I enjoy reading other blogs, seeing what changes bloggers are making to their sites and watching the growth of my blogging buddies.
I like to see other bloggers succeed and it thrills me when I see comments stacking up on their blog posts.
I know the blog author is ecstatic, but sadly my name isn’t always in that list of commenters. 
Sometimes, time is not on my side.
Today’s Lesson
I wrote a blog post in 2008 which discussed blog etiquette. One of the items I included in the list was,
If someone visits your blog, and leaves a comment, make time to visit their blog as well. It’s common courtesy. If you cannot identify with their most current post, dig through their archives and find one you can leave a short comment on.
In the beginning, I did that. Religiously.
Each time someone commented on my blog, I visited them, subscribed and reciprocated with a comment, too.
The number of blogs in my reader was growing and I began to spend more of my blogging time visiting and commenting.
As I added more bloggers names to my “New Blog Of The Week” series, my reader began to bulge with new blog posts. (The series ended with 90 bloggers being showcased.)
More times than I can count, due to time constraints, I would “mark all as read” and start fresh.
When following blogs in my reader didn’t work anymore, I switched my tactic and went back to trying to visit everyone who commented on my posts.
Unfortunately I couldn’t keep up.
I had broken my own rule, and I felt shame.
I felt like a hypocrite.
If I knew then (when I wrote the blog etiquette post) what I know now, I would have worded that differently, or added a disclaimer* and said, “if time permits”.
It’s not that I don’t care when you post something new, it’s that my time is needed elsewhere.
Thus, if you don’t see me commenting on each of your posts, know it’s not you. It’s me.
You’re never far from my thoughts, and fortunately I know right where to find you. 
That said, I understand if you’re in the same position and don’t have time to read my posts and/or comment here.
Today’s Assignment
Do you reciprocate each comment you receive on your blog?
When time is short, do you skip commenting or have you found a technique which allows you to do it all?
Care to share?
*I’ll be adding a link to this post.
Hi. I'm Barbara Swafford and I'd like to welcome you to Blogging Without A Blog. Grab a seat, share your thoughts and join in the conversation. 
In addition to making money, most bloggers want two things.
Unfortunately, both depend on the actions of others, and those “others” are often fellow bloggers.
Today’s Lesson
When bloggers make the rounds to other blogs, they’re mentally asking themselves questions and/or making choices. For example,
As blog authors, we can help make those decisions easier.
Such as,
Did we end our post with a question? Or does our post appear so “complete”, it sends a subliminal message comments aren’t welcome?
Does the commenter have to register or jump through hoops to pass the security features of our blog? Or have we made the process of commenting as simple as possible?
Are we including buttons which take our visitors directly to Twitter, Facebook or StumbleUpon? Or do we expect them to “figure it out” on their own time?
Does is hold value others can benefit from? Is it grammatically correct and void of typos? Are the facts correct?
Are we using excerpts and the “continue reading/more” feature? If so, does this feature make it easier for our visitors to read our blog posts?
Or does sharing our post require additional work on our readers part?
Or are we assuming our visitors are mind readers?
Truth be told, we can’t/shouldn’t expect our visitors to read, comment on, AND promote our blog posts each time we publish something new.
Just like with us, their time is limited.
If we’re lucky, they’ll do one; comment OR promote.
But usually not both.
Today’s Assignment
If you could only pick one, what would it be?
To receive comments?
To have your post promoted on a social media site?
I’d love to hear why you picked what you did.
P.S. This post was inspired by what social media consultant Vered, shared in her comment on the Call Me A Hypocrite post:
Thank you Vered.