What you miss if you Don’t read the blog on the blog

Photo by Dave Hogg

With the advent of using Facebook to push out blog content, many people stop by opening it only in Facebook instead of going the to original post. When I started reading blogs, I didn’t use Facebook or Twitter. I went to one blog on the recommendation of bloggers I liked and then I moved on to others through the comment section — because bloggers also like to write comments.

If you read blogs only on the page that opens in Facebook or through e-mail, you miss the richness of the blogging community. Even bloggers like Seth Godin who no longer allow comments on his blog (due to the sheer volume of comments and time to answer them, I am told) are richer when you read them on the blog. The visual effects are usually better on the blog and you can use the navigation to read a post you might have missed by e-mail.

You miss the community that grows between bloggers themselves. I love Jim Connolly’s marketing advice for small and medium-sized businesses, but even more I love the way he shares the bloggers he enjoys, such as the post he wrote today (November 16) on Danny Brown. You’ll see Danny commenting on Jim’s blog, Jim commenting on Danny’s blog and get that sense of community, camaraderie, and humor that grows in the online world.

When you comment on Facebook, the conversation moves off the blog and onto the Facebook page and some of that community gets lost. I still talk to bloggers on Facebook but more likely about a random comment that one of them made on Facebook. On Saturday, I saw John Haydon make a comment, “I like the rain!” and Danny Brown quickly answer back, “But does the rain like you, :-)” and I had to respond with “You couldn’t resist, could you, Danny?” only because I have known Danny long enough through his blog and comments that I could almost see the twinkle in his eye when he wrote the comment to John.

The online world is as big or small as you make it. I treasure the fact that people I will never meet in person (most likely) have become real to me. I follow bloggers that speak about things I want to understand better or who are just fascinating writers that draw me in and captivate me with the genuineness of the posts. You won’t get to know them if you only read the Facebook version.

So — Always read the blog on the blog… and thanks for reading my post today!