Following last week’s Bloggie Wednesday topic on how to get more readers for your blog, I received great feedback from readers/bloggers who also found it difficult to get more readers for their blog. A reader, Veronica, posed a good question in the comments and I thought I’d continue the topic for today.

Can I make a request pretty please? How about how to engage and get people to comment on your blog? I know I get readers, but no-one wants to comment. I realise I am new to blogging, and most likely my posts or content aren’t exactly inviting people to post. But it would still be good to hear from an experienced blogger on how you overcame this hurdle (if it was one).

Now that I’ve gotten readers to my blog, how on earth do I get them to comment? How to I get them talking? Why is no one talking??

See, I’m naturally a talkative person. I like to talk (first day at school and I was already told off by the teacher for talking too much!) and even on the blog, I like interacting with people via the comments. But I can’t be talking to myself if no one wants to talk to me, right? No? Right, that’s why I have a blog, so that I can talk to myself! 😛

Okay, serious business here. I understand Veronica’s frustrations and trust me, I feel it too often. It’s mighty disheartening when I spend a lot of time researching and writing something I thought would be a fantastic piece people would really enjoy, only to find that I received all but 2 comments on the post. I can’t help but doubt myself and wonder if it’s just me. Most of the time, yes it’s just me.

It’s still a learning process for me and I’m still trying to get more people to comment but I’ve learned a few things along the way and thought I might share them with you.

People talk more on social media

Back in the day when social media wasn’t very big, the main way we engaged with our readers was via the blog. I wrote something, you left a comment on the post, I replied your comment and so on. We struck up a conversation via my post and your comments. These days, with Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, etc, reader engagement is no longer confined to the blog. Your reach is no longer just through the blog but via all these extra socia media platforms that represent your blog. In fact, you can now go as far and as wide as your tweets, Facebook updates, Instagrammed pictures, Tumblr-ed words, etc can go!

When you post an update on any of your social media platforms on your latest blog post, you may get retweets on Twitter, likes on Facebook and Instagram, comments via Twitter and Facebook and so on. Those are also considered as part of reader engagement. They’re engaging with you the easiest way they can, especially when they’re on the go and it’s not easy to leave the comment directly on your blog.

If I get a comment on Twitter or Facebook about a post I’ve written, that’s great. I’m already engaging with people on what I’ve written regardless of which platform that comment was actually delivered. It doesn’t matter so much if I don’t get as many comments as I hoped on the blog because I’m engaging with readers where they’re mostly at, and that’s on social media. Whatever works for them works for me too.

Ask questions!

Now that there are more ways than one to communicate and engage with your readers, how do you get them talking? When I’m writing something, I find it helpful to get people talking (y’know me, I need to talk! :P) is to ask questions at the end of the post. Have they tried that particular product you’ve reviewed? Did they like it or hate it? Did they find the product as good/bad as you found it? Do they think the product is affordable or too expensive?

Those are just a few examples on product reviews. Another one would be to ask a question to your readers on something YOU cannot solve. Perhaps you’ve stuck on something and cannot resolve the problem. Your readers may be able to help. Or a reader has a problem and if he/she doesn’t mind you sharing that problem on the blog, perhaps other readers may be able to help too.

This doesn’t just have to be on the blog. Try it out on Twitter or Facebook too. I find that Facebook works better for this as it shows the entire conversation at one go instead of having to trail it on Twitter.

Have an opinion?

A surefire way to get people talking is to write opinion pieces that may also be quite controversial. This, I know, will guarantee comments because people will either agree with you or shoot you down. Do tread very carefully on this though because you can either draw people to your blog or turn them off. A certain unnamed very popular Australian blog does just this and it came to a point where the blogger has a big group of supporters AND haters. You will need a thick skin to tackle the comments that come in via opinion pieces. As I don’t have thick skin (only a thick waist), I do this only once a year. 😛

Reader engagement is not just on one platform which is your blog anymore. Thanks to social media, you can engage with your readers anywhere now and even better when you’re on the go. When you’re talking to your followers on Facebook, you’re engaging with them. When you’re in a tweeting conversation with your tweeple, you’re also engaging with them. So don’t worry if you don’t get much comments on your blog alone because in the grander scheme of things, when they leave comments and reply your questions wherever it may be, you’ve already gotten them talking.

Do you feel disheartened at the lack of comments on your blog too? Was there anything you did that pushed you out of that no-comments rut and got people talking? What’s this magic you’re spinning? 😉