Visit
Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park and listen to the
genius ramblings articulated by some of our greatest and most intellectual whackos. You’re guaranteed an anti-war debate
and some absurd religious rant. But this
symbol of our democratic rights is not just a soapbox for one person to let off
steam but an open platform for tourists or visitors to respond. I’ve witnessed some great intellectual
debates, often heated, taking place here. Many visitors stand quietly or mutter under
their breath, but many also participate in the debate. Despite the audience and
the challenging topics visitors are eager to engage in this two way
communication channel.
So why do so
few people interact with a blog by leaving a comment. There is an element of anonymity when adding
a comment so shyness is no excuse.
And there’s no lack of passion or controversy sparked by the posts as I
regularly overhear them being discussed. So why do only 1% of readers leave a comment?
What makes a
reader add a comment? Maybe I should
start by looking at Flynny’s debut post as she’s clocked up an admirable 5
comments at the time of writing this post.
Is there an art to generating comments?
Darren Rowse
wrote an interesting post ’10 techniques top get more comments on your blog’
In brief he
recommends the following techniques to increase participation rate: -
·
Invite
comments
·
Ask
questions
·
Be
open ended
·
Interact
with comments left
·
Set
boundaries
·
Be
humble
·
Be
gracious
·
Be
controversial?
·
Reward
comments
·
Make
it easy to comment
Aha – so
that’s why this post is titled ‘Do we need .Net developers?’ - an attempt to be controversial.
Some further
techniques to encourage participation include: -
·
Coercion
·
Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you i.e. add comments to other posts
and they’ll reciprocate
·
Don’t
force a reader to register/ login in order to comment
·
Judge
your reader base
·
Link from your post to someone else's blog or post
·
Email persons and encourage them to add comments a gentler form of coercion.
Any other techniques you can recommend to turn lurkers in to serial-commenters?