Communicating better with your fellow bloggers

I'd like to talk to you a little bit today about comments....and replying to comments. Specifically the ability to reply to comments.

Wait. Do you know how to get the comments you receive to come to your email in the first place? It's very simple:

• From your Blogger dashboard click on "Settings" for your blog

• Now click on "Comments"

I'm going to be distracted here for one minute...

Halfway down that page is a section called "Comment Form Message". This is where you can write what you want to appear above the comment box on your blog. It just makes it a little more personal. Ok, back to what I was saying...

• At the bottom of the page it says "Comment Notification Email". Put your email address in the box and select "Save Settings" underneath that. Now any comments you receive will come to your email.

Now back to being able to reply to your comments. I'm sure you've seen this when you've tried to answer a comment from your email: noreply-comment@blogger.com. Oh how I hate those words!!

Those words force me to come back to my post and answer the comment here. I don't like doing that and I'll tell you why. Because I'm never sure if the person comes back to look for my answer. Maybe they are waiting for my email answer which I can't send them because they don't have that set up!


Luckily it's very easy to set up :)

• From your Blogger dashboard select "Edit Profile"

• Under "Identity" fill in your email address

• Above that section is one called "Privacy". Check the box next to "Show my email address"

• Go to the bottom of the page and select "Save Profile"

Now people can reply to your comments directly to you which is very nice for those of us that like to reply to your comments! 

If you are worried about showing your email address because of spam let me assure you that I have my email address literally just about everywhere and I very rarely receive spam emails. 

Even when I do receive them I know that I don't have an uncle in Africa that suddenly remembered me and wants to give me $200,000 and I know that I didn't email someone about a car title loan for them to RE me, so I just mark them as spam and go on. It really doesn't hurt anything unless you receive thousands of emails everyday and it's too much trouble for you to go through them....

It's just something for you to think about. I think it makes blogging more personal to be able to talk directly to a person rather than putting it out there for everyone to see. I've actually made some very dear friends because of being able to email them and talking more than just about the comment they left. It's nice and I like it :)

Happy Saturday everyone! Have a great day!