Blogging Social Interaction

Typically the advice given to increase the social interaction/engagement on blogs can be boiled down to:

• Post frequently with quality posts.
  • Be consistent with your posting frequency.
  • Make sure to edit posts for any glaring spelling, punctuation, grammar issues.
  • Go through past posts to see what posts had the most interaction; post similar posts.
• Like other bloggers posts.
  • Read the blog post first and if you like the content; like the post.
  • By liking the post it shows your support for the post and the author.
  • It gets you on the radar of that blogger and others.
• Comment on their posts.
  • By making meaningful comments other bloggers get to know you.
  • It also gets you and your blog noticed.
• Reply to comments posted on your blog.
  • By replying to comments on your blog you keep the conversation going.
  • It also shows engagement with your followers.
• Follow other blogs.
  • By following other blogs you can keep up with the blogs you like.
  • It also can result in that blogger checking your blog out.

All of it is to increase the social interaction on blogs; and ultimately the number of followers. Lately I have been running into blogs that have the like button and comment sections turned off.  Some of the reasons for turning them off:

• Cut down on what could be seen as spam likes.
  • From sites that could be considered spam/telemarketer websites/blogs.
  • The tit-for-tat blog post liking.
• Cut down on the spam comments.
  • Comments that have nothing to do with the post.
  • Comments that are the equivalent of, “great post check out my blog post”.
  • The tit-for-tat commenting.
• To be able to focus more on posting content.
  • Instead of thinking about, or focusing on, getting likes and comments the blogger is free to just post and move on.  If no post can get a comment or like then they don’t have to think about why a specific post didn’t, or what they could do to make the post more inviting to get comments and likes.
  • It also allows them to focus on interacting on other bloggers sites.

Below are three survey questions in regards to the like button, comments and following other blogs.

The Like Button Poll:

The Comment Poll:

The Follow Poll:

 

Would you every turn off the “like” and “comment” features of your blog?