bloggers. From my own experience, anything perceived as an “attaboy!” certainly causes me to grin like an idiot, and gives me motivation to write more.