Hopeless self promotion

I’m terrible at promoting this blog. In fact, the only thing I do to promote it is to ping Technorati when I make a new post. I also added a Feedburner feed, but that’s not to promote my blog as much as to make it easier for readers to know when there’s new content. Hopeless, I know.

So I’m always pleased, and a little embarrassed and surprised, when I’m mentioned somewhere. I just got a mention and a link from the Real Men Wear Pink podcast (Episode 18). JayT had some kind words for my blog, too (thanks, JayT).

At one time or another I’ve been mentioned by all the podcasts listed at right under “Podcasts I never miss”. Most recently, that included Kalvin’s Hello Waffles.

These mentions came about because I comment on their shows. I have a simple rule: I don’t comment unless I think I have something to add (others, of course, may feel that I don’t say anything worthwhile). But I never—ever—leave a comment somewhere just in the hope of driving traffic to this blog. Others do that, I don’t and won’t.

In a way, this goes back to the days before blogs and podcasts when people participated in forums and newsgroups. The etiquette was that one should read the threads for awhile before participating. I still do that—I spend time reading blog or podcast comments before I leave one, and this is on top of reading the blog or listening to the podcast, of course.

To me, this whole thing—blogging and podcasting—is a form of conversation. Commenting is an important part of that conversation, but just like real life I don’t engage with everyone; time is short, after all.

Most ordinary bloggers write their posts and that’s pretty much the end of it. There might be the occasional comment or link to a post, but the percentage of blogs that get dozens—let alone hundreds—of comments is pretty small. I’d guess that it’s probably the same for most podcasts.

So, I really appreciate it when I get acknowledged someplace where I participate in the conversation. In that spirit, I’d like to acknowledge my two most loyal commentators of late, Evil European and Lost in France, and thank them for their contributions to the conversation here. I may be hopeless at promoting my own blog, but that won’t stop me from trying to promote theirs.