I feel quite terrible. Today is the first day in quite a few that I have enough time to sit down and reply to the comments left on my posts and I came to realize that I hardly answer to 20-30% of the comments I get.
That is just plain wrong
You know why?
Because when people ask me how I grew so much on Steemit so fast, I start preaching about engaging with other authors, commenting on their posts, replying to the comments you get, spreading your vote as much as you can etc.
And I haven´t been doing that. I have received more than 1,000 comments during the past 2 weeks and I have replied to roughly 200 (Ok, 300 comments came on a contest post which are pretty much self explanatories but still), it is a below average reply rate from my side.
The truth is, if you have time to post, you must have time to reply to the comments people leave on your posts. They are making an effort to engage with you, so you should do the same.
When I started on Steemit, I was replying to 80-90% of the comments I got on my posts and I used to comment in at least 10 other posts a day, now I can hardly keep up with my own post replies. Back in May when I joined chat servers, I was replying to almost everyone, now I have dozens of unread messages from people who are probably reaching out to me to get support or advice.
And you know what? It was that behaviour from the beginning of my steemit journey that got me where I am today, and I am losing my essence. People are telling me I ignore them, that I´m not as friendly as I used to be or they just simply stop commenting on my posts because they are not getting feedback or engagement from me.
It´s not that I don´t want to engage, it´s just that I´m involved in so many projects that sometimes I find it very hard to keep up with everything, especially when I am travelling.
But you know what? Recently I made a contest about "being a role model Steemian", and I think I´m not being one right now, these past few days and I intend to change that.
I am not going to post something unless I already replied to at least 75% of the worthy comments I get - yeah, I am not going to reply to one liners or spam comments - from people that are actually taking the time to read, think and reply on my posts.
And you should follow my example
Steemit is based on engagement and making social relations - real social relations - and I am going to keep trying to be worthy of calling myself a committed Steemian, and I hope you do that too.
Can I count on you?
So let´s make a deal, let´s not publish our next post until we have reached at least 5-10 comments on other people´s posts and we have replied to at least 75% of the comments we get on ours.