❓Are you getting quality comments on your posts?❓
Spam comments? Careless comments? Where are the quality comments?
I was browsing my feed while lazing in bed this morning and came across a post by someone who was complaining about all the crappy comments she was receiving on her posts.
I follow this person as she produces amazing photographs, writes some interesting and controversial material from time to time and actually lives off her Steemit and crypto income, which is something I aspire to do eventually as well.
Her post was essentially saying that many of the comments on her posts fell into the following categories:
- Comments from people who clearly hadn't read her post i.e. "nice post", "great work"
- Comments from people who may have skimmed her material and ask questions that are clearly answered within the post itself i.e. lazy readers
- People who genuinely read her article and provide meaningful and/ or real comments.
I'm pretty sure we all experience this. And some might experience it more than others, especially when your posts reach the hot or trending pages, then it can become a nightmare.
So when do we see less spammy or lazy comments?
From my posts, I tend to see fewer spammy or lazy comments on posts that are:
- Constructed in a manner that encourages engagement i.e. asking questions of my readers, posts or videos about topics that inspire discussion, helpful tips for people and so on.
- Slightly controversial and/ or expressing strong opinions on a topic.
Of course, sometimes we just want to write an informative piece rather than trying to encourage discussion so I suppose we shouldn't expect high levels of engagement on all of our posts. But if you're expecting lots of quality comments, then make sure your material is designed to encourage this.
We'll never get rid of the spammy comments that we see on all our posts, so its best to try to encourage discussion as much as possible so that we increase the number of quality comments on our posts. It's always nice to go out of your way to engage with your followers and people you follow too.
I like the rule of leaving 10 comments a day on posts that land on my feed and that I discover under the new or hot feed. So, part of this issue can be addressed by ensuring that we actively seek out material to leave quality comments on.
What do you think? Have I missed anything? Are there other ways to encourage quality comments on your posts?
▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS
Hey this post was good, I follow you, you follow me.
Jk I fucking hate spam comments but they’re everywhere not just Steemit. Just make sure you don’t miss out on quality engagement just because of a few spammers!
Lol xD I almost fell for this...
Haha I almost flagged your comment after reading the first line... glad I didn't... I don't miss out on quality engagement ever. It can get annoying sifting through the hordes of spam but I often come across incredibly intelligent and kind people on here which is always very motivating.
It can be incredibly frustrating when you receive a lot of spam comments. In fact, the ones that irritate me the most are those that are disguised to look like relevant comments. Something along the lines of:
'Great post. I agree and have followed you.'
It's a clear attempt to receive an upvote. Don't get me wrong, I love to upvote great content, but that is not worthy of it. It's important for the future of the platform that it's filled with worthwhile content.
Engaging with posts and other users is the key to long term success on Steemit, and I do wish that people wouldn't look for the quick and easy route to earning Steem.
Having said that, I still see many great comments so I guess it does balance out.
You're right, there are many people here who want to engage with good quality content which is what keeps me here.
It's all too easy falling in to the trap of trying to earn quick Steem. There isn't a quick and sustainable way to do that thankfully, otherwise this platform would be a disaster.
I always get 1 or 2 spammy comments but seems to be getting better for me. Maybe spammers have given up on me, or maybe I've got filters on and don't notice so much.
It could also depend on the tags that you generally post under. If I'm posting under my beer review tag or some less common ones then the spam comments really aren't all that frequent. But if my post hits the hot page then it get's a larger number.
I have also seen a lot of complains about spam comments.
Personally 90% of the comments I receive are felt and thoughts through. You can check it out yourself.
Probably because as soon as I see some spam there is a fuck off straight ready for it? Or because the content of my posts? One wonders.
Haha Insaw you give a “fuck off” the other day. I think that type of response with a pretty red flag sends a good message.
I think it can have something to do with the content and also how much exposure a post gets. When my videos get bumped by DTube then the spam comments start coming out of hiding. I’m happy to hand out flags though so the message gets across.
I don't get spam a lot yet, which tells you where my posts go (not the hot or trending pages), but what little I do, more times than not (it's hit and miss), I will try to reply to it. Some of these folks just don't know better, and others hardly speak English, and it's tough to tell that from the actual spammers (who can't be making much in rewards if all they're saying is, "good post.")
It's only happened once or twice, but I've actually had people thanking me for letting them know. Most of the time, no reply.
I do like the proactive approach you take to this. While we both know people are bound to give no or very little effort to reading what we write, that doesn't mean we can't do something to encourage it. Even informational posts can be engaging. It might take more thought on how to present it, but that's okay because it will only improve the value of the post.
Yes, that's spot on. It forces us to think harder about how we create our content. I actually enjoy trying little things to inspire conversation.
This topic was certain to generate conversation given that it's something every active and engaged user is passionate about on Steemit.
But other posts need more effort put in to generating conversation.
My "drink your urine" post is an example of one that was designed to generate conversation, and it worked well. Others don't pan out as well, such as my beer reviews for example. But I do those for another competition and most of the engagement is on the competition page rather than my post.
I've tried educating spammers a couple of times before as well. It rarely works so I find hitting them with a flag is a quick way to tell them how highly their input is valued.
I'm more hating the bot info-spam more than something that looks like it comes from a real account. Those I can tolerate.
Yeah some of the "informative" bots can be incredibly frustrating.
I can relate to this... It is frustrating but I must admit I am sometimes a lazy reader! I have always been. I think may have dyslexia or something idk.
I looked that you have steemit shopify ecom biz? I have been thinking about it for some time but I don't know can I sell steemit merch. Did you made some kind of deal with steemit or ask a permission?
P.S I picked your post on my daily pick list in my latest post!
Hey, you can use the public Steem logo without permission so my Steem merch is using that. And DTube have stated that they have no interest in producing merch so there are a few people doing that already.
We can all fall into the lazy reading trap. But I'd rather not comment if I know I'm being lazy rather than leave a half arsed comment. :)
Thats awesome news!Thanks for the info now I can start to create some steem stuff!
Yeah I have been working on that lazy reading recently and have improved!
It's a difficult topic and something I've given up on. Often when I do respond or comment on a post it doesn't get a response by OP. OP a lot of the time is just posting for upvotes to make Steem which is what the system is designed to do.
On the flip side I post what I believe to be good content and can never break a few cents. When I make $1 I am thrilled.
Then I look at all the bots flooding them upvotes and CBF.
When I engage I get no response or support so why bother providing insightful commentary if no one responds or supports your comment?
Like wise with content, there is so much crap posting.
I respond to your comments :P
But I totally understand where you're coming from. You can often recognise which users will respond to comments in their posts. I try to find those and upvote them.
It can take a while for your posts to start consistently breaking above $1. My posts were only making a few cents for quite a while. They started performing better when I started getting involved with the community on Discord. I'd recommend doing that if you haven't already. You'll find me and many other Aussies on the PAL server.
I just ignore the crap content these days. There are plenty of gems out there to focus your attention on.
I tried accessing the discord but it was too much of a head fuck to be honest
Haha I’ll see if I can put together some simple instructions.