Did You Know That Comments May Be Worthless?
But it actually depends on your point of view
Let’s get to the bottom of all that you have got to say.
Whether you are a commenter or not.
You may wish to have a view or more, it is something we all aspire to.
I’m in a dither to learn that all the comments I have made, account for nothing. (Or maybe not).
All 756 of them so far.
I’ve come a long way from that first comment. I remember how I pondered and pondered. Thought and stalled some more, taking me ages to write even one comment — in the end opting for a neutral ‘what a lovely piece, look forward to reading more of your stuff.’
My comments have improved a lot since then I am happy to report. When I find a story all lonely, I will always try to stop by and leave a friendly comment.
This I found encouraged me when I first started out and wanted to give back a bit of this to others.
But I have been told that all these comments will account for nothing at all in the end. (But it depends on how you look at it, of course).
All those comments I spent my time writing will earn me zero dollars. (but that’s okay, so read on)
Ilam Padmanabhan breaks this news to me in his article, What You Didn’t Know About Your Stats
He says “ Reads from your comments: They help you engage with other readers and writers. But it gives you ZERO direct income.”
What is the point of comments at all if I earn Zero Dollars?
Why did Medium put them on here? There must be more to this than monetary value? (Of course, there must be!)
Iris B. Stehn on the other hand tells me that it is all about ENGAGEMENT and comments are one way of doing this.
She says “You need more interaction. You have to interact with others! Read, follow, clap, comment, highlight.”
I have even given out the same advice in this article and believe fully in the value of comments to increase engagement.
This leaves me in a dilemma you see because I love reading, writing, and commenting but the latter does nothing for my wallet.
Should I use my efforts to just write and write or continue commenting as well in the interests of engagement?
So please help me out which one should it be? Or do I continue to do both?
UPDATE: Thank you for all your comments, I value them all! I wanted to say this piece may have come across in a way that had not been intended, (judging by the comments I received). All I had wanted to convey in this piece, was that comments are valuable and that value is not always monetary but is found in the engagement. That is what I should have said in the first place (I know), still I really appreciated all the engagement, which proves the value of comments after all! So I will definitely be continuing to comment for engagement.
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