Thing #4: To Be Continued

No matter what bloggers say, they are writing because they hope someone else will read and appreciate their thoughts. Otherwise, they would just be scribbling away in an old fashion journal. Unfortunately, The 10 commandments of blog commenting says that approximately 90% of people reading blogs never leave comments. I'll admit that I'm guilty of this. I’ve never read blogs regularly, largely because I didn't fully understand what the point of them was. So I would read what someone had written and move on. This experience has helped me realize that blogging, unlike reading traditional books and websites, is about more than a one-way transferring of information. Blogs create a community of individuals who share ideas with each other to expand their view of the world.
I don't think I really realized how important comments are until the day I logged in and saw someone had left me one! My thought process was something like, "OMG! Someone read what I wrote! And they thought it was interesting enough to leave me feedback!! Whatdtheysaywhatdtheysay??" After reading what Eddie wrote, I was compelled to respond. Although I wasn’t thinking about it at the time, ProBlogger pointed out that doing this will increase the amount of comments on my blog (If I’m not comfortable commenting on myself, why should anyone else?)! But then, just like CoolCatTeacher said would happen in How to comment like a king (or queen!) , I went to Eddie's blog and read his posts. Whether he was aware of it or not, Eddie had put up an advertisement for his own blog by commenting on mine. When you see someone has read something you wrote, you want to know more about the person, who admired (or disagreed) with your insight,. What's more, after reading some of his posts, I felt like leaving him comment, furthering the sense community.
Once this community is developed, you become more aware of your audience (and/or the simple fact that you do have one). With this awareness, you may change the way you approach a topic, or even what topics you choose to talk about. Example: when writing this entry, I found myself thinking about the fact that Eddie may read what I had written about our “interaction”.

To Be Continued...