Day 5: Comments?

As one of the most popular fashion blogs, The Style Rookie gets plenty of fashion-obsessed and just young-blogger-curious visitors a day (as mentioned earlier, about 54,000 a day). The majority of those are just passing by, and no one will ever know what they thought about Tavi’s blog. However, some of them leave comments, and that’s what I am looking at today.

Based on my own blogging experience, people usually comment more if a post includes a question or a controversial statement. For example, it’s no surprise that Daily Kos gets 166 comments on his latest (as of right now) blog post. Followers comment on the post, comment on other comments and thus sparkle discussions which don’t necessarily stay within the topic of the original post.

The Style Rookie, on the contrary, doesn’t pose obvious questions. The blog merely gives direction to the thought flow. However, each post has about a 100 comments. 103 people commented on Sleepy and Hollow. 3 major observations:

1.       Tavi doesn’t answer her readers. At least in the comment threads. There is no discussion going on between the commentators as well.

This was a little disappointing. I am used to bloggers actively participating in the “afterlife” of their posts. One of my favorite bloggers, Anna Rusakova, posts her creative work from time to time. She takes the time to answer every comment which sometimes results in long threads. However, there is no rule set in stone and each blog probably creates its own comment-response culture. Is there a blog ethics rule about that?

2.       Posting comments is a good way to promote your own blog.

People who post comments often include links to their blogs as well. Tavi’s take on it:

“The best way to get your blog out there is to comment when you see something you like on another blog. Interaction and communication, the wonders of the Internet, next to pointless videos of animals sniffing each others butts and illegal music downloads”.   

So I guess Tavi’s readers want to promote their own fashion related content. She also gets invited to sometimes related and sometimes random projects and research.

3.       The Style Rookie followers know what she is talking about.This made me a little self-conscious by confirming my absolute cultural/fashion ignorance. A good thing, however, is that Tavi knows her audience.