I’m not an expert on blogging. I just like to blog – to share my thoughts with others. While websites are great for providing factual information, blogs allow a certain degree of freedom of thought. Another benefit of blogging is the interaction. Other people can comment which leads to expanded ideas – great – if you can get comments!
There are so many blog posts and tips and guides about how to write blogs and how to get people to comment on your blog. Maybe these tips work, maybe not. Some of my thoughts:
- People comment when you least expect them to, just like twitter and facebook – it’s not always the most profound ideas that generate comments.
- People comment at the source of the blog recommendation. I tweet about my blogs. People tweet their comments back to me. They don’t comment at the blog site.
- People (ie. me) give up commenting when it is too hard – having to sign in, become a member etc. They may have something to say but it will never be heard.
- Blog comments are a great networking resource. Leaving contact details with your comment can be a great way to expand networks and drive traffic to your own sites.
- Sometimes we read bogs but don’t know what to say. In counselling you learn when you don’t know what to say, to simply say “I don’t know what to say”. We don’t do that when reading blogs for fear of sounding silly.
- Does sounding silly worry us so much that we don’t comment at all?
- People like to lurk. To be nosy. It’s human nature, to look at what others are doing, saying, how they behave, how they blog. No words are necessary.
- As a blogger, you know people are there. Analytics & subscriber numbers tell you. Sometimes it would be nice if the lurkers would just say hello
I read lots of blogs. I don’t usually leave comments: I didn’t want to be the first; I didn’t want to sign in; My comments might be silly… All sorts of excuses.
Now I realise that I have to change. Time to comment. Perhaps karma will lead others to comment on my blogs. If not, at least I am building my networks and helping bloggers feel that someone is out there.
Would you like to comment?
Good blog Jo - interesting and you are right too. I don't mind beng the first to comment even if I don't have much to say except "Well done"!
Hi there. I read on your website an answer to a question of why dogs perform coprophagia, and is correct in many instances. There are other reasons as well. I recently learned that one of my dogs may be possibly eating stranger dogs' stools due to a protein deficiency. That she could be not digesting her food all that well and not absorbing the macro nutrients properly, due to her villi possibly being damaged. In this case, digestive enzyme supplements may resolve the problem. Anyway, she never ate her own stool, nor her house mate's (My other dog). Only sometimes, at stools found in parks etc. I've been adding some supplemental enzymes in her food (Although she eats mainly raw which has naturally occurring enzymes), recently, and will test that theory out in the next month or so. I rescued her and kept her since she was 2 years old at the time and so I don't know what her diet was prior. I also read in your answer, that you consider Purina Pro Plan and One as a super premium food. I couldn't disagree more! It's kibble being dead and as far away from Nature's evolutionary intentional diet as possible. Not to mention that it is made up of cheap filler like grains and corn, which a dog was never designed to break down and digest properly. Since they lack the amylase salivary enzyme unlike us, and who don't munch on their food unlike us, and who have much shorter digestive tracts than us. But I'm sure you know all this being a Zoologist. I realise that Purina and Hills etc have funded numerous studies to prove their food ingredients are safe and beneficial. I know that most people want the convenience and just don't care enough, with the attitude that a dog's just a dog, but is not my attitude. A dog should be eating a diet as Nature intended. One indisputable and unequivocal fact is that Mother Nature can not be disproved that dogs have evolved and are designed to eat the diet of it's mitochondrial DNA shared wolf. That being high meat source protein and low carbohydrates. And no carbohydrates from high GI foods such as grains, but instead from vegetable and fruit matter, semi digested just like they are when found in tripe of the wolf's herbivorous ungulate prey. Many experts also believe such high sugar spiked kibble diets cause some of the bad canine behaviour. Just sharing some of my beliefs and opinions.