I post 10-15 comments every single day on different blogs and it has been almost impossible to keep track of my comments until last week when a friend of mine told me his secret. A big thanks to you Jonny!
Why it’s difficult to keep track of your comments
Keeping track of your comments are actually really easy. If you just want to keep track of them you can save every link in a simple text document on your desktop. Simple, but pointless in my point of view.
The problem is that we often ask questions when we are commenting others blog entries. So the problem isn’t really to keep track of what we are commenting, but rather keep track of what we would like to check again.
Again, you could divide your links within your text document. One list for your comments and one list for comments you should check replies for. Simple but a bit old fashioned.
Use delicious to keep track of your comments
I’ve used delicious to keep track of my bookmarks for almost a year, but since there’s no way of sorting your bookmarks in maps I’ve never been particularly fond of it. That is until now.
Jonny showed me how to tag my bookmarks with c and check depending on if it’s a regular comment or a comment I would like to check answers for. It takes me less than five seconds to add a bookmark thanks to Firefox plugin.
At the end of each day I spend a few minutes visiting all of my bookmarks tagged with check to see if I’ve got any answers.
Why CoComment didn’t work for me
A lot of people promotes CoComment through blog entries and even though CoComment seems to be a terrific service I’ve never been particularly fond of it. Why? Simple because it’s to much of a hassle.
Your point of view
Later this week I will hopefully publish a post about how to make blog commenting a bit easier, depending on how much time I have. But for now, I would like to hear your point of view on how to keep track of blog comments. Which methods do you use?
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Stefan my 2 cents to your topic , register for backtype, which will help you to keep track of all the comments you will add anywhere, more over try easy comment firefox extension and I’m sure you will love it to add comments.
The last part of this post where I hinted about another post I’m writing on is partly about easyComment, which saves me a lot of time each day. Great plugin for anyone who are commenting on blogs.
About Backtype then. Well, I’m looking right at it now but I’m not convinced yet. Feels like it’s a bit more difficult to keep track of specific comments which I would like to check back on. I will take another look later this week and then maybe change my mind.
Yeah, easyComment is great. Saves me tons of time. Come to think of it, if it wasn’t for easyComment, I would not be able to make the amount of blog comments I do per day.
I’m using backtype and it’s a nice service..though I feel too lazy to keep track of my previous comments but I’m sure you will like the interface.
I tried it for a few days but returned to Delicious. Mostly because it takes just about a second to bookmark a new comments.
I’ve used Backtype and its pretty good. Give a try to it.
Backtype is cool, but I have seen that some websites offer the option to subscribe to comments and I would normally select this if I need to know something or waiting for feedback.
I know not all have this option, but I feel it’s a must for some websites. It also encourages feedback and conversation as you will be notified when someone else leaves a comment.
I think the problem to subscribing to comments is that even though you’ve got your answer you will keep getting notices about new posts. That’s why I like delicious. You can simple visit all of your bookmarks marked “check” once a day without getting the urge to check your mail several times a day.
When you subscribe to the comments, the email will have a link that will let you unsubscribe.
Thats what I do, when I leave a comment and would lik to follow up to get an answer or just keep a discussion going. I just subscribe and get an email with a direct link to the comments.
Isn’t there a problem with comments overwhelming your inbox? Let us say that you comment on 5 blogs. Two of them will go viral and result in about 30-40 comments. Wouldn’t this lead to over a hundred mails each day?
Not saying it’s a bad method, just feels like a bit more time consuming than if you bookmark them through delicious.
Well, actually no. I use Gmail and if I subscribed to comments for an article and there are lots of replies I only get one email with all the replies in it. As in, I wont get 40 separate emails, it will be just one threaded email with all 40 messages in it.
Backtype is best for me………
I never use any specific method to keep track my comment. I just revisit the blog I used to comment. It’s all in my head..I’m usually visit all my readers blog. I’m aslo subscribe to blog comment. I just need to check my inbox for new comments and replies. Nice to know you and your blog. Really like thesis theme..
Thank you Ean. I’m also very fond of Thesis and I will probably begin using it more for my small niche sites as well since it’s so easy to install and customize without having to change any files.
Very nice tip, Stefan. Thanks for this. I may have to try this!
I’m glad to hear you find it useful Lisa.
I do the same as George and Jason. I subscribe to comments, since I use gmail. My inbox don’t get filled up with reply emails. If you not using gmail, you are missing out on great features.
I’m using Gmail as well and it do save me a lot of work (grouping mails and spam). I only have experience from Hotmail besides Gmail and recommend everyone to use Gmail.
Cool great plugin.. Thanks for sharing with us dude…thanks to your friend too.
Great post. Found this blog from Daily Blog Tips comment, and it really answers a problem I’ve been having. Since everyone says commenting on other blogs is the best way to promote your blog, I’m glad someone has posted on how to make it easier.
Question: do backtype or easyComment organize different subscription services, like blogger or typekey or what have you?
To be honest I’m not sure and since I’m using delicious I’ve not really checked it out. I did register for backtype but it seems to me like that’s just a long list like Twitter or any RSS-reader.
easyComment is simple to make your commenting simpler. Instead of having to fill in the form every time you’re about to write a comment you simple press a button and the form will fill it self. Name, website, mail, etc.
Well, I’ll be using delicious for keeping track of commenting (I love this idea) and I’ll be installing the easyComment tracker. Great advice, I’ll be coming back to your blog.
That is a great tip but I have to agree with Harsh…I think the best way to track comments is by using backtype. You can also use backtype to gain other valuable information and it can help you find a treasure trove of other blogs to comment on.
I usually subscribe via email to the comments. Later I unsubscribe to it when i think it is no more useful.
I usually use backtype, but if I really want to keep track of comments on a post I subscribe to it, if they have the plugin installed. When I no longer want to keep track I unsubscribe.
If there is no way for me to subscribe and I can’t remember the post then I resort to Backtype.
Hey Stefan, great tip. I want to try it.
Wow such a no brainer and something I never thought of doing I should have been using Delicious for that for months now. Thank you, as I laugh how I never thought about it.