I’ve been reading Jonathan Fields | Awake at the Wheel for a couple of months now. He’s a pretty interesting guy for a pro-blogger type. My favorite post of his so far was about taking his kid to the hospital and living in the moment, because it transcended the cliche, which, really, is what all good writing aspires to.
He’s got an interesting post today called: Should Your 14 Year Old Be On Facebook, to which I left a way-insightful comment, and I got this email reply:
Just a quick note to thank you for leaving your first comment on my blog, Jonathan Fields | Awake At The Wheel.
Feel free to stop back anytime, e-mail me any questions and, if you\’ve enjoyed the blog, why not subscribe for free updates? Here\’s the link:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/JonathanFields
Have a great day!
Jonathan
How sweet. He responded. So quickly. And, come to think of it, I do have a few questions for the veteran blogger, so I drafted an email response. I asked if he knew what percent of people subscribe after getting one of these comment-follow-up emails, and if he really “follows” all the people he follows on Twitter.
I suspect there must be a secret super-blogger Twitter filter for sifting out the feeds you actually want to pay attention to (while appearing as if you are gracious enough to follow everyone who follows you).
In my email, I was torn between my readerly-disdain for automated replies to comments, and my bloggerly-interest in GETTING! NEW! READERS! THE EASY WAY!
The only other blogger I’ve gotten an automated comment-response email from was Jordan @ MommaBlogga, and she just had a baby, so I didn’t harass her about it. Plus she has explained tricky WordPress thingies to me, so I love her, even though she sent me an automated response after we totally email-bonded over the tricky WordPress thingies (not to mention my participation in her group writing project, but, really, I still love her).
I hesitated before sending my email to Jonathan (can I call you Jonathan?), worrying that I sounded too snarky, and — What if his email wasn’t automated? What if he really does follow my twittering? What if he’s deeply offended by my not feeling his sincerity about wanting to be my friend and get emails from me?
Well, I got both the answer to some of my questions and absolution for my snarkiness, in under a minute:
Internet Smarm = We’re agin’ it!
***Updated*** Holy Real-Time Internet Non-Smarminess: THE Jonathan Fields just responded to my email, NOT AUTOMATED, and can I just say that I am his loyal follower for EVER now.
Tags: awake at the wheel, blogging, comments, jonathan fields, mommablogga
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Those automatic replies have always annoyed me. Nice that he did end up responding for real!
Memarie Lanes last blog post..You must…
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I’ve responded like dozens of times and you haven’t once posted that you are my “loyal follower” geez…
But, I didn’t drop by to give you crap about that, though I may have to change my mind about this now… I came to say that I have given you the “I Love Your Blog” award:
http://3amdesigns.blogspot.com/2008/09/somebody-loves-my-blog-d.html
Feel free to toss it out since I’m just one of your loyal readers, not up there with the likes of Dooce and Jonathan Fields.
tonis last blog post..Somebody Loves My Blog
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I’m so curious… What in the world did he say that won you over?
Gladiss last blog post..nerd alert
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Well, now I feel bad because I don’t even come close to following everybody who follows me on Twitter. As a matter of fact I barely follow anybody who follows me. Is that being rude? I had no idea I was following bad blogging etiquette.
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I am trying to refrain from Twitter for that reason. It’s too public who I follow. I read a LOT of people, but if I no longer am interested in someone anymore, I don’t want to hurt feelings by deleting them publicly….
traceys last blog post..Going on a Lego Hunt…
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Memarie Lane — Crazy thing was that he responded for real abt 2 minutes after I published my post (which was only 5 minutes after I got the “mailbox full” message, so he responded REALLY quickly.
Toni — Thanks! (and, I think you’re kidding, right? About the emails? Because I’m pretty sure I’ve always responded to you . . . seeing as we are BBFFs!)
Gladis — He just answered my questions. I might have overstated my overwhelming loyalty for exaggeration’s sake
but I was impressed at how quickly he responded. My mom doesn’t even respond that fast!
Beth — So, blogging etiquette is weird. At first on Twitter I tried to follow everyone back, and usually I will follow people back at least to start, but then I just can’t handle it. Anyway, Jonathan said you can use Tweetdeck to group people you follow into different folders. Then you could appear to be following everyone back, even though for all practical purposes you’re not really.
It’s weird — Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer didn’t follow me back, and I am SO HURT. I still follow her, though. But I don’t know that it would be good etiquette to “follow” people you’re really not interested in following, you know?
Tracey — So, the weirdest thing on Twitter, that I’ve felt bad about is, I’ll follow someone whose blog I’ve read or I’ve just come across them IRL or online, and then their tweets are just toooooo not what I want to read, and so I stop following, but by then often they have followed me back, so it could look like I was just tricking them into following me and then dropped them, but I really was in good faith. That probably makes no sense, but.
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I never realized that this might not be welcome. The note that I have sent out is just intended to thank people for commenting. The plugin that does it just checks to see if the email address you provide has been used by a commentator before, so it doesn’t know if someone is really an email friend (or, say, my grandma, who was probably pretty confused by the email!).
Jordan (MamaBlogga)s last blog post..Those kids!
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Jordan — I think the marketing of personal blogs is very, very tricky. Some (very few) personal bloggers become successful (however you define that) through completely organic channels. People like them, word spreads, in two years they are Pioneer Woman.
For the rest of us, we write our posts, and for each one you have several options for promotion — from SEO plugins to comment responses to friendfeed/facebook/stumbleupon/twitter/plurk/etc.
What interests me is how one balances the creation of content with the marketing of that content. For a Marketing Pilgrim professional like yourself, the marketing itself is a creative (as in creating content) endeavor. For me, I feel almost “dirty” when I promote my own stuff. My mom was vaguely horrified when she saw me doing something (submitting to Kirtsy, I think?) to promote myself, as if that is just so . . . so tacky. How do you negotiate those feelings (preconceptions?) about self-promotion?
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It’s not easy. One thing I like about writing for Marketing Pilgrim is that it’s got enough of a following that the promotion feeds on itself. With a ton of subscribers (relatively speaking), your subscribers do a lot of the promotion for you (voting on social sites, passing posts along through email, blogging about interesting things you’ve covered, etc.).
Until we get to that point, however, we do have to do a lot of the legwork. When I stumbled my own stuff, I tried to make sure only to submit the best posts. And then, of course, to make sure it does well, you have to promote voting on those social sites almost as hard as you’re already promoting your own content.
I’ve gotten to the point, however, where I don’t submit my own things to social sites because it does feel weird for me (that, and it hasn’t made a huge, instantaneous difference on MB to date). On the other hand, I’m okay with voting for my own materials on social sites once they’ve been submitted by someone else. So it does depend on your comfort level.
And, of course, it depends on the nature of the blog and its goals. Are you (the general you, not you specifically
) trying to make a living off your blog or are you okay with considerably less? Are you trying to reach the most people possible, or is a limited audience fine?
Jordan (MamaBlogga)s last blog post..Those kids!
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Must check into this. Never heard of him.
MereCats last blog post..Three Totally Unrelated Topics All Rolled into One Post
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Hello Jane,
Head’s up emails are cool, but not just for your standard email deal. I’d rather wait a couple of days/hours/weeks if need be. My fav problogger is YARO STARAK. love him. slight crush. he’s just so darn nice and generous.
It’s been awhile and wanted to say hello…this post intrigues me because I get these automated things all day long and I can’t stand it from people I am friends with, extra emails to delete that are just annoying. I do appreciate the service for auto-responders for vacation though..or maternity leave, etc.
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Some very good points here. An automated response is not a pretty thing. Glad he emailed you for real.
the mama bird diariess last blog post..mothers and daughters
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Hello,
I am, Donald
great posts on here
my site:
http://LrNnPv.spaces.live.com/
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