Comments are important for your blog because it allows your readers to share their voice with the rest of the community. You should feel appreciated when someone takes the time to read through your whole post, scroll down to the comment form and write their reflection on your post.
Recently, Janith made a guest post on ThouShallBlog entitled 49 Tips to Become a Better Blogger. The policy at that blog is to reply to each and every comment on the post. It is a challenging task, but worth it in the end. Since it is not even our blog, we get to hear what a whole different community has to say on one of our posts. Which, I can’t say enough in most of my articles, is a way to successfully build a community on your blog.
So as the co author of this blog, Janith had asked me to help with the responding to every comment since the articles over there get a good amount of content. I have to tell you, I don’t think I have ever seen such a great community who contributes such quality comments such as the one at ThouShallBlog. Every comment I replied to so far had a lot to say — they either disagreed with something, added onto something, or agreed with something. It was a great learning experience for me, and this is my reflection on that.
So there are two ways to address those who comment. A right way and a wrong way. Surprising? There are a lot of approaches to a good way of talking back to your community, and even more on the wrong way to talk back. Do you respond to your comments in the way below?
Simply put, if you can say that you do the following on your blog, then I’d say you’re on the road to a great community on your blog. I have decided I would do a followup to this post with the wrong ways to address your commentators. I got this an idea from a comment on Blogussion (you know who you are. Thanks!)
1. Address them by their name
Get personal with them on your blog. You want to get to know these people, and what better way to start then learning their name? Always start out replying to their comment with “Hello, name”. Don’t worry, you won’t sound like a robot or a creeper.
I can usually appreciate the fact that anyone who replies to my comment addresses me by my name because it shows that they care enough to at least get the name right. How about you? Do you prefer to be addressed by your first name in your comments?
They don’t use their first name to comment! Just their site name. What do I do?
You probably should save referring to them by their site name as a last resort kind of thing, because it sounds kind of weird referring to someone as “Hey, Lose Weight fast in 90 days”. What you can try to do is actually visit their website (if they link to it in their user name) and look for any indications of their name on the site. You should probably check an About page, or if it’s a blog just look at the posts they have written.
If you’re not sure of their name because their site is owned by more than one person, then just address them by the name they gave you. It’s better to be close than it is to be wrong in a situation like that!
2. Talk to everyone
This is something I have been guilty of a few times in the past (even on Blogussion). If you respond to one person, at least respond to everyone. It doesn’t look good to the person who doesn’t get a response on their comment when other people do. No matter how “short” or “lame” the comment is, still say something. A simple “Thanks for the comment!” will suffice. Even go further than that: ask them if there is anything they think should be added. You may not get a response back, and they might never even see your response. But you still did the right thing, and that’s all the matters now.
Talking to everyone is hard. Especially if you have a blog that gets a lot of comments per post. A way to get started doing this and develop it as a habit is to start commenting to everyone early on in your blog where you will get like 1 – 2 comments a post. After doing that for every post, you will hopefully continue doing it as your comment average per post starts increasing.
3. Ask a question, look for an expansion
Simply put, if you happen to be confused by something someone said than ask question. Create a conversation between you and that person. You’re directly talking to them, and what is a better way to keep a conversation then asking a question?
Followup coming soon
As said in the beginning of the post, a follow up post will be written on the wrong ways to talk to your readers. What do you think is a bad way to talk to them? Even more important, what is a correct way not already listed in this post? Post all of your thoughts in the comments section! 
20 Discussions
Cool post!
I too try and reply to all my readers comments, when possible.
It’s a new habit I’m trying to develop in my comments section now.
I don’t get too many comments yet, but I’ll definitely keep that in mind.
I do get a lot of email responses from blogs I comment on. Is that normal?? Makes for a full inbox.
-Nate
Don’t worry, I’m sure your blog will pick up.
Just use this time to start developing the habit of replying to everyone who comments on your blog and watch your comments start to pickup. 
Nice article Alex – I think replying to your comments and adding a personal touch, like going past the generic “thank you” bullshit comments – is the best way to create a community.
Nothing does it better, and this post highlights how one can exactly commit to that.
I think this is one of the reason why Yan is beloved by his followers so much, it’s so much harder to do than just talk about but if you can reply to everyone – you will benefit.
Good insight on the topic.
You should always look pass the BS as you say and look to write a great response just from the words “Nice post”.
I agree with you, Yan does have a great community because he does talk to everybody and that’s something I want too.
On keyword comment names, I usually just go with the flow. Sometimes I know who’s leaving it from their email but I don’t want to reveal their identity to everyone. So, I’ll go with “Hi USB Thumbdrives” like you said.
On #2, having threaded comments helps you do this more effectively. I don’t always respond to a comment but I try to answer all questions.
On #3, I don’t do this a lot unless I need more details.
I guess it’s just a personal preference on how you address your readers. I like to get a little more person with them, but whatever works for you is the best.
Threaded comments is a great invention. I am trying to enable it here, just have a few other things to do first. Might want to move that to the top of my to do list though.
@Nate
They’re probably automated. I hate those, because they lack a personal quality. Of course if you run across a blogger who actually emails you to correspond, it’s pretty cool. Fan mail is always fun!
On topic – Replying to each and every comment can really encourage community participation. I really admire anyone who takes so much time to engage their community. I don’t mind being addressed by my name in comments, as long as they get the gender right! (This happens way too often to me, haha.) More to the point – not enough people ask questions and keep the conversation going. And others are often hesitant to reply to comments. I think encouraging an open atmosphere really increases the community feel of a blog.
You have to have much respect for someone like Yan at TSB who replies to every comment. Especially on his posts that get over 100 hundred comments. Gotta wonder how he does it every time!
I have noticed not many people ask questions – eve at blogs like ProBlogger. One thing I do find, however is people are quicker to strike down a post then they will be to ask a question. While I’m not saying that’s bad (it’s probably a good thing), it’s just something I have noticed more and more of in a blogs comment sections.
It is interestng that even a relatively short story about the extensive financial shenanigans of a leading Democrat still manages to fit two shots at the Republicans. Even the section on how the Democratic president is going to drive businesses out of the US focusses mostly on a Republican senator.
I love how you put that! How do you think you can tie stuff like that into blogging/creating a community?
No doubt about this that ThouShallBlog is one of the best blog we have. But if you want to see the value of comments in some other than you should also visit the blog of Neil Patel. Clean and clear and he replied to almost every comments as well.
Nice to be at there. Just visit his blog.
I’ll definitely look into Neil Patel’s blog ~ surprisingly I’ve never heard of the man.
You’ve never heard of him really? He’s pretty cool, if you go to the Blog RetireAt21 you can see him a lot there as he’s mentioned a lot for being a “successful young entrepreneur”.
I just wanted to emphasize on the efforts that Yan from ThouShallBlog goes through to ensure that each comment gets replied to.
Quite frankly, many of us tend to neglect this by either replying with a generic statement or ignoring some completely. Well, take a look at where Yan stands today in the blogosphere. He has seen success on many levels, most on a personal level.
He wouldn’t have fulfilled these expectations if his love for his blog and his readers weren’t present. It’s all about how devoted, determined and confident you in with what you do.
Just a simple thing like personally replying to each comment can do so many wonders (which Alex has made very clear in his post above) that you wouldn’t think would benefit you.
I agree completely with Alex’s posts. It’s good to go out of your way a little bit when commenting to ensure that you get the most out of your comments. If bloggers see you have good comments on your blogging posts, they may get more interested. What seals the deal then is that the readers notice that you relpy to each one of the comments, and in an effective way. Then, the readers may subscribe and begin to spread the word about your blog.
It’s always nice to see bloggers who share the same view about the importance of comments, because there are those out there who want to get rid of commenting straight away.
Hmm, very cognitive post.
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