Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Works for Me Wednesday #9

If you have a blog and you leave comments for other bloggers, did you know that there's a simple little something you can do which makes it easier for us all to have a conversation?

If you have a Blogger blog, go to the Dashboard, and select Edit Profile from the sidebar on the right. Under Identity, put in your email address. (If you don't want it to appear on your public profile, don't check the box under Privacy.)

Now, when you comment on another blog and the author receives email notification of your comment, they can answer your comment easily by hitting Reply! You don't have to remember to go back and check for their answer, and they don't have to wonder if you came back to see it. Bloggers can easily thank commenters for their comments, and it's a nice way to have non-public discussions, as well.

And maybe some of you Blogspot bloggers didn't know how easy it was to reply to a commenter by email IF they have enabled this feature. (I didn't, until Jennifer at Snapshot first introduced me to this feature!) Just look at the "From" line, when you receive a comment notification in your email inbox. If it says "noreply-comment@blogger.com" then it won't work to Reply to them. But if there's an email address there, hit Reply and respond to their comment! It's such a useful feature and a nice way to build relationships.

Non-Blogspot bloggers and non-bloggers, you may not know that you can super-easily set up a Profile for yourself here in Blogger--which means you don't have to keep commenting as "Anonymous," for one thing. Just go to the Blogger homepage and click "Create Your Own Blog Now;" you'll have to set up a Google account and think up a URL address that no one has taken, but then you're set! Add an email address to your Identity (remember to uncheck the box if you don't want your email to appear on your profile) and Blogspot bloggers will easily be able to send a reply to your comments to your email box. As a bonus, you can use your Blogspot blog page to link to your real blog at Typepad or Wordpress or wherever.

I LOVE it when I see an email address there on that "From" line--it makes it so much easier to dialogue with my commenters. Hope lots of you will make this simple change...and hope it works for you too!

For more Works for Me posts, visit Rocks in My Dryer.

7 comments:

Mrs. Brownstone @ XBOX Wife said...

Great tip!

I'm still so new at blogging, it's great to hear all the ideas and tips!

Thanks for sharing!

Megan Cobb said...

Yes! yes yes yes! I'm gonna link to this today, I think! :)

Anonymous said...

Baby steps...
I love all the new stuff there is to learn out there.
thanks.
And thanks for having the "other" option on your comment page... :)

Marcia Francois said...

Amen! I was actually thinking of putting something in my sidebar to tell people how to do this too.

I don't always have time to hunt around and look for people's blogs so it's always nice to just quickly reply and thank them :)

SAHMmy Says said...

Great advice! I think many people are afraid of receiving spam--I've seen people get around this by spelling out their address (sahmmysays at earthlink dot net) instead of sahmmysays@earthlink.net I have my full email address on my blog and have never (yet) gotten spam email--maybe the Mommyblogger niche flies under the radar!

Cynthia said...

I didn't know this...I have so much to learn!

Joyful Days said...

This took me a while to learn, but I am so glad that I did & implemented it!!

Thanks for reminding people!