Has Facebook Lowered Blog Traffic and Comments?

This is an interesting perspective. Now I'm off to make a point of commenting on blogs, rather than on facebook as I have in the past.

I get a large portion of my traffic from Facebook, but my blog is small, and a significant portion of readers is people who are friends and family. So having my blog on Facebook works for me.One thing you can do to integrate if you have a self-hosted or Wordpress blog (because Facebook is obviously not going away) is give people the option to comment on your blog by logging in with their Facebook profile - this way, you get the comment on your blog, and their comment activity shows up on their Facebook, which means you'll have reached their friends as well.

I personally would not want to mix or unite my BlogHer and my Facebook accounts. Just the way I feel.

That is the one huge, huge, HUGE plus about Facebook. If you are going to be a jerk? You have to take accountability for it. I LOVE it for that.

I am so aware that traffic comes from Facebook, but I wonder how much more traffic would actually land on my blog if it didn't exist or didn't consume so much of people's time.

It is an arguable point about traffic but what people cannot argue with at ALL is that it has killed or hugely damaged blog commentary. Which makes me really sad.

OH, man, constant logging in drives me INSANE. I really, really wish there were a better way to handle commentary. It is so annoying.

That is exactly the reason I don't have a Facebook fan page. Nightmare to unmingle...difficulty making the switch

Humans are strong creatures of habit.

Yes! And I am so all over that!!!

I will say that I email some through Facebook because I know how overtaxed their email inboxes are and I want a better chance of getting through!!! Hee!

It is definitely illustrating human desire for convenience.

True...call me old-school but i can't help but think that both the writer and the reader will be woefully shortchanged if that becomes the norm across the board.

True...call me old-school but i can't help but think that both the writer and the reader will be woefully shortchanged if that becomes the norm across the board.

Me, too. :'(

Those things do all suck time away from blog reading and commenting...Facebook gets the brunt of my frustration as the are the largest on the list.

You are totally my kind of blog reader. :)

It does seem to have hurt quantity and quality of blog writing...which can be discouraging.

Snort!

I am not a blogger nor a big Facebooker but a reader. I get feeds on FB. Truthouth, Adobe, Viking, Huffpost, etc.

If the headlines look interesting I click on the link to the page and read the article. If I want to comment I comment on the blog page. I rarely if never comment of FB unless it is a friend's page.

The only reason I am here today is because Blogher sent an email and I was interested in the topic.

I think it is all how you go about setting your FB page up. If you want comments entice the reader with your headlines. Have a FB "like" button on your blog page.

This is off-topic but on-tangent: I've HUGELY improved my own Facebook experience by clicking the "x" next to every single post I see from applications that are annoying: if you click the x, it asks if you want to delete just that one post or ALL posts from that application. Unfortunately there are constantly new "send someone a ___"-type applications springing up, so then I have to X THEM, but it's not difficult and it clears things up SO MUCH.

I've noticed that my traffic keeps going verrrrrry slowly up, but that my comments have gone less-slowly DOWN. I don't know why, but I hadn't thought of Facebook. I'd thought it was the mobile-blog-reading, plus there being soooooo many more blogs (and people having so many more blogs that they follow) now than a few years ago, plus just people not feeling as much like commenting: I've found that for whatever reason, I do less commenting these days myself: as a blogger I even know how good it is to comment, and I STILL find I'm losing motivation to do it.

My site traffic has slowly but steadily increased the entire time I've been blogging, but my comments have decreased over the past two or so years. For example, a few years ago a post might have gotten 200 views, but around 50 comments. Yet, a post that I wrote a few weeks ago got over 2000 views, but only 15 comments. Part of it is certainly me and some things I'm doing differently, but it seems that the art of the blog comment has died as Facebook and twitter have become behemoths. It makes me a little sad.

I noticed a real decline in comments on my blog when readers pushed out the blog rolls. I met lots of cool people/blogs by trolling the blog rolls of blogs I read. I miss those days. I believe that actually clicking from the reader to the blog to comment is just too much. I admit even I'm guilty of it sometimes. My meaningless comment is just not worth those extra three clicks to get there.

I believe Facebook and Twitter have taken some people to a "blog" format they can commit too. It's not hard to write three short sentences or 140 characters and call it good whereas lots of thought and revision and let's be honest, pressure to say something meaningful or profound, go into an actual blog post.

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www.whyrustalkingme.com ( http://www.whyrustalkingme.com ) - Not just a blog, it's my reality

www.whyrureviewingme.com- ( http://www.whyrureviewingme.com- ) Reviews. Yay!

www.twitter.com/whyrustalkingme ( http://www.twitter.com/whyrustalkingme ) - What? All the cool kids are doing it.

I get the majority of my traffic from Facebook, but almost all of my comments are made on Facebook too. I would love for people to comment more on my blog but I think it's just too complicated/confusing for most people. They don't want to register or whatever, and it's so easy to comment on Facebook. I do have a FB page for my blog, since my personal FB is private, and I post to both pages every time I publish a new blog post.

Alysia blogs about family life, parenting and other stuff at Michigal ( http://michigalmom.blogspot.com/ ).

I feel like people are allowing themselves to be trapped inside FB the way they used to be trapped inside AOL, unaware there was anything on the internet outside of AOL. I think that's part of the problem with this dilemma--it's like people WON'T LEAVE FACEBOOK. And that just feels wrong to me. My pet peeve? when people who know my actual e-mail address send me messages through Facebook. When that happens, I know they've drunk the Kool-aid and are trapped inside Facebook forever.

I'm grateful that my FB friends who never knew I had a blog now know because of my posts on FB. Occasionally they even read my actual blog entries! and not just the summary on FB. Some leave comments on my FB posting about a recent entry, and the precious few who understand blogs (usually the ones who have their own blogs) leave comments on my actual blog. I guess I'm old fashioned--I like reading things on paper and writing with fountain pens, and leaving comments on blogs the way you're meant to.

I think Facebook has helped increase traffic to my blog, not necessarily from anyone besides people I know. But darnit I still wish they'd take the time to log in and leave their comments at the source!

I didn't have time to read all the comments (you got so many!) did anyone suggest Echo?

-Roni
http://RoniNoone.com
http://greenlitebites.com
http://RonisWeigh.com
http://skinnyminnymedia.com
http://BlogToLose.com

Those tweet buttons and share buttons are right there so it becomes habit if you like something to go there and not comment on the blog. I'm new on Blogher so just preparing to start my posts. I'd like to personally invite you to check out my social network, Flink12.com that recently launched - it's built around what women want- safety, privacy and real sharing with those they care about.

Since Facebook came along both of my blogs have suffered. Sure, I can broadcast to all of my followers my feed as it's posted, but the traffic and the comments are down. It's pretty frustrating. Also, I finally decided to make a Facebook pages for my blogs, rather than friend people who are readers that I don't actually know, and it's taking a while to get them to make the switch. Oh yes, Facebook is my Frenemy. I sure to love it, but I sure to hate it at the same time.

Kimberly writes at Outside My Head ( http://outsidemyhead.com/ ) and That's My Answer ( http://thatsmyanswer.com/ ). She's currently training to run her second marathon.

it's totally due to the persistent login at Facebook. Nobody wants to muck around with logging in elsewhere and/or providing email and name again and all that jazz. And the blogging software is STUPID about it, all platforms. My primary blog is on typepad, and when I am LOGGED INTO TYPEPAD, having just viewed my blog's stats and other specific information that's only accessible to me when I'm in a logged in state, to comment on my OWN FREAKING BLOG I have to log in again! It's absolutely insane to me how that login state can't persist through to the comments portion of the page (since it works ELSEWHERE on the page where I can see the dashboard and other stuff that the general public can't.)

I cry foul on all the blogging software. I don't blame people who prefer to comment in fb because it involves ten fewer steps.

Of course I'm not even talking about the people who comment on fb because they've only read the title and short excerpt of a post... ;)

I write on Suburban (In)sanity ( http://beckersmith.typepad.com/my_weblog/ ). I have two kids, two cats, a dog, a husband and a minivan. I live in the suburbs now and try to stay sane. Some days, I succeed.

....Facebook has helped. I think early on, when Facebook first took off, my blog hadn't grown enough at all yet, to even see a decline, or any damage done by it. It has steadily grown in traffic in time, although not as quickly as I had hoped.

Having a Facebook Page, for my blog, Our House Of Joyful Noise, has really boosted my traffic / followers. I think less people are 'subscribing' in the more traditional ways, because of following on Facebook though. (Although getting hard numbers of subscribers is very difficult, I find.) I don't mind, as long as people are coming. I have FB to be a great way, to reach more people with your blog, so I hope to keep building my following that way, since people ARE always on FB. (Including me!)

What I have 'always' been eluded by, is getting the readers, to comment! My traffic flow far, far exceeds my comments. That can get so discouraging. They come, they spend the appropriate amount of time on a new post, that tells me they are interested to read through the whole thing, but they often still don't comment. Yesterday, I had 100's of hits right away on a new post of a photo shoot I did, but not a single comment for hours.

There is the concern, that lack of comments, will leave some impression, of the traffic. As you said, it truly is deceiving. My blog has really been growing more than ever in terms of traffic, but I can't get people to say "BOO" for the life of me, even though I have a lot of regulars who come back time, and time again, and my traffic continues to grow.

BTW...I do believe there is a plug-in, that shares the comments, between your Facebook blog post, and your actual blog post. If I can find it, I'll be sure to come back and let you know!

BTW, BTW, anyone reading here, feel free to come 'LIKE' my blog on your Facebook! :)

~ Laura (a.k.a. LLR) www.ourhouseofjoyfulnoise.com ( http://www.ourhouseofjoyfulnoise.com )

I found the very same thing you have regarding FB and Blogging. Traffic for the blog is way down due to FB, but I have more people reading, from the combined means, if that makes sense.

There are a few reasons for people NOT commenting via FB. the main reason no one comments on blogs via FB is that you are NOT anonymous. Blogging commenting has always given a somwhat anonymous feeling.on FB, if you comment about someones boob surgery, all of your friends will know it.

If i read your blog and comment there, I can speak my mind and not worry if my boss is reading it (unless of course he reads your blog too) but then ...well you get the point.

Also FB and twitter I think offer more of a conversation then just a blog post, then an comment. People used to have conversations in the comments section of popular blogs, now with twitter and FB they don't need to.

I can totally relate - I've been bitching about Facebook ruining blogging for a good year or two. And it's not just the lack of comments - I've noticed that people BARELY BLOG anymore. People who used to write passionate, engaging posts hardly write at all these days. (Myself included!) Between Facebook and Twitter, we're already sharing SO MUCH of ourselves in 140-character increments all day long. Eventually it feels like, what's there to blog about? And who's going to read it? Everyone's busy with their farm.

I love me some Facebook, Twitter, socializing, ETCETERA, but my poor, poor ignored blog does not.

Read about my awesome at http://awholelotofnothing.net

Lol. Now a matchmaker, too, Loralee? :P I've already seen her there and been to her blog and all, so chill out, I've got that under control :P (Yeah, I know, that's my inner stalker xD)
xoxoxo

Oh, I think every writer prefers people reading, but it's always nice when both happen! :)

Social media is totally convenient and quick, that's for certain!

Twitter is more my thing, but I don't try on Facebook quite as hard (I'm just there under Loralee Choate ...no fan page) also...get to know Amelia up above! She's a reader in Poland! Xo

I loathe, despise, abhor the apps and games. And would like to shove a stick in the eye of everyone who repeatedly sends me requests for any of them.

I think it h helped my traffic, I'm all for giving people the option of following anyway they want to but I do think there's a decline in blog comments. At first, I thought it was just my mom not knowing how to comment on the blog but it's other folks as well.

I think perhaps readers are overwhelmed and don't know where the writer is most likely to see their contribution. Twitter? Facebook? Blog? Email? So they pick whichever is easiest...or keep quiet.

www.amyblam.com ( http://www.amyblam.com ) General Foolishness

That is true....some people are more responsive on twitter. (Also, you and the Polish background blogger below should get to know each other!!! Xo)

Right?!

Right, but that is also the purpose of a reader. I will say that I think Facebook has exposed people to my blog that might not have seen it but for the average blog reader, time they used to spend reading blogs is now split between twitter/facebook/and blogs. Less to go around.

I do get traffic from Facebook, but I think overall it has taken a massive chunk out of most people's online/blog reading time

Dude, are we friends on Facebook? Because if we're not I will have to boycott future blogher drinking until we are! ;)

I deleted my Google reader in 2008. It's been both good and bad.

The mobile situation is definitely something to consider in all this. I'm at a conference and forgot my laptop and commenting on my phone here is a pain. Good food for thought!

That's something I'd totally pay for! Thanks!!

I think a more fair assessment is that I am not doing facebook how YOU do Facebook. I love my blog and community, but I also collect revenue from my blog. It is my bread and butter. I have the same goals that you do as far as community and engagement but, it's also helping me feed my kids. I have 10,000 followers on twiiter and it's not compensated. Does that make me love it or the followers I have less? No. Would it be great is more of that conversation happened where I could collect revenue for it? You betcha.

P.S. nothing in this article stated I don't take you seriously. Growing a social media following is no small feat and you have numbers to be proud of.

I've only been on Facebook for about 1.5 years and only friend friends and family so the travel to my blog is not high. For some reason they do prefer to comment on facebook rather than my blog. Leaves me wishing I could cut and paste. I follow quite a few blogs and make it a point to show them on my blog to help them. I am hoping it goes both ways and when I post I always leave my blog address. When I check the site meter, I'm getting hits from all other the world but again, most do not comment. I think it's because they enjoy reading and then skipping to something else. I still try to at least say I was there (I know how it feels.) Some who post on facebook tell me it's because they cannot remember their log-in (mine is automated by Norton or I might forget too.) Loved your article and I will pop on over to check out your blog. My address follows if you'd like to do the same. I just enjoy writing but I would still like the audience! Great day!

Donna @ http://mylife-in-stories.blogspot.com

I have thought for the last couple of years that Twitter is what really killed blog comments and traffic. Facebook may kill comments, but I've found it has increased my traffic a little bit.

What occurred to me today after reading this is that it isn't the fault of either site but of mobile media as a whole. I read this post this morning on my iPhone after you linked it on FB. It's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to leave a comment on most blogs/websites using a small mobile device and I rarely even try. So, after reading this I had a choice; comment on Facebook when I went back, (which is easy since the link loaded within my FB app and not in an external browser) or come here later on my PC when I had a free moment. Since a good number of people accessing Twitter and FB are doing so from their phones how many do you think take the time to go back and comment later?

If you figure out how to bring comments back to our blogs, let me know!! :)

Annette

http://catnipandcoffee.com/

As a new blogger (I just started at the end of August), Facebook is the only definitive way I know to bring in traffic. I have lots of twitter followers but very few actually read my blog. I don't know how I would have gotten people to start visiting my site without creating a fanpage.

Ilana is a NYC based working mom, read more from her on Mommy Shorts ( http://www.mommyshorts.com ).

>>WHY CAN I NOT FIND A PLUGIN FOR WORDPRESS THAT COLLECTS COMMENTS TO A POST FROM SOCIAL MEDIA AND PUTS THEM ALL IN MY BLOG COMMENTS?! I NEED TO KEEP TRACK OF MY VALIDATION, PEOPLE!

Look into Echo Comments (it's not free). It grabs all the Twitter and Facebook mentions and adds them to your comment stream. I'm not affiliated, just a happy user.