Do You Have a Great Comments Section? Tell Me About It
Credit: Bradley Gordon – CC BY 2.0
It seems like I can’t go a few days without someone with a decent sized audience talking about how bad online comments are. Of course, they say this in a comment posted online – a comment they want you to read.
A lot of these people think online comments should just go away. Others have ideas for how to fix comments. I like ideas. Some of them are good, some are interesting – but many wouldn’t result in any progress.
There isn’t any magic trick when it comes to great comment sections at well-trafficked websites. You have to want it. You have to hire people whose job it is to make your comment section great. Have rules and enforce them. You can’t half-heart it, be cheap or expect it to just “work.” There is no auto-pilot, set it and forget it solution. It’s work.
But that’s not what this post is about. What bothers me about some of these articles is they don’t adequately explain that there are plenty of great, amazing online comment sections on the web. They are out there and they aren’t a rare beast. I’ve seen them. I’ve helped create them. Do you manage one? I want to hear about it in the comments section here.
Just to provide some structure, let’s define a comments section as an area where people can leave comments that are attached to a blog post, news story, article, video, creative work or specifically referenced something (that seems pretty flexible). In other words, a community like KarateForums.com wouldn’t count. I love that community and I’m proud of it, but it’s not really a comments section in the sense that people mean when they say online comments are bad.
I usually don’t allow links you are affiliated with in the comments, but that doesn’t apply to this post. If you have a great comments section on your site, tell me about it. But don’t just tell me it’s great, tell me why. What have you done to encourage it? How do you manage it? What do you do behind the scenes that most people never know about? Why do you think you have attracted people who leave great comments? What else should people know? Tell me (and, as such, others) your story. I look forward to reading it.
Let’s not just slam online comments and talk about them when they are bad (and trust me, I know), let’s also highlight the great comment sections of the web and the people who work to make them a reality.
Pat,
I’ve struggled with this one for years. A rule of thumb that I heard regarding comments is that about 1% of your regular audience will leave a comment. Some of my most popular posts have zero comments. They get a lot of traffic but do not generate any comments. My most popular post been viewed over 7500 times has only 20 comments (3 or 4 are from me).
Most bloggers are part-timers. They have a day job and can’t respond to comments in a timely manner and that’s the key to building community. All the other tricks like asking a question at the end of your article, always ending a response with a question, and having “awesome” content are great but being there to respond is the most important.
I try to release content a few hours before my lunch time so I can take some time to engage while on lunch. If the needle doesn’t move then it could be days before I respond to someone’s comment.
It is what it is. I think my content is engaging but apparently it’s not enough to draw people to leave comments even when I specifically address my audience and make a request.
Cheers,
John
Hey John,
Thank you for the comment and for sharing your experience.
I think your comment illustrates the vast majority of comment spaces that exist: few comments, with most of them being OK or better in quality.
When we hear about comment spaces in the news, it is often negative and it is often about big comment spaces with tons of comments – which represent a tiny minority. You are in the majority, in this case.
Thanks,
Patrick