I’ve been a blogger for over a month now. A month and 10 days to be exact, and during this time, I’ve been through many other blogs, and met some bloggers that I liked particularly. I’d like to commend some of my fellow bloggers for their support and kindness, as well as courteous manners, and in respect to that, I decided to write a blog about etiquette among bloggers. I view an online community as a legitimate community, despite what some may think, and I always treat everybody as human beings, as I would in the non-cyber world, and I expect to be treated back that way.
So here is a list that I came up with :
- When somebody leaves you comments, reply to them, regardless of whether they are subscribed or not.
Blogs are the ultimate of communication and information exchange among regular people. Opinions no longer have to be transferred through massive controlled medium such as news sites or public agency sites. And it is very important that blog owners respond to their blog comments (unless the comment is a useless joke of some sort). It makes them feel good when they return, and it makes you appear as more human. Interaction and sharing is the whole point of blogging. Jimmy Reimer is very good with this on his blog. He has a lot of informative and out-of-the-box ideas that always spark good discussions! I try to do the same all the time. Basically put it this way – nearly 50% of the comments should be the owner’s comments, unless the size of the blog is too large to handle. - Exchange links among bloggers, and give back links if you can.
Of course, if your blog is like John Chow’s blog, you couldn’t possibly agree to all the link exchanges because there are probably about 1,500 or more out there. But if you are a starting blogger like myself, be courteous enough to offer linkbacks, and give the favour back if somebody else does it for you. I have a link exchange coming up with Career Ramblings. Also, I had Paul Butler and Lemuel Jopio add my blog to their blogrolls before I even asked them to, so I returned the favour and they are on my sidebar. My very first link exchange was with Brendon Swanson’s blog titled The Other Hand. - Keep the post frequency regular.
This is not only an etiquette issue but also a blog traffic issue. If you update every day for a week and then go dead for 3 days, people will be disappointed as they return, and your subscription/traffic will reduce. I like the feeling of visiting blogs each day and seeing something new as the top post. - If a fellow blogger took the trouble to write comments on your blog, give them back the favour.
They took their time to read your posts, and respond to it. Try to do your best to make the time to make at least one comment on the other person’s blog. The mutual respect will strengthen your relationship, and generate more activity and traffic for both of you. Robb DeVore commented on several of my posts (he’s very very busy though, hasn’t showed up in a while) so I went back to his blog and showed some support, and even posted a response article to his original article regarding customer service!!! - Don’t be shy to put links and references to other people’s posts, and if they do it for you, give them the favour back.
John Chow recently published a great post about his love for the bloggers community, and my post was linked there as well. I’ve been talking about him on my posts here and there, not to mention put his widget on my blog, so he’s returning me the favour. And did you also notice, I have links to many blogs in this post as well? This is my way of returning the support I received.
Remember – Karma. What goes around comes around. To grow in a community you need to be an active part of the community and it applies to online communities. This is a social network that helps you grow and spread your ideas, and also absorb that of others!
