I have to admit that this month have been very stressful. Aside from real life stuff, which I will not cover, the lack of comments has been bothering me. With that, I want to get this off my back once an for all since it’s not good to keep it in. Also, I want your feedback as well.
Back when I started blogging, one of the enjoyable aspects of this is interacting with others. It allows for discussion and potentially new ideas for posts. Comments also gives different perspective on a topic. In this case, it can be opinions or aspects on an episode I didn’t cover. It can also serve as a discussion for the topic covered for an editorial and so on.
In the past, my blog received a good number of comments. It’s not surprising since during the early half of 2010s, the anime blogosphere was really active. However, there have been a huge shift from blogs to social media. This in turn along with other factors gradually led to a decline of the amount of comments I receive.
The problem is, the recent drop of comments in recent years have made me doubt myself. I feel that if I don’t receive any comments, it makes me believe that people aren’t actually reading my content. Sure, people gives likes, but I have problems with them. You can like a post without actually reading the post since there is a like button without reading it. It’s because it appears on the main feed as an option. To me, I feel that likes are more suited for tumblr-like posts and not full-fledged content that I produce.
I have to admit that this comment drought cannot go on for any longer as it’s stressing me out. Burnout can definitely ruin someone’s passion for anything. In this case, I feel that my effort and time is being wasted when I see a lack of comments. It makes me believe that people aren’t reading my content. not made any better since other anime blogs that received several. I also infrequently leave comments on other blogs. In most cases, I do not receive any back in return.
Is the content the problem? Due to the real-life situation, it has definitely taken a toll on the content. It shows with the declining number of editorials as I can’t come up with new ideas. Maybe the episode review format needs to be changed. Perhaps it needs to focus on my thoughts about the episode along with any interesting aspects and analysis.
The problem is that writing an episode review that is a mix of summary and thoughts does not work anymore. It’s mostly because everyone who watch a the anime I covered will know how the episode will go. It’s not surprising since anime is more accessible than ever with legal streaming sites. This is why I need to change how I do episode reviews. That way, readers won’t bore themselves reading summary on the show they already watched.
In summary, commenting is an important aspect of blogging compared to things such as likes or even the amount of traffic. It allows for discussion of new ideas and viewpoints on anime that I haven’t covered. While people have different ideas on how they gauge success of their blog such as number of likes, page views, subscribers, followers, etc. For others, some might not even care and just produce the content that he or she enjoys creating. To me, it’s comments. With the lack of comments, not only I feel lonely given my current situation, but also doubt my current efforts. Obviously, content is the main driver in attracting comments, which I need to work on.
With that, feel free to share any feedback (as long they are constructive) on how I can improve my content to attract more comments. Also, if you are an anime blogger experience a similar situation, you can also share it as well.
Create a Discord o.o Sometimes is more easy to comment a post directly in a chat, than in a comments section
I know what is Discord is, but it’s more suitable as a IRC/Teamspeak/chatroom replacement compared to comments section. No, I am not doing this.
I think your content is fine for the most part, but I definitely care more about your thoughts on the episode more than the summary section of your episodic posts. I can’t speak for everyone though. But I can imagine writing up the summary can become cumbersome for you as well (on my blog, my Haruhi Suzumiya posts were summary-based because I intended to have it be a comedy recap between me and an RPed Kyon).
I think a short synopsis (paragraph minimum) of the episode and then a large post about your thoughts would be perfect. It helps prevent burnout as well.
On my blog, I started having trouble writing episodic posts because I found I don’t have much to say about an individual episode, especially if the series is largely average. I’ve taken a long break, but the most recent posts I did were about large chunks of a series or whole series because I found I have more to say.in that case. There are exceptions in rewatches and series I am familiar with via source material because I feel like I have something new to say, and it’s easier to analyze. Nowadays I like short bursts of inspiration to write about a single topic about an anime or visual novel.
I’m not as frequent of a blogger as you are, but I hope my input was helpful. ^^ I lost a chunk of my passion for writing about anime and visual novels after various mishaps, but I’m getting some of my passion back after the long break and have various ideas for posts, like an episodic catchup to Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card or posting Japanese lessons.
I am in the process of changing of changing my episodic formats, so hopefully it won’t be as tedious. But back in the early days, I used to write those long synopsizes and those take a lot of time and probably a waste of time. 2009 was about when legal streaming started to take part. at least a little bit.
But it’s understandable that it can be difficult to come up with new ideas. It’s a reason I have been doing episodics so long. But yes, sometimes one needs to take a break once in a while to regain some inspiration.
But yes, hopefully you will gain the pas-ion back to start blogging again. Maybe I need to participate more on twitter and such as that might help a bit with the promotion aspect.
I stopped including a synopsis in my reviews for the same reason you described. Plus, I found I was stressing on getting the synopsis just right, when that wasn’t the stuff that made my site distinctive (well, to the extent it can be called distinctive…).
I think your analysis on what’s driven reduced comments is spot on, too. I’ve seen the discussion move from blogs to Facebook or Twitter. I don’t really like it. I think blogs represent a greater level of independence. But it is what it is.
As in writing in general, you have to know your why. If getting comments is important to you, then you should go after them! I don’t have a lot of suggestions, because while I love comments, they’re not my main reason for blogging.
Have you read https://fujinsei.com/? That site has a lot of blogger advice, and if you haven’t checked it out, I’d recommend it.
This might sound hollow, but I know that even if I don’t comment often (real life has a way of imposing arbitrary and significant demands on my time), I still enjoy reading your site. FWIW!
I agree that synopsizes these days are waste of time due to how widespread legal streaming sites.
Yes, there have been a big trend to social networking since 2010s. I have to admit that I haven’t really participate much on social networking in recent year. This may have held back the growth of this blog as for a long time, my follower count on Twitter have stagnated. But Social Networking is definitely good for sharing things and communicating with others, but not so much for formal discussion.
But yes, I will take a look of that site and thanks for reading my blog.
I haven’t left comments on any anime blogs in years, mostly due to lack of time and because I’m not keeping up with as many series as I used to. But honestly, you shouldn’t be bothered so much that people aren’t commenting – personally, I would be happy if people are just reading and liking my posts; actually taking time to write thoughtful comments is becoming rarer as people’s lives become busier coupled with the flourishing of social media platforms all vying for people’s attention, which makes writing comments on blogs even less enticing. So you may just have to lower your expectations to match the current times. Another thing you could do is examine your writing style – ask yourself, “is the flow and style of my writing appealing?” “is my writing free of distracting typos/grammatical errors?” “is there a way I can make my writing tone unique, funny, clever, or something to make it stand out from others?” But it’s probably just the changing times I mentioned rather than anything different that you’re doing. If getting comments is the main thing that makes writing enjoyable to you, then maybe look into other outlets where it’s easier for people to find your posts and interact with you. I’ve found that Tumblr makes finding people to talk to much easier thanks to its tagging method. So yeah, there’s nothing you can do about the changing times so you may have to change how you do things…or how you feel about them.
I agree that eventually things have to change to meet current trends. I have to admit that in the past three years I have neglected social networking, which may have held my content back mostly because I was busy. I guess once I get my life back in order, my time will be limited again. But at the end of the day, I will need to change/reform my efforts on how to engage readers. This means being a little bit more active on social networking besides using it as another feed of some sort.
I think one thing you can do is participate more in social media? Unfortunately, social media won’t be going away anytime soon due to the ease and convenience. You’re not alone though, most bloggers (me included) have seen massive drop in views and comments since the later half of 2010’s, and the trend still seems to be going strong.
I have to admit that I don’t participate that much on social media, but I guess at the end of the day, I do need to pay at least more attention to twitter and perhaps tumblr.
Oddly, the traffic have been going up slightly to about 10k a month, but nowhere close to levels seen in 2013-2014. Comments on the other hand, well…
I feel like I’ve found a kindred spirit in you from reading this post. I found it from LitaKino’s blog (LitaKinoAnimeCorner) and thought it might be about something that has been bothering me for some time now.
A little background on me: I’ve been blogging for roughly two years now, and have tried my hand at a variety of content including full series reviews, episodic reviews, special features, and themed events. Most everything I post has a lot of work put into it, both in content and presentation. I always try to create work that I would be proud of and push myself to go the extra mile for even the smallest improvement.
Which is why I become so disheartened by a lack of interaction from readers. Like you, I primarily look for comments on my posts because I have no idea if they read the post or not otherwise.
A quick look at my stats shows about 5 comments per post across 158 posts last year, excluding the outlier of April in which I ran an event that I publicized well ahead of time. I also incentivized comments during that event and while I want to believe my readers had genuine interest in what I did, it’s an outlier month nonetheless.
Most notably over the past 6 months I’ve had closer to zero comments per post, with the most frequent ones being a pingback from the person I was collaborating with and not a reader comment. It’s frustrating, given how much thought and honest effort I put into just 3-4 paragraphs of writing, not to mention a lot of time capturing and editing screenshots to make the post look its best.
But like you I can’t seem to figure out why some blogs easily get 10+ comments within hours of posting while mine are lucky to get even 1. You’ve been at this a lot longer than I have and it looks like you’ve tried making some changes. I have as well, but I have yet to find that magical element which gets people to actually engage me. I’m half convinced it’s not the content at all.
I won’t pretend to know what you might do to improve your situation. I came here thinking you had some suggestions of your own, actually. What I can try to do is read some of your posts and follow your blog a while to see if I notice anything. The suggestions everyone else has offered seem like sound advice, and I’m almost sure the increased social media presence of other blogs plays a big part in their popularity. I need to figure out how to get past 7 twitter followers before that becomes an option for me, though 🙂
I hope we can help one another. I hate to see that someone is going through the same sense of doubt that I am (and has been for much longer than me), but I guess knowing I’m not alone is some small comfort.
But hey, plenty of comments on this post, right?
It took me a lot of time to build up a social media presence, but of course it stagnated in the past few years since I am not a big user of social media. I do comment on other blogs. This can help to a certain extent as it might incentivize the author to comment on some of your posts.
But to build the presence, I suggest participating more on Twitter as most anibloggers will be on Twitter as well or even on the Anime subreddit on Reddit. Back in the day, I built up my presence by participating on anime forums, namely AnimeSuki.
In short, don’t give up. It took a while to build success, despite the challenges.