Cross posted from The Bamboo Project and the Challenge wiki. If you have ideas for challenge activities, please post those on the Activities page here.
Day 1: Do a Commenting Self-Audit
One of the goals of the 31 Day Comment Challenge is for us to improve our commenting skills and draw more people into blog conversations. So to kick off the 31 days of activities we’re going to start with a commenting self-audit. You can use this to get a better picture of your blog commenting skills and strategies.
For this activity, do the following:
1. Answer the following questions:
- How often do you comment on other blogs during a typical week?
- Do you track your blog comments? How? What do you do with your tracking?
- Do you tend to comment at the same blogs or do you try to comment on at least one new blog per week?
2. Now review Gina Trapani’s Guide to Blog Comments and ask yourself how well you’re doing in each of the different areas. Are there any specific areas where you think you need to do some work? What do you want to do to address these issues?
If you’d like, it would be great if you blogged about your comment audit to share what you’ve learned about yourself and your commenting behaviors. Be sure to tag your post with “comment08.”
Tags: comment08, Sue Waters, Silvia Tolisano, The Comment Challenge, Michele Martin, commenting, comment, challenge, blog citizen,
Kim,
I appreciate the ideas for the comment challenge. I read a lot of blogs but don’t comment frequently. This 30-day challenge will be difficult for me but I think it will help me to stretch and learn. The Lifehacker article had some good tips. I especially like: Don’t comment for the sake of commenting, make the tone of your message clear, and own your comment.
I haven’t tracked my comments before except for occasionally choosing “track comments” button on interesting posts. Now I am subscribing to my cocomment RSS feed.
My goal for this challenge is to read carefully, write thoughtfully and attempt to contribute new ideas to discussions. Thanks for the ideas!
Colette
Colette,
Excellent! You and I have very similar goals for this challenge! So glad to have you on board!
Colette:
I find that I fall into the same category: I read a lot of blogs, yet I rarely leave comments. This challenge will be difficult for me too.
Kim:
I want to offer gratitude to you for helping initiate this challenge. I think it is exactly what I needed: an obligation to contribute to the blog community. Thank you.
Dimitri
Dimitri,
Thank you for joining! I am so impressed at the positive vibes and community feeling we’re all building through this challenge!