Stuff on Sundays: Do You Like Me?

If there is something that all book bloggers have in common, it is the desire for people to like us, well more specifically like our blogs, and to prove that they do by following us via GFC or RSS, retweeting our reviews or discussions and commenting on our posts. While some bloggers actively and even obsessively, tally the numbers of page hits and followers, others  are more relaxed about it but probably (like me) get a secret thrill as the numbers creep up.

As a free wordpress blog the GFC (Google Friend Connect) widget has never been an option for me and I admit that initially I was envious of the visual popularity status the sidebar feature bestowed. It didn’t take me long though to realise that GFC numbers mostly had more to do do with giveaway requirements than actual admiration for the blog and to be honest I was glad to be freed from the tyranny of the gadget. That’s not to say I didn’t want followers though, and so I succumbed to the lure of ‘follow me’ memes and  contests in those first few months and I established several alternative ways for visitors to follow me through Facebook, Twitter, Feedburner, networked blogs etc..

My aim though, was to hopefully find people within those memes and giveaways who might be interested enough in my blog to visit independently.  I found perhaps a handful or two but mostly I never heard from most participants between one meme or giveaway post and the next and while I would diligently visit and comment (meaningfully) on around 50 blogs each week the return on those visits was negligible in comparison.  It took me a while but I realised I was targeting the wrong audience, the memes I took part in were dominated by YA bloggers so it was understandable they weren’t interested in my blog.  Eventually I found a meme  that had participants with similar reading tastes to mine and since then, the blog has become interactive.

It’s not just a result of the meme though,  I do make an effort to cultivate relationships. I reply to comments made here on the blog and I visit the blogs of the people who leave a comment for me. I visit a random assortment of blogs regularly with the express  intention of leaving comments and my personal policy is if I read a post, I comment, or in some other acknowledge that I was there (the WordPress Like Button comes in handy here).

*If you visit but don’t comment or click that Like button I have no idea you were here and can’t repay the visit *

While follower numbers are nice they only indicate someone visited your blog once,  what I value most are the people who visit regularly, especially those who let me know they stopped by. During BBAW last year I posted some suggestions for making interaction easier and I have been taking my own advice. As bloggers panic at the prospect of losing the GFC,  I am actually thankful it is disappearing because I think the widget discourages ongoing interaction between bloggers. I admit that I am sometimes still disheartened by the ratio of page views to comments (about 1 to 100),  though that makes the comments I do receive even sweeter.

Still, I’m sort of at a loss on how to encourage more comments. The Stuff on Sunday posts aim to promote discussion and interaction and I have been considering adding explicit questions to my reviews in the hopes it might prompt replies.  I already have all the Share This buttons and the WordPress Like Button so readers can easily acknowledge they read a post even if they had nothing in particular to say.

While I wrote this post early in the week (prompted by Sean’s comment on last Sundays post), yesterday Parajunkee’s Book Blogging 101 post popped up in my RSS Reader and it seems she is discussing the same topic. A quick read of her post and comments suggests one of the main barriers to comments is Captcha (or similar) which I have to agree with. As a WordPress blog its not an issue for me but posting on Google Blogs is often a nightmare. Most of the time it wont let me use my OpenId or WordPress ID to post so I have to post using my blogger alias, sometimes the comment errors out and is lost to the ether, other times it just refuses to let me post altogether or its a three step process of reloads to comment so that it takes forever. Aside from that it seems most bloggers feel they do not receive enough comments,  but what I find interesting about that, is that in the same breath they write they are too busy to comment themselves.  Anyway, while Parajunkee is asking how you encourage people to comment on your posts, my question is a little different.

I want to know what stops you from leaving a comment on, or acknowledging a post?  Think about it and let me know!