Dec 31 2009
be social by adding commentluv to your blog
Writing a blog is about being in conversation with your community instead of standing on a hilltop screaming “look at me”.
One of the best conversations I’ve found so far on the use of social media is appearing at the creativity_unbound blog that is produced by Edward Boches, Chief Creative Officer and Chief Social Media Officer of Mullen. Boches is a leader in exploring how social media can transform marketing and advertising. His blog is worthwhile reading for his views, but also for the conversation he creates.
The conversation is the main attraction there, but he gives the added value of rewarding his contributors by hosting the commentluv plug-in on his blog that adds a link and headline of the contributors latest blog post. Recently when I had something to add about a post on how Pepsi was moving millions of their ad dollars into the social media space, you can see how the little heart symbol indicates a link to my recent blog post. This allows readers that find my comment interesting an easy way to come over to this blog to visit.
Make your posts attract more comments
I decided that this was a good idea and added commentluv to my blog as well. To explore how the plug-in works add a comment to this post (don’t worry about being profound) and include your blog address.
To learn how to add the plug-in to your site, read on past the Mashable-like headline:
2 WordPress plug-ins to that you need to increase comments on your blog.
If you haven’t discovered Mashable yet, it’s the social media website I go to learn how to deal with the backend of my blog. If you are really interested in the technical end of blogging, this is a place to explore. I personally only want to know enough about the back end to keep the site running, but I’m happy to share what I know.
Go into the administration section of your blog, select plug-ins>addd new and type in commentluv. Hit search plugins. Select install and you’re in business. You will also want to add Akismet or some other spam blocking filter to keep out the junk comments. I also moderate my comments so that I have to approve anything that appears on the site. My rule is anything that adds to the conversation runs.
What other social media sites do you like for either building a community or learning to make your site work? Add a comment and watch commentluv do it’s magic.
MarkHarmel
harmelphoto.com
@MarkHarmel
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Andy Bailey and photo blog feeds, Mark Harmel. Mark Harmel said: How to use your blog to create a larger conversation. http://bit.ly/8gzDRe [...]
I always love it when I can be the first comment on a new commentluv enabled blog!
happy new year and thanks for spreading the luv!
Andy Bailey´s last blog ..Everyone gets 10x the luv!
I like being the second!!!
Happy New Year!
-Rick
Rick O´s last blog ..Merry Christmas!
This sounds like a good idea, Mark. I’ll give it a try. Thanks for the heads-up.
Facebook personal and business pages have been very helpful in keeping me connected with friends and clients. I especially like the the flow of comments/conversation all together under the post. Its been more intuitive for me than twitter. Hiding all the application garbage makes it more tolerable. Here’s my business page: http://www.facebook.com/louisvilleweddingphotographer
If you turn your comments to dofollow you would get more comments but more spam too.
Louisville photographer´s last blog ..Engagement portraits | Louisville ky downtown | Greg & Emily
Commentluv on my blog sounds like a great idea, except apparently its only a Wordperss plugin. My site is a Joomla blog. Is there anything like commentluv for joomla?
mike´s last blog ..Send Email From A Batch File
I haven’t looked. Try visiting the website and asking there and give us all a report. there may be others that would be interested as well.
Mike, commentluv’s Andy Bailey responds:
Mike: if you can use intense debate comments then you can have commentluv on that, it’s part of their system and only needs to be activated in the dashboard area.
I am working on a new commentluv plugin and may be able to rewrite it to work as javascript only so in theory, it might be able to work with any system that has a commentl form.
I may have to move to a pay monthly system though, the cost of the server and bandwidth used by a million comments being processed, each one with 10 posts to retrieve and send back is getting pretty expensive!
Andy
I just heard about commentlov from a friend. I seems pretty cool and easy. Hopefully I will see the results that he sees.
Spyke´s last blog ..Photography – Break Time
Congratulations, I think you have invested some time and nerves in it and thanks! even now I will return on this blog.
I stick to see some movies now luck.