There’s definitely one thing I envy about WordPress bloggers and that’s that they can reply by email to their commenters. I’ve been searching around Blogger for something similar and haven’t found it. I can’t tell you how cool it is to get a personal comment from a blogger I’ve left a comment for. Coast Rat and The Angel Forever are a couple that come to mind. And AFRo. That girl answers everybody.
And? I feel like a bad commenter here. In the past a couple of times I’ve answered a commment in MY comment section, but what if that reader never comes back to read it? I can’t decide if answering comments here is a wash or not.
But I do read EVERY comment on my blog. Know that. And sometimes I’ll venture to your blog to respond, but also know I feel like a dork because it can’t be more personal.
I don’t know which option is the best to do, but from here on out I’m vowing to do better.
There are two keys to being able to reply to Blogger comments. 1) You have to have your comments set to be emailed to you. 2) The commenter has to have their email address set to visible.
I try to reply when I can, but sometimes I fall behind and just can’t get to it. I do wish Blogger would make it easier, though. I get tired of asking people to enable emails on their side. *sigh*
Thanks for the shout out
I used to reply to everything within the comment section. Then I realized that people often do not head back to check the replies. I then begged my webmaster/hubby to fix the problem with my auto e-mail comment option and have been using that ever since. There are still times that I will reply within the comments, but I also will cut and paste those to the original person as well.
All you can do is test things out and see what works best for you.
If you comment back on your blog, most of the time, your commenters will catch on and begin coming back to check. The only problem for me is being consistent with it because I’m banned at work.
When your readers catch on to you commented back on your blog, your hits will jump. I promise.
Hey Mandy:
Thanks for mentioning me. I DO respond to every comment via email, so I know you will get it. Sometimes I won’t be able to respond right away, if I am away from the computer working on a house, but I will respond just as quickly as I can. I seldom go back and check comments on another blog I made, primarily because I normally just don’t have that precious time to do so. Well, you can always come over to WordPress… It’s not perfect, but overall, it does a pretty good job.
I’m also a bad comment responder. I’m really considering going wordpress just for the comment responder bennefit. I’m sure that Blogger will get on the ball with that in the next century, kinda like they did with the future post thing.
There are ways to respond via blogger. The moon has to be perfectly alligned with Neptune, but it has been known to happen.
It sounds like Burgh Baby’s Mom has it figured out. I also think that, not only does the commentor have to have their e-mail visible, but they have to be receiving their comments on their e-mail as well. Even still, it’s sporatic on blogger.
If I hit a wall and can’t respond by e-mail, I usually go to their place and leave a note saying thanks for stopping by. I’m affraid to leave something related to their comment because then that just gets confusing for everyone. It’s definitely not as fun…
Thanks Burgh Baby…that’s definitely helpful. There is still so much to learn about Blogger.
TAF- That WordPress plugin is awesome! I hope Blogger will get on the ball with one soon.
AFRo- I’m going to try it your way and see if it works. It is easier, for sure.
CoastRat- I actually tried a WP blog a year or so ago…I never could quite figure it all out. Blogger is just so uch easier for me. I do need to practice with WP. The designs are certainly better.
Jean- I sure hope so. You’d think Blogger would want to stay ahead of the game…or at least on par.
Jenni- Cracking up at the planets aligning stuff. That’s very true sometimes! Thanks for your help!
OK…so I am going to start commenting back in my comments section. Going to give this a whirl and see how it goes.
I agree!
Thanks for the blog roll add!