Comments on: If a blog post falls in the woods, will anyone hear it?

By: Leo Bottary

Leo Bottary — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:58:03 +0000

Great post Michael. There ARE lots of blogs out there, but there are also lots of books, magazine articles, etc. – more than we could hope to read in several lifetimes. Which of them are credible? Interestingly enough, most bloggers will tell you that it’s more about who reads and comments than how many. Every blog makes a sound, it’s all about who chooses to listen.

By: davidmullen

davidmullen — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:58:38 +0000

Raoul – I agree with you on judging the value of a site by the number of comments. I focus more on number of subscribers, number of site visits and the QUALITY of the comments being shared, as you mention. I’ll take quality over quantity at any time.

Growing your subscriber base is a good indication that people find good value in what you’re sharing. Same with number of site visits. Those are the two stats I focus on first for both my personal blog and for our Mullen team blog – relentlessPR. Then quality of comments. Then quantity of comments.

By: Raoul

Raoul — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:12:34 +0000

Over time, a good blog post will stand on its own, and will become known. People appreciate quality instinctively, and when something resonates with them, they’ll email it or bookmark it or tweet it, etc. It may not become famous (which depends on other factors), but it will be valuable to a number of people.

I also have a bone to pick with judging the value of a site by the number of comments it gets. You just go to some site that gets a huge number of comments, start reading through them, and you’ll find most of them are me-too, idiotic, abusive or back-and-forths. They add little real value to the content itself. And yet there are articles out there that get tens and hundreds of thousands of views, but only have 20-40 comments or so.

I’ve written articles that have gotten lots of traffic, but few or no comments. Does that mean they were seen by no one, or that they’re less valuable than some article that got hundreds of asinine, badly spelled comments? I would clearly argue in opposition, and I can dig through my stats to prove it.

By: Cari

Cari — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:33:45 +0000

I think it is incredibly important, especially for businesses, to know what people are saying about you and your industry. And if they are talking about you, why not talk back? Who knows, you might just build a meaningful relationship out of it.

That’s actually what Buzz.io is all about. We are starting a buzz marketing company that is similar to Radian6, but we focus more on small and medium businesses. We are currently working as an agency but we will be releasing a consumer version of our software within the next couple months.

Cari
Buzz.io

By: Adam Singer

Adam Singer — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:29:22 +0000

“There are too many blogs.”

Ah, but each blog is important to *someone*. Even if not you. Even if there are no comments. It’s someone’s personal space on the web. They may not even be doing it for anyone other than themselves.

Your post was “a tree falling in the woods” to me until David tweeted it. And, now it’s live, I read it and enjoyed it. But I might have discovered it in a year from Googling a random phrase. Sure, I didn’t read it when you posted it, but at some point it might matter.

Cheers,
Adam

By: David Alston

David Alston — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 23:02:46 +0000

Indeed, it does make a sound. Yes, I’m one of those rare folks who’s actually been in the woods to see and hear a tree fall on it’s own. I did scare the stuffing out of me because it was so surprising – and it was loud.

And so it goes with a single blog post. Yes, maybe no one will find it right away, to hear it fall. But perhaps someone will stumble upon it and the contents will resonate with them. And maybe the person reading it will have a larger audience and will decide to blog on the same idea and point to the post they found. And others will see the new post and the original one and will relate to the content and leave comments or post and crosslink themselves. And so on, and so on. And it may happen fast or it may build. The amazing thing, like the tree falling, is that it may be a bit random and hard to predict, but the sound could be heard.

I’ve seen with my very own eyes how a single tweet can explode and carry across the web and still resonate even today. And I’m sure that right now 10’s if not 100’s of ideas are being expressed, repeated, converted, underlined etc…, ideas that are helping or hurting causes, companies or colleagues.

As you can see I loved your analogy, and the story you started with your post. It resonated with me and I added to it. Who knows where it might lead…..