The importance of response

I was listening to a podcast the other day where the hosts of the show were talking about message boards and whether they visited them and read what people said about the show.

I’ve spoken to journalists about whether they read the comments people make on an article they’ve written (initially for the paper but later republished to the web).

It’s a pretty mixed bag of reactions really - but more often than not people almost ALWAYS look but very rarely EVER respond.

This applies to corporate blogs as well - people write the posts but don’t respond nearly enough.

As more major broadcasters take up blogging as a way of giving a more personal side of a story, writing about stuff behind the scenes, or getting stories and ideas out there MUCH more quickly - they need to remember to enter the conversation.

Blogging is about more than writing an article and letting people comment.

When you blog there is an expectation from your users that you will contribute to the debate.

The BBC and the Guardian are good at responding and entering into the debate on blog posts, or at least the bloggers are - but the journalists aren’t so good.

It’s also getting to a stage where the big organizations employ someone to respond, or have ‘bloggers’ who respond to posts - even ones they haven’t written themselves.

So this is a call for the big players, for the major media companies with blogs, for the corporations and organizations with blogs and even for the individuals with blogs - it’s AS important that you respond to comments as it is allowing people to comment in the first place.

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