Over the last year or so I have noticed that comments on blog posts even extremely popular ones have become few and far between. This has bothered me more than you can possibly understand because I truly enjoy the discussion that flows in a good comment thread. I actually take the time to read each response and try to offer my own perspective on the commentators insight.
Therefore, I have spent the recent weeks and months researching the issue and I have arrived a one solitary conclusion. The conversation has moved from the blog to social media. In addition as a result of the Facebookification of the world people are resorting to the ‘like’ effect.
“Perhaps people are just afraid to leave comments?”
What this means is that if I share the link and title of an article on Facebook, then people will ‘likel the link and possibly reshare it there. Additionally they will discuss the article in their Facebook circles and not on the actual blog where the article originally appeared. This is a great travesty because the social site is sapping the life out of the blogs that share content. Ultimately as bloggers become disenchanted with their blogs there will be less interesting content shared and the parasite that is Facebook will continue to starve from the meaningless drivel that most people post on the network.
Now to say that this is entirely a Facebook phenomena would be completely inaccurate at best. A similar situate has evolved on Twitter where people will retweet your shared link and title sometimes adding a hashtag as a comment on the article. Other times they will share and reply to your share with a comment about the shared post. Essentially the same effect as the aforementioned ‘Like.’
Then there’s GooglePlus which is essentially the same situation as Facebook, however; in lieu of like’s we have +1’s. If I share an article on g+ odds are most people will only +1 the share some will comment on the post but at this point in time there is not commentary filtering back into the article.
And then there’s LinkedIn. Wash rinse repeat. It’s all the same.
The problem is that those of use who take the time to craft interestingly insightful content are being robbed of the feedback we need to continue developing said content in the first place. The state of the social internet has done more to kill blogging than any other system before.
Ultimately, the bottom line is that people are like electricity following the path of least resistance. Why comment on a blog post where the author may take offense, when I can just reshare it to my close circle of friends, who think and believe as I do, to be part of the conversation. Why should I risk offending the rest of the internet?
So what do you think? Is it just that people are afraid to leave comments? Or are the various social media networks parasitically killing their fresh content hosts?
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I think that the only answer is to go with the flow, you can’t
change your message to suit the trends so much anymore. It is best
to claim your internet real estate on as many social media channels
as you have time for, then spend a little time on each. If your
message is good, it probably doesn’t matter where your Tribe forms.
For example if your FB page is very active but you are not getting
blog comments, I think it is best to spend more time on FB, it
might be worth putting a footnote at the end of a blog post saying
that they can leave a comment, but the FB page is more lively. I am
not an expert, just thinking out loud really…
The problem with Facebook is the recent pay to play model that they
have surreptitiously slipped in the back door. I’ve read a lot on
commentary about fb page posts not appearing in people’s timelines
because fb wants $.
I never leave comments anymore on a blog but for this one due to
the content I will. It is a tough thing. Where social media has
helped us grow at the same time it has its limits… So do we stop
using social media and hope that our blog alone will get hits or do
we take the good with the bad. That is the question.
No I don’t think we should stop using social media. I do think that
we as content providers have to choose wether or not we wish to
follow the conversation threads or sit in happy isolation of our
blogging towers.
Totally.. leaving a comment is like tipping your server. I think
social media just makes it easier to comment sometimes, between
disqus, livefyre, and comment forms… also the lack of instant
gratification when a comment goes into “moderation”. Nevertheless,
as a blogger I try to comment frequently because I know it feels
good to get them!
I think that moderation is the best way to fight the spam, as long
as people who comment regularly get auto approved once they
establish a presence. That’s how we have the Etsy blogs setup,
sadly I forget if I did the same here yet, so I will have to dour
check. As for disqus & livefyre I have to admit there systems
always felt half baked. There’s just so much missing.