How Comment Subscriptions Engage Blog Visitors

Do you drop comments on blogs and go your merry way? Or do you check back to see if the blog owner responded? The best way to show you're interested in a real dialog is to subscribe to post comments.

Replied to my comment yet?

Imagine the frustration of the blog owner who gives a meaty response  to your comment and never hears from you again. You may be missing out on some valuable information in her reply or in other readers' insights. All of this assumes you are somewhat selective in making comments and that you and the blog owner value interaction.

How can you tell if the blog owner wants to talk?

A couple of clues:

1. There is an option to subscribe to that post's comments.
   Just remember to check the box BEFORE you press the submit button.

   On Blogger if they use JS-Kit for comments you might see this:
   
   The rss icon signals that you will not receive an email notice, but a regular feed in your Google type reader or the browser's live bookmark.

2. There's a button to subscribe to ALL post comments.
   Often blogs on Blogspot don't have the individual post comment feature, so they use an rss icon and text link. The link can be on the side bar or after each post below the comment form. Subscribing to all comments lets you eavesdrop on all converstions and pick out any that affect you. Just remember the all feature does not send you an email. You must use a reader or your browser's  feeder.
   

What is our position at Blogging With Success?

We use the WP plugin, Subscribe to Comments 2.1, which has the option to subscribe to individual post comments. Our replies are often made after we visit your blog and we attempt to personalize our comments. So naturally,  if we leave a suggestion and don't hear back, we know you forgot to subscribe!  After all, you're too busy to keep checking back to see if there is another comment!

In WordPress the writers see the email associated with each comment. We can look at the comments subscription list and see if your email is there.  If not, then for new commentators we send a personal email alerting you to look at our reply.  Now you can save us the trouble if you press that little button --- WordPress sends you an automatic notice to your email.

We will track you down if we think you can benefit from new information in the replies! Call us crazy. But not everyone will go to those lengths, so don't miss out on comment replies. If you own a  blog, add one of the features and remind your readers to get on your comments subscription.

image  - by DailyPic