The Importance of Commenting and Replying
The Importance of Commenting
And Replying
And Replying
If I said it once, I'd say it a thousand times, commenting is one of the best ways to engage with the Steem community, get to know your favorite content creators better, bring some awareness to your blog and maybe even make a few bucks. For a long period, I used to make more on comments than on posts.
If you’re in your early stages and you still don’t have so much support on your blog commenting and engaging with people on the chat is the way to do it, that’s how I started, and that’s exactly how many others, even whales, have started before. After all, the first Steemian that showed me the way and told me about commenting is @papa-pepper, in this interview I took him in my first week here.
If you want to see some new success stories take a look at @dedicatedguy, who joined about one month ago and he’s already killing it, working his ass off, engaging with so many people.
Replying
I’m seeing this all the time, people getting great comments on their posts but they are not responding them, and it’s so sad because they can miss on a great conversation, friend and maybe even a consistent supporter of their blog. Of course, this does not apply to whales who get tens or even hundreds of comments; it's quite impossible to respond all of them in their case.
I used to reply every single comment, and since I joined @sndbox my blog went through the roof, and now I’m getting a lot of comments. I’m still trying to respond all of them but since there’s that thing call life that takes up a lot of my time I may miss on some. I have a few posts from this week that I have to go back and reply the comments because that’s how I want to run my blog, even if it’s not always easy.
What’s fantastic about this is that if you regularly reply to comments you can gain some authentic followers, there are a few people like @bitdollar, @dedicatedguy, @gniksivart and @cabernet who rarely miss any of my posts and always give me valuable feedback. Because I appreciate their comments so much, I try to get on their blog and curate and comment on some of their posts but that is not always possible since my time, and my VP is limited, being part of @ocd eats up about half of my VP.
Also, there are people like @revisesociology who come now and then and give excellent comments thus they make a great first impression that is hard to forget. I searched @revisesociology on discord and gave him a link to the Be Awesome community created by @whatamidoing, to join me there and chat more.
If I wouldn’t reply their comments, engage with them, probably they would not be that active on my blog anymore; thus I would’ve missed on some fantastic peeps and conversations. I don’t always get to reply all of the comments but I read all of them, and I try to make time to give them a decent reply.
Conclusion
If your blog is doing well and you receive some comments I urge you to try to reply all of them; you never know where the next comment may take you. If you’re not there yet then regularly comment on other people’s post until they notice you, who knows, maybe you will gain a valuable follower. But don’t do all of the things I mentioned above because you want to make money but because you want to connect with people.
I was fortunate enough to meet and connect with so many Steemians in my early stages and looking back now because I did that, I was presented and nominated for projects like @OCD and @Sndbox. I received constant support on my posts from people like @Lexiconical, @Nikez452 and @dontstopmenow, but maybe most importantly I got to make a lot of quality friends like @Acidyo, @anomadsoul, @mk40, @meanmommy33, @whatamidoing, @macchiata and many others. There are so many people I could mention, but the post would become too long then.
In the end, Steem is a social media network, and the only way to prosper is if you connect with people and there are plenty quality ones you can connect with.
The pictures are from Pixabay: 1, 2, 3, 4.
Great post! For me, as a new member, the community seems very large... What (Discord) channels do you recommend for (us) new people to join, so we can engage/meet with the members of the community?
That is a great, great question; I'm glad you asked since I feel that more people need to know about this. I wrote a whole post about Communities about two months ago, feel free to check it out here and give me a ping when you get in. ;)
Thanks! I'll check it out!
It hurts, I'm just a "commenter on your blog", but not yet reached friendship status. ;)
I'll get there one day! Definitely jealous of your decision to take profit on some Steem. I took profit on some, but could have done more and bought some cheap today! Hindsight is 20/20 I guess.
Shared with an IRL friend @captenredbeard who is just starting on Steemit as this is great advice.
Lol man, not at all, just that with your latest support I felt like it was better to add you in that category, I could've listed a lot of friends, but I limited to a few, the ones I know from the beginning, for the sake of the length of this post. :)))
After all, it seems like it was a good call to buy some BTC, I'll wait until Steem drops, even more, to buy back, this is still expensive as shit.
Huh, IRL you say? Glad I'm not from the USA, haha, just kidding. I hope this post will help him. :D
Thanks for the mention 😄 Resteeming this cuz this is some quality advice. Amazing how everything has become all about networking and relationships in today world; reality or virtually.
Thank you, I appreciate that. :D
Haha, yeah, we live in a crazy but beautiful world. :))
Totally agree. Commenting, replying and voting on comments is one of the best ways to keep users on the platform. Exactly what we need. Today I used some of my voting power on posts with the "introducemyself" tag, which is a great way to get new users off to a great start.
Exactly, I always used to say that I couldn't leave Steem even if I would want to because I'm already too rooted in its communities. :)))
It is great indeed, but there are so many people giving up on Steem even after a well-paid introduction post, I don't get them. I'm usually using my VP on @OCD nominations, curating comments, loyal followers, and projects that I support like @Sndbox and @SPL.
That's awesome! Voting on comments on ones blog is a must, and I also try to vote on at least 25 % of posts on my feed. I have to check out sandbox and SPL though.
Exactly my thoughts. I like to reward people, even if it's not a lot, for their engagement. I feel like it's the right thing to do since it may motivate them to be more active in the future too. I still have to go more through my feed. :)
I didn't bother with a formal introduction, but now that I've been here for almost a week, I'm seeing more and more people talking about it, so it must be a big deal and I feel like I should put it at the top of my to do list
Do it ;)
Just did!
You are right dude, engaging with the community is key in order to enjoy our stay here in steemit.
I saw a great phrase I don’t remember in which post that said something like ”in steemit, you come for the money, and stay for the community”
Which also makes sense because any person curious / smart enough to be on steemit at its early stage must surely be an interesting individual :D
I think this is a great was of putting it as well. The possible money is what brought me here, but instead of trying to think of posts that could make a ton of it, I find myself genuinely interested in what other people have to say. There are SO many interesting people here and there's so much you can learn and discover. I feel like I should have The Reading Rainbow song playing here lol!
I think that phrase is stated in the greeting guide people stumble upon when they join Steem. That statement is as true as it can get. :)
Thanks for sharing, buddy. Most of this should already be common sense but thanks for giving all of us a reminder 😉
It should, but most of the people are missing on the engagement part, focusing too much on making money, sadly. Thank you. :)
unfortunately that is exactly what is happening... many just throw in "content" without replying or valueing the steemians how actually took the time to read or comment on their post... no good behaving
Yeah, it's always sad to see that. Also, there's another category, those that post great content but no one knows about them because they are not engaging. That's not healthy either.
very true ... but am glad the @ocd-witness - team is doing a great job in this regards finding good content and trying to spread the word for them... that might educate the creator of the posts too and help them to get better.
Feel that, I love the @OCD team, it's like my second family. It's not always easy to find gems, but it is well worth it to reward quality Steemians and quality posts. :)
very true my friend... couldn´t put it in better words
Spot on. Good comments can go a long way toward getting you noticed.
Yes they can, I've seen it happen so many times, I don't know why people don't take advantage of this opportunity. :)
Somehow I can't disagree here, while I'm probably the worst kind of non-commenter there is. I blog and rarely read other people's writings, or comment on them. (That's the truth really... Can't seem to find time to do it all, furthermore I feel awkward at making new friends. It's just me though, not anyone elses fault.)
Anyway, I recognize why anyone should start by commenting. That's how you make your first contact, the first impression if you will. I'm personally making a slow progress because I have concentrated on blogging only, and that can be seen. Anyway it's still a progress and I can't complain. ;)
Cheers to anyone who already knows me, and to those who don't equally! :)
I get you, I know it's not easy to keep up with the comments but I see it as a healthy habit to have. Well, you are at least curating the comments from your post, so even if you're not extending this engagement on the whole platform, you're active there.
Commenting is a great way to meet Steemians, that's exactly how I got to meet you and got into photography, which I actually dropped out because I wasn't that good and I preferd to focus on what I'm already good at and I love doing. Maybe I'll get back into photography later, until then I'll just enjoy pictures.
Cheers back to you, 2018 to the moon. ;)
There is always something to take away from your post. Commenting is one thing I am sure not doing enough. I joined also in December but I have seen some accounts come in after me and the rate at which they comment is amazing. It sure reflecting in their growth. Guess I need to put more fuel. Thank you for your great contents.
I'm with you. I'm one that sees both sides of most things and doesn't like to talk if there's no point for me to make. I also don't like repetition, so if I see another comment that's in line with what I'm thinking, I find I physically nod (because everyone can see me, right? lol) then I scroll on instead of repeating it. I also lack social skills unless there's room for sarcasm or dry humor, so I try to be careful with that as well.
I'm delighted to hear that you feel this way, I'm happy that my article help, even a bit, people. I know the feeling, no matter how much you work there will always be some people that will take off quicker since they either have more resources or are just luckier. ;)
I completely agree. I wrote a post awhile back about what Steem is missing and how a huge amount of interaction on Reddit is actually comments. Many times, the best part of a Reddit post is the comments.
I have been trying pretty hard to up vote comments on my posts and other peoples posts. People seem to be too stingy with their up votes, only up voting posts for the curation rewards or whatever they think is gonna happen.
I think there is a lack of interaction on Steemit that needs to be worked on!
Agreed, Steem is missing the comment interaction, but we still don't have a big active user base, last time I checked out we were around 10k, now it might be more like 20k, but we're still only a few.
That's a great habit to develop, I'm upvoting the comments on my posts too, even if I don't have so much SP, I still give what I can. :)
Let's hope that people will interact more in the future. :D
Yeah, I have also started to flag the people that make comments that don't make any sense and were obviously just comment farming. I have been thinking about making a bot that followers comment farmers and either down votes them or comments on them that this is a copy/paste post and they didn't actually read your post.
Not sure how liked that bot would be though haha.
I hate those people; they are so annoying. I think that people would appreciate a bot like that, I know that @patrice is doing some similar work with her bots and it is well received by the community. You should do it. ;)
Awesome! I will have to look at @patrice and support her! Thanks for the info @guyfawkes4-20
Thanks! You can find me on steemit.chat or Discord. Drop me a DM when you find comment farms that don't seem to be downvoted by @mack-bot or @spaminator.
Commenting and then flagging them if they don't stop to remove the rewards are one of the things @spaminator does.
Awesome! This is great to know. I will definitely be sending you some messages in the future.
Thanks Patrice!
-BiasNarrative