Image by antigone78 via Flickr
This is the third guest post by Karen from Blazing Minds. She’s a recording artist with the Electronica Duo band Remergence and a top-notch blogger. Karen’s blog is DoFollow.
[tweetmeme source=”Ileane”]
Most of us who are reading this blog have commented on a lot of blogs and sometimes it can be quite hectic trying to remember where you may of last posted a comment and sometimes you would like to keep an eye on the conversation that you may have started.
My tip for anyone who is new to blogging and even those have blogged for a while is this:
When you are commenting on a blog, look out for tick box that says something in the lines of “email me with follow-up comments” or something along those lines, these are really useful as these are perfect to keep an eye on what is going on the blog post you have commented on.
From the moment you submit your comment, you are now ready to receive followup comments made, there are also other options that you may see on blogs that ask if you want to receive all new comments made on the post you have commented on, I would recommend using these options.
Not only does this bring you more chances of commenting on the blog and the possibility of giving you some more back links from the blog as you reply to comments made to your comment or other comments made on the post.
So don’t lose out when you see these tick boxes on blogs, tick them and don’t just comment and run, never to return again, as a blogger myself I appreciate the constant return of many of the commentators on my blog and I know other bloggers generally feel the same.
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ms. ileane speaks 
When I first realized I was making comments left and right, I looked into sites that would help me track them all. I decided to go with coComment, and while it sometimes doesn’t grab the posts immediately, I will eventually get them. Going back to comments and continuing on with the conversation is nice and builds a good relationship between bloggers. Even for a newbie like me, I know this!
Thanks for commenting Suzanne, I tried coComment myself once, but I do prefer the standard commenting on WordPress 😉
I definitely need a trail of breadcrumbs to find my way back to blogs on which I’ve commented! I love being able to get notified when someone replies, so I know WHEN to check in again, as well as whether to check in again.
I’m not at all fond of WordPress.com’s double-opt-in on every comment thread, though. Grr. Not sure when they implemented that, but some days, I start to do it – and then think, “It’s just not worth all that.”
I think one of the best reasons to get a self hosted WordPress blog, then you have more control over what’s going on 😉
I agree about having a complete control over almost everything not to mention the awesome plugins but at this point, I just can’t commit to them.
As for the commenting and tracking the sites you’ve commented into, I think it’s a good suggestion especially for someone like me who likes to comment on just about anything. Not that opinionated sense though.
I think it’s good to stumble upon your blog and expect that I’d frequently visit! 🙂
Here is a simple tip for monitoring conversations. I often leave the blog site open in one of the tabs and just return and refresh occasionally. Of course this is only good short-term, throughout the course of a day while working but for a hot conversation… 🙂
I’m sorry to say, but this method is not working. I felt similar and requested email to notify for follow-up comments and also I subscribed many blogs on email, but, I started to realized the dreadful consequences just in a couple of days. My inbox was always crowded with more than hundreds mails all to notify that somebody has posted comment on same post where I’d made a comment.
Then I started to subscribe through My Yahoo. Its far more better and much more manageable. Still we need to find some better solution to get inform of the follow-up comments.
Though this can be useful when you comment on occasion, but this is not a very viable option for some. I am always weary of opting in to anything and so I don’t do it very often.
Reason being is I always ended up being swamped with emails from multiple sites. But I will bookmark a blog post if I feel I want to get back to a conversation.
OMG I wish Ileane told me you had posted I would of came by LOL 🙂 Just kidding and I apologize for not being around as much as I wanted dealing with some serious crisis down here but my heart is with you guys. Hey nice going over an old school tip and one that I always use to make sure no one talks any smack after I split LOL 🙂 Well on the serious it is an excellent tool to build on a post and get some real convo going 🙂
Thanks Ladies
I actually heard Karen added a pic to this post so I had to stop by and once again…. 🙂
That Subscribe to this site by email is slick 🙂
Yup, that’s what I normally do and almost every blog has it. You might also want to install a separate plug-in to notify your commenter of any replies ONLY on his/her comment.
The default one will notify ALL new comments on the post, which may not be what your commenter is after
This is generally a good idea for keeping track of your comments but when its a popular blog, OMG!! you’ll get tons of emails about everyone dropping a comment. can be quite annoying when u’re only looking to see if you have been responded to!
When it has the option to receive a response to just your comment then that is great n i’m all for that…
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This tip is really great and appreciated. Sometimes I feel like I fell down “the rabbit hole”,but I have a desire to go deeper. I really want to make connections. Thanks and all the best!
Thanks for the tip. I seldom follow up on my comments.
Hi Wayne, thanks for the feedback. It’s something I try to do all of the time.
Hi all,
I agree with Ileane…of course! If I don’t get a reply or something, I feel I’m being ignored or that I’ve done something wrong. I guess replies can be cumbersome for large blogs.
I’ll get on board now with the follow-ups. Thanks again.
Hi Ileane,
I’m really new to this. How do I get my picture up like everybody else?
That’s easy, first pick out your best photo or take a new one if necessary, because you want your image to be recognized all over the internet. Then sign up for a gravatar at http://en.gravatar.com/site/signup That’s it you’re done! Come back and let me see your face next time! 🙂
Thanks! This is a test,
Hey Deanie, I didn’t realize that was you all this time!!! I’m so glad that it is. Your gravatar is beautiful! Are you a student or a professor:)
Ileane you are very cool! I don’t know what possessed me to use a different user name with Gravatar. I hope that mistake doesn’t come back to bite me. Anyway, thanks to whoever got this thing right. I’m beginning to feel like a real member albeit a neophyte in your world. Thanks again.
Don’t worry about the past, just keep looking forward. You’re headed for the top!
Thanks…we look like we could be related…right. I’m an English professor with 6 years to go until retirement. After giving up my last 3 vacations to get 2 online courses developed for my college, I began thinking that I might be able to supplement my pension with a blog or website. A couple of days research led me to you, Lisa, and Keisha. I could identify, so now I’m committed. BTW, that picture was taken in Vienna, Austria, and I’m leaving for China in the morning. So I have to satiate my hunger for knowledge with all of these ebooks that I’ve printed. I’ll check in the minute I get back. Until then, I wish you all the love, power, and peace that you can stand.
Safe travels and peace and blessings to you as well. Looking forward to your return.
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Thank you for this post! I couldn’t agree more. I do wish you had posted a link to the plug-in you used to enable e-mail notification but I found one myself. I wrote a quick post about it at my site and linked back to this article. Check it out if you have a second.
Thanks again!
SuperBlogTime
Hi Curtis. There’s a couple of things I need to explain, first this is a guest post from my good friend Karen from Blazing Minds. She has a few guest posts here on my blog. Don’t get me wrong I do agree with everything she said and I do subscribe to comments all the time. Secondly, since this is a WordPress.com blog, we are not allowed to install plugins. We are given options for if we wish to allow comments or comment subscriptions, which I said yes to both.
Thirdly, I thank you so much for supporting this blog by commenting and linking to it. You are welcome here any time and I’ll visit your blog soon. I really appreciate the support.
One more thing, I’m pretty sure Karen is using the default commenting system of WordPress on her blog but I do know for sure that she has the CommentLuv plugin installed. It is one of the best things you can do to promote comments and reward your readers. Please take a look at this post on my other blog CommentLuv Gives Your Blog Heart.
The way I keep track of comments I’ve posted and their replies is to subscribe to the comment feed for the relevant post (after I’ve commented in it) and then I add it to a folder I have in my feed reader. Then whenever someone else comments on that post, I see the comments and can return if I want to. I made myself a folder called ‘comment feeds only’ and whenever I add a comment feed it goes straight in there.