Two Lessons from Most Commented on Blog Posts

By Gini Dietrich

It’s the last official week of summer and I’m taking the next two days off because Mattie Dietrich is coming to visit and we’re going to play.

Because of that, I’ll admit I’m a little less motivated to write a super compelling blog post that is going to blow your socks off.

Even though Lindsay Bell thinks I’m a robot, as it turns out, my brain needs a break.

So I was trolling through some blog posts from 2011 to see if there was something I could repurpose and call it a (lazy) day.

I happened upon Michael Schechter’s, “Five Reasons I Should Get More Comments than Gini Dietrich” from August of 2011 and I got flustered all over again (what a jerk!).

Which compelled me to see which blog posts have had the most comments…and he is the reigning champ.

At 661 comments, he has me beat by 143! On my own blog! Did I mention he’s a jerk?

This led me to thinking it’d be fun to list the top commented on blog posts since Spin Sucks was incepted in September of 2006.

Are you ready?

Beware the Google+ Experts. I’m embarrassed about this blog post. Actually, this blog post is the one that made me sit back and think about our vision and whether our content works toward achieving it. Now we won’t publish anything that doesn’t fit our vision. But, at 518 comments, it definitely struck a nerve.
Ann Handley’s Author Q&A. We were just talking about this in our staff meeting yesterday. Ann’s live Q&A completely knocked it out of the park. I mean, she totally rocks and the topic is great. At 412 comments, she is going to be hard to beat!
Danny Brown’s Author Q&A. Danny totally held the live Q&A crown until last week. Sorry, buddy! At 396 comments, he was pretty far ahead for quite some time.
A Blog Post About Nothing. We still laugh about this Seinfeld of blog posts from June of 2011. I had zero inspiration and really just wanted to go ride my bike (good to know nothing has changed). So I pumped out 300 words about, literally, nothing and went on my way.
My Author Q&A. I’m telling you. I get no respect around here. I can’t even get the most comments on my own live Q&A. At 362 comments, Danny and Ann both beat my butt pretty badly.

To round out the top 10, of the next four most commented on blog posts, three are author Q&As.

What that should tell you is if you want blog posts that people comment on, do live interviews with people of interest in your industry!

Also of interest are the following stats:

There also were more than three years that we had zero comments on any blog posts. Zero. For more than three years.

That just goes to show how persistence definitely pays off. Eventually.

All in, a couple of really good lessons if gaining comments on blog posts—to build community—is one of your goals.