As part of a quick e-mail interview with somebody today they said, "I figured your NASCAR post would generate quite a few comments." Alas, as of now, there are no comments.
Predicting what will be a big conversation starter and what won't is, I think, an imperfect science. While NASCAR may be in full hype mode in the traditional media, I suspect that many of my readers aren't fans (or don't care). Some of this goes back to knowing what your readers want and providing it to them. Of course this is a personal/professional blog so I mix a bunch of subjects. It's what I've always done and probably what I'll always do. I try not to be a single-topic blog.
Back to conversation though. Sometimes you write a post looking for conversation (or links). You ask questions, you stir up controversy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The beauty of the medium is that you can fail fast and cheap.
Last year at the FPRA Annual Conference one of the posts that received the most traffic and quite a few comments had nothing to do with PR, it was about an animated character. Was that post written specifically to boost traffic or generate conversation? Nope, it was just a fun little item we ran across...sometimes those are the most interesting items though.
The spirit of the medium though is that your readers know more than you and can help generate comments, questions and new post ideas. I wish I knew how many ideas for posts started with a reader comment.
What I can look at though are the stats. As of today, I've generated 1378 posts on this blog, the readers have generated 2566 comments. That's almost double.
Visitor Comments
Yes, it was quite interesting that a "fun" topic was the most commented on at the conference. And to think some people thought only recaps of sessions should have been included. But I'm not still bitter...
Posted by: Jen | February 19, 2007 3:43 PM
I can NEVER predict what will generate interest in my posts. I don't even really know why *I* comment sometimes and not others (except maybe time crunch).
I'll go out on a limb and predict you generate a few with this post.
Posted by: Karen | February 19, 2007 3:57 PM
I posted something about my butt. Didn't you get it?
Posted by: Excruciatingly Betsy | February 19, 2007 8:57 PM
What I have noticed is that you may stir up conversations that happen off-line which is nearly impossible to measure. Some readers have not found a comfort zone in posting comments and some are selective in where they comment, but it does not mean that the blog post did not have some impact.
Posted by: Sherry Heyl | February 20, 2007 11:18 AM
It's always suprising the topics that elicit comments and those that don't. I just started my own blog last month, and it's challenging to post creative and thoughtful musings each week- especially musings that others will want to read respond to. I'm not a NASCAR fan either, but cheers to getting future comments!
Posted by: Kristina | February 23, 2007 4:42 PM
This post caught my attention. As a beginning blogger, I’m having trouble thinking of new ideas to write about in my blog. Robert requires us to write about public relations, but sometimes I find it hard to find a topic that is original. I’m afraid that other bloggers are blogging about the same things and that someone would skip right over my blog.
Robert has shown us lots of great public relations sites to visit, but I was wondering if you had any advice on how to make your blog more original. Are there any sites that you would recommend? I enjoy blogging about public relations, but I want to make sure that the posts are unique enough to attract visitors.
Posted by: Liz R. | February 25, 2007 7:50 PM
I have always been surprised by what evokes the most comments. I think that the most received on any post I've done was when I asked for advice on what washer/dryer to buy. This was about as far off topic as I get, but people are still commenting and telling dryer tellers on the 8 month old post.
Posted by: shel israel | February 28, 2007 9:47 PM
BTW, this post is generating quite a few comments.
Posted by: shel israel | February 28, 2007 9:48 PM
Interesting to read your states. I think you are doing well according to stowe boyd's metrics.
I can echo Shel on random nature of comment interest. In the blogging success study we asked about comment generation, and a number of people talked about how some posts that they expected would generate a lot of interest did not, and some people thought were ho hum generated a lot of interest.
Posted by: John Cass | March 13, 2007 11:46 PM
My experience says that it sometimes depends on who makes the first comment. And how that is formulated.
If the first post is long and complicated, it might scare others off. Or it might provoke others to comment on that. Very much like a "real" conversation in a room.
Posted by: Stefan Tell | September 26, 2008 5:09 AM