How to :: Get people to respond to your threads

[Ghedi]

In the sixteen years that I've been on the Internet, I have seen it all.

I have seen people get numerous quick responses to their questions, and I have seen the same question ignored time and time again.

The people who have had their questions ignored tended to get upset, feeling that they're being singled out and ignored on purpose.

Well, that just isn't the case. Most of the time, people don't respond to a post because they simply didn't open the thread... And, if people did open the thread, they didn't respond because they didn't understand the problem.

Sixteen years ago, the Internet was a lot geekier than it is now, of course. I grew up reading posts about technical problems... why the program a person wrote isn't working properly was the most common question.

But, why certain posts have been ignored hasn't changed.

People on the Internet are flooded with information. This post is not an exception; it is simply more information screaming out to take up the attention and time of whoever wants to look at it. With so much information out there, and so little time (only our lifetime), it is no wonder that people skip posts that they don't think they would be interested in.

So, I have compiled a few helpful suggestions for those who think their posts are being ignored. Try them for a week and you'll notice an improvement in how people respond to you.

1: Use a Description Title.

This is the foundation for being noticed. Without this, no other tips matter.

On a board with this much activity, nobody could ever read every single thread. Here's what I do when I get on this board.

1: Check my Personal Messages. Since nobody ever PMs me, this is a very quick and easy step, taking about a second.

2: Hit the New Posts button, scroll through the first 3 pages looking for threads that I have either responded in, or that have a title relating to something I'm interested in.

3: Go to the specific sub-forums that I'm interested in. For me, these are Debate, In The News, and Gamers. (I'll be adding Financial Management to my list today.) Notice that the General board is not included in this list... I'll get to that point later.

During point number 2, when I'm searching the new posts, you have the greatest chance to catch my attention. Personally, I am looking for a debate topic that I am not tired of (I don't want to debate the death penalty or racism for another 6 months), as well threads about computers (since I'm a big dork). I'm also looking for jokes and topics that I can help people with, such as psychology.

Here's how to make your threads noticeable from the New Posts search:

Do not title it "Please help." This is a support board, and lots of people need help... Do you need help dealing with DEERS? Do you need to get a company to recognize a POA? Do you need help defragging your hard drive? Are your cookies going stale and you need people to eat them? There are many ways that people can and will help you, but if we don't know whether we can help you or not, we probably won't even open the thread.

Instead of "Please help." Use something like "Hubby may have PTSD. What do I do?" A title like this alerts those who have had experience with PTSD and shows that you aren't just here for pity, you actually want help.

Describe why you are posting in your title... What are you hoping to get out of the thread? What are you hoping others will get out of the thread? Why should those people care?

The most effective advertisement I have ever seen was one that said "1 pint of Strawberries, $0.88." It caught the attention of those who cared about strawberries, described exactly what they were getting (1 pint worth) and how much it cost. Unfortunately, when I saw that ad, I was working in the produce section of the store that ran the ad, and we couldn't keep the strawberries on the shelf. Your post title is the first ad... Catch the attention of those who would care, describe what they'll get, and what it will cost them in as few words as possible.

In my title post, I caught the attention of those who want replies to their posts. The stated benefit is that people will reply more, and the cost is that you'll have to read a long article.

2: Be Understood.

The most important part of this rule is to use correct punctuation and grammar. At least try. That's all that we ask.

Your goal when writing a post is to be understood. If people don't understand you, then why write?

You do not have to be a Grammar Nazi. While some people will cringe at the incorrect use of there/their/they're, its/it's, and your/you're, we can still get out the meaning of your post. if however you leave out punctuation and do not capitalize anything we will have a hard time figuring out what youre trying to say this makes the post hard to understand and people will get through about three run on sentences before giving up in frustration

Commas are your friend. They give you a natural pause within a sentence, allowing you to chain related ideas into one complete thought. Capitalization is your friend as well, though not completely necessary. Also, separating your post out into different paragraphs will avoid the Wall Of Text that send many people running for the Back button on their web browser.

To create a new paragraph, simply hit <Enter> twice.

Over-using punctuation is better than not using it at all. If you put an extra comma in your sentences, that's fine. If you put only one sentence in each of your paragraphs, that is fine. If you Capitalize words that shouldn't be, that's fine.

If you ask for the differences between its/it's, their/they're/there, and your/you're, we'll be happy to explain it, but we also realize that sometimes the rules of grammar are confusing, and nobody expects perfection. I'm certainly far from being perfect, and I only have a vague notion of the differences between affect and effect.

The second part of being understood is recognizing that written words do not convey tone. It is up to the reader to fill in the blanks and guess. I imagine that people will see this article as coming from some sort of teacher standing in front of a small class... At least, that's the tone that I'm trying to convey. Unfortunately, nobody can jump in and interrupt me while I'm typing, so I just go off on my tangents during my lecture and leave the Q/A section to the end. Some people might read a condescending tone (which I don't have), while others will read this as coming from some brainiac nerd who was lucky to have ever met a woman, much less actually marry her.

If you're joking, put in smilies to show that you're joking. As much as I don't like it, LOL is an excellent way to show people that it's alright to laugh, since you're already laughing. Try to make your emotion painfully clear, so that only people like me (who sometimes just don't get that there's a joke) will miss your mood.

As for spelling... I really don't care. Some people care deeply. I've gotten into an argument with my wife about the spelling of "Dying." (I thought it was "Dieing," which is a correctly spelled word, meaning to create a die for casting metal. Obviously, it isn't the word I want.) It is far more important to be understood than to be right... but if you can be right and understood at the same time, so much the better. I am terrible at spelling, so I use the web browser Firefox, because it has a built-in spell check. (And, because Firefox doesn't have the security vulnerabilities that Internet Explorer has.)

Finally, this is a rule that probably won't apply to most people. If you're writing a very long post (over 1000 words), give the readers a way to skim through it. I've broken this post into sections, and put the main point I'm trying to make in the section headings. Italicizing and underlining text also makes it stand out, as does putting in numbers.

The rule to keep in mind when making an article easy to skim is to make certain that the section headings are clearly visible... Make them short, 1 or 2 sentences at most, preferably just a simple phrase, and make the headings meaningful. Give away all of your secrets in the section heading, then explain those secrets in the body of the section.

Use italics for emphasis. Take this sentence as an example: "They're going to that store?" is just a simple question.

"They're going to that store?" probably shows that something is wrong with "they."

"They're going to that store" shows that something is wrong with the store.

Underlining can also show emphasis, but don't use it very much on message boards or the Internet in general. Since most links to different pages are underlined, people tend to think that underlined text can be clicked on. Don't fool your readers, they're your friends as well, and they won't get the joke. There are some places where it is grammatically correct to use an underline, but consult someone who majored in English first.

3: Put the Thread in the Right Sub-Forum.

Remember back in section 1, about titling your article, when I explained my three steps when visiting this board? My third step is to go to the specific sub-forums that interest me... I tend to read all of the new posts in each forum that I'm interested in. I also tend to ignore the General board as much as possible; I'm not interested in general chat. General chat boards tend to be a dumping ground for any and all random threads.

There are too many threads in the General board... The average thread stays on the first page for 8 hours or less. If the people who would be interested in your thread happen to be asleep, they'll probably never see your post.

However, threads put on the other sub-forums tend to stick around on their first page for a couple of days. Now, for someone to miss your thread, they'd have to be on vacation. It might take an extra hour for your thread to be noticed, but it will certainly be noticed, and best of all, it will be noticed by people who care about the topic.

I'm a rude, sometimes crude, socially inept guy ... I don't care about pregnancy, so I'm going to ignore threads about pregnancy. If I stumble across a thread about someone trying to conceive, I'm going to go on to the next thread. It really doesn't matter who the OP is, because the only time I'd care about a pregnancy is if someone is asking about the scientific side of it, such as how the different hormone effect the fetus on a chemical level. The side effect is that the thread will show a higher count of people who viewed the thread, but since I won't respond, being the mean, uncaring and selfish guy that I am, the OP will feel like they're being ignored on purpose. (I swear, I'm not ignoring the person, I'm ignoring the topic.) If the thread was put in a pregnancy sub-forum, then I'll be able to ignore the thread without increasing the post count, and the people who care about pregnancy will be able to find the thread much easier... so more people will respond, the OP will feel supported, and everyone involved will learn something.

4: Sometimes, a Thread Just Gets Missed.

It isn't personal. In any board, even the meanest, most spiteful troll is only being ignored by 10% of the active users. (Please don't feed the trolls. If someone drops a drama bomb, just shake your head and go on to the next thread.) Sometimes, even with all of your best efforts, your thread simply doesn't get noticed. With a board this size, it happens, nobody means for it to happen, people are sorry when it happens, but even the most senior members have threads with no replies.

If your thread drops off of the first page of its sub-forum, and you don't feel that it has received enough replies you can either bump it, or ask a moderator to move it to a more appropriate sub-forum.

5: Get People to Participate.

The best way is to ask a question... Get their opinions, or their further insight. Also, invite people to ask questions of their own.

So, to demonstrate how this works, I'm going to ask a question... And yes, it is a real, serious question. I know that a lot of people have picked up additional tips on how to get themselves noticed, and I don't have a monopoly on knowledge, so...

What are some of your tips on getting people to reply to threads?

Feel free to ask for clarification, whether another tip may/may not work, etc... We're here to learn from each other, so let's learn!

Four more tricks to add to the list:

6: Be Creative with your Bumping.

A lot of times, especially with long and complicated posts, people will go on to another thread with the intention of coming back later and leaving a reply. Well, intentions are all well and good, but people forget to come back. (I am the KING of this. If I don't do something right away, it might never get done.)

The way to remind people to come back and finish leaving their thoughts is to either reply with more information, or use some sort of running joke. When the debates get out of hand, people tend to throw in silly posts to lighten the mood. I took this and ran with it... Whenever I participate in a thread in debate, and my response kills the thread, I throw in a South Park reference to get people looking back, using the joke that without South Park, I'm a thread killer.

Also, adding these tips is a perfect example of a bump without just bumping. Whenever you can, add more information, or ask more questions. Get more people involved and get them to keep coming back.

7: These steps work on more than just message boards.

Nearly everybody here uses email. Everybody has used email at least once in order to register on this board. If you apply these same steps with your email... that is, use a descriptive message title, make certain that you're understood, make certain that the email is being sent to the right person/people, get the recipients to participate in the discussion (ask questions, be open for questions), and remember that sometimes your messages get missed (Ask for an update after a couple of days with no reply), then you'll be much more effective at using email.

The steps also apply for people running blogs. In fact, this list is largely created from my experiments with blogging. All of my most responded to and best noticed posts on my various web sites used each one of these tricks.

8: Respond personally to the replies that you want more of.

For instance, as big as my head is getting, I don't think I need too many more thank you posts right now... I truly appreciate them, and I want to see more of them. However, I want to see more tips and tricks as well, like Rosebud's tip on bumping the heck out of her threads. If we combine our tips with more thanks, then I get the best of both worlds, right?

A great example of combining thanks with more tips is PeppermintRei's tip on getting noticed by creating a unique signature and using a non-generic user name. I would add that each person's avatar is also a wonderful way to be noticed and remembered.

This works, because people like attention and recognition. Of course, I shot myself in the foot by saying that I'm singling people out, so the people I don't mention will feel left out. (Brandi, I know you can take it, and I'm certain that everybody else is mature enough to realize that I'm trying to make a point, and unfortunately it means that I have to not mention you each by name, though I want to.)

Enough of my tangent. My point is, pay attention to the posts that you want to see more of, and casually ignore (without letting anyone know that you're ignoring) the posts that you want to see fewer of. Sometimes this means not responding to a friend (or in my case, my wife), but it always helps in keeping the thread on track.

9: Keep the discussion going!

As long as you want people to keep responding to your thread (or emails, or blog posts), keep responding to them as well. Talk with them. Enter a real discussion...

And even if your thread gets stickied (which is considered no-man's land for posting replies by many people), let everyone know that it is alright to keep talking.

Also, let people know that if they find your thread months down the line, it's still okay to post their opinion.

Oh, and congrats on making it through this incredibly long and tangent-filled post...

[rosebud*]

To answer your question I bump the heck out of it. or beg friends to pity response to me. i'm honest though.

[Brandi]

Oh my dear God, this is the best post I have ever seen I am going to sticky this and maybe dedicate a whole page on the site somewhere to this Thank you, thank you

[RunAwayLove]

lol i agree with Brandi this is AWESOME and i WILL copy and paste everytime someone complains about not getting responses

[Wicked]

Originally Posted by Brandi Oh my dear God, this is the best post I have ever seen I am going to sticky this and maybe dedicate a whole page on the site somewhere to this Thank you, thank you

I woke up to him all proud of himself this morning cuz he actually wrote an article! Now you are gonna make his head asplode.

[RunAwayLove]

Originally Posted by Wicked I woke up to him all proud of himself this morning cuz he actually wrote an article! Now you are gonna make his head asplode.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
i know who it is now lol well kudos to your Wicked Awesome hubby...haha get it ...ok sorry im running on no sleep

[navyiatorgirl]

Absolutely terrific post! Thank you so much. That will really help me in the future.

[rosebud*]

Originally Posted by Wicked I woke up to him all proud of himself this morning cuz he actually wrote an article! Now you are gonna make his head asplode.

that is soo cute. are you going to print it out and put it on the fridge.

[navyiatorgirl]

Originally Posted by Wicked I woke up to him all proud of himself this morning cuz he actually wrote an article! Now you are gonna make his head asplode.

Oh he's YOURS? You are one lucky lady! He's pretty smart! (He's gotta be - he's with you. )

[Brandi]

Originally Posted by Wicked I woke up to him all proud of himself this morning cuz he actually wrote an article! Now you are gonna make his head asplode.

This is some seriously good info though I mean, I feel like he basically put everything I've ever thought about the "why don't I get responses?" posts into words. Awesome job to your hubby, you should go give him a big kiss for being so smart and articulate... then he should give you a kiss for being as equally smart and articulate! Now I know why ya'll are married.