I recently wrote a blog post titled “The evolution of a Blogger’s Ego” on my Jason Alba blog. I wrote about a change I’ve seen in the last three years since I’ve been a blogger and having participated in other social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). I think it’s an intriguing history… you can read it there, but one issue I bring up is this:
The discussion that a blog used to be able to create is not dispersed over various networks.
This is different than it was three years ago. For example, when I now pose a question or discussion on a blog post, I hope to get good, health debate. However, what happens is I get a few comments here, a few comments on Twitter, a few comments on Facebook, a few comments on LinkedIn (if I post the question on LinkedIn), etc.
This is good for ME, but horrible for YOU. YOU being anyone who is not following me on Twitter, or my “friend” on Facebook, etc. YOU is also anyone who comes over from a google search.
Case in point – the post from yesterday addresses two comments I got from Facebook. My blog posts automatically become “Notes” in Facebook, and some of my Facebook Friends leave a comment there. The problem? That comment is seen by a few people, but really it’s lost to the masses.
I contend that the comments from YOU on my blog posts are much better than my own blog posts. So please, please, please bring the conversation back to the original blog post – if you see my stuff on Facebook please DO NOT hit the “Comment” link… rather, click on View Original Post to leave a comment on the blog. It’s better for everyone, even you, as your wisdom and input goes to a much bigger audience.
Thank you 🙂
Facebook commenting is usually preferable. You don’t have to navigate to another page; enter your name, email, website, login, etc. Also, facebook gives you some assurance that your comment will at least be limited to friends of friends.
It seems silly to post something on facebook then ask people not to comment in fb.
Jason, unfortunately you’re fighting a losing battle here. Conversations will continue to disperse to *where your readers are*, not where you want them to be. Sorry, this is the new world of online social networks. Your intentions are honorable, but if you don’t want for people to comment via Facebook then you’re going to have to kill your Facebook feed.
And I do take an alternate view on your “Comment only on my blog because it’s good for you” notion. People want to have conversation where they’re most comfortable. That may be Twitter or Facebook rather than *your* site. I get what you’re saying about being easily found, but again that’s a perspective that likely won’t hold up any longer. What will hold up is being able to collect all the different conversations that take place in these other channels and integrate them to your site. Disqus is starting to put this idea into play.
I haven’t run into a lot of this but some, and I do think it’s problematic – especially when you put your blog on Facebook’s “networked blogs.” So somebody visiting your Facebook page is literally a click away from your blog.
At this point someone leaving their comment on my Facebook page instead of my blog comments thread either isn’t actually reading the post or is navigating back to my Facebook page to leave their comment – which just isolates it from most of the discussion of my post, which happens on my comments thread.
Maybe there’s a significant percentage of folks who use social networking sites that aren’t comfortable and familiar with blogs yet??
https://js-kit.com/
Implement this into your blog.
You are certainly not alone in your thinking here, Jason.
Yet I wonder… if you do not want comments on your posts at Facebook or from Twitter, then why do you post over there? It would seem that, from putting your content over there, you are encouraging conversation to happen. With all of the channel fragmentation that exists, I might be more apt to even make a comment only through the channel where I saw the content.
So, it would seem that we need to have a system to trackback comments from social networking sites back to the original blog post. I recently started using Disqus, but I’m not sure if it does that just yet or not.
Jason,
I’m with Chris on this one. The virtual water cooler is wherever your audience wants it to be. And social networks share a similar dynamic with traditional networks…there is never just one conversation going on…they are dispersed among different groups and cliques.
The comments I get on my blog are different than the ones I get from the same post on FB. It’s just a different audience. Your product and your knowledge appeals to a lot of different audiences and demographics…so I actually think it is good for your brand that people are talking about you in different virtual communities.
Thanks for the problem everyone… I guess the macro problem is better described in my JasonAlba post, about a blogger’s ego.
The issue I bring up here is more of rant and request for my FB followers… I still think that comments made there go nowhere, whereas these comments live much much longer.
However, I also agree that there are things I can do on our side to bridge the gap a bit…. so thank to Demetrius and others who have suggested resources to make that happen… we’ll actually implement that one of these days!
This is this the hidden “cost” of social networks, you don’t own your traffic and term of service.
Since the majority of people don’t have blogs, I doubt there would be a voice loud enough to change it.