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Last November Caroline Middlebrook asked her fellow readers a serious question: Do You Have A Blog Commenting Strategy?

Here is my delayed answer to Caroline.

Last November I knew that commenting on some popular blogs was very important in order to introduce yourself and your blog to Blogosphere. However, I did not take commenting as serious as Caroline.

Back in Dec 2007, after leaving some valuable comments on Problogger and still getting significant amount of traffic from them, I changed my mind. I understand how effective commenting can be.

However, due to heavy workload, I also noticed that most of the time I finish the whole week without leaving any comment. This was a big mistake for a blogger who aims to quit his full time job and become a problogger by 2010.

How I Overcome This Obstacle?

I was so lucky to discover Comment Sniper when I tried to automate my blog commenting strategy. Basically, Comment Sniper keeps track of your favorite bloggers’ posts, and notify you when they launch new posts. All you need is to subscribe to a blogger’s RSS feed using this little cool freeware software.

Here is An Effective Blog Commenting Strategy For You

• Find the most important bloggers related to your topic
• Configure Comment Sniper (SMS Notification is also available!), and keep it open in the background.
• Seconds after one of your favorite bloggers posts an article, you will be notified with a pop up message appearing on the down right corner of your screen.
• Be the first to comment. Leave valuable comments. Don’t leave comments like “Very good” or “We love you all”, rather approach the subject from a different perspective.
• Be yourself, and tell your opinions honestly, no matter how popular the blogger is.

Here Is A Short Guideline For You To Start

• Start with top 5 bloggers in your niche
• Add their feed to comment sniper
• When you are notified, take a good look, and shoot immediately! Do your best shot!
• Bull’s eye!

By the way, please don’t forget to shoot my blog. My blog is a very easy target for most of the comment snipers.

Popularity: 19% [?]

• Imagine one morning you wake up, and start your computer to check your blog’s latest status. However, in a few seconds, you realize that it’s gone! I am not kidding here, It can happen anytime. I suggest you to backup your blog at least once a week. BlogBackupr provides free backup service for bloggers. No installation required, runs over the internet, works with any blog. WordPress users, you don’t need to give your userid/password. Even public feed is enough to duly backup your blog.
• I have recently started using Twitter regularly. (Follow me!) It is a good way of communication if you are not addicted to it. While I have been looking for a Twitter guideline, I found that Caroline Middlebrook has written a great guide: Twitter Guide
• Are you sick of long URLs? Tinyurl.com is making long URLs usable.
• Squidoo addicts, I have a very good news for you. With Squidaholic you can find out who’s talking about your lens, get the latest updates on your performance, and follow your competition.
• Do you know what is a #1 Google Ranking Worth? Take a cup of coffee while reading. It is a serious reading, yet worth spending your time and energy.
• Have you ever heard of Wikinomics? Read and learn how mass collaboration changes everything.
• Are you looking for a new blog design or changing your current theme? Don’t miss this one: How Do I Get a Professionally Designed Blog?
• Have you ever thought about life on MARS? Is there any Unknown Blogging Object (shortly UBO) living there? Why don’t you explore Mars now?. It is a realistic walk-though of a 3-D model of a Mars base for the first humans to land on Mars. There are over 100 images representing a Mars habitat.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Two weeks ago I posted How To Get Blogging Ideas When You Are Stuck to let you see my way of being creative. Starting with this week, I will introduce you some tools which I believe could be useful If you regularly use in your daily blogging.

Bubbl.us is a simple yet powerful online tool where you can brainstorm online, create your mind maps (or idea maps), and then use it for your presentations, books, posts by exporting as HTML or Image (JPEG or PNG).

You may also share your mind maps online with your friends or colleagues who has access to bubbl.us. It is completely free to create an account. It takes less than 30 seconds to sign up.

Click Start Brainstorming to begin brainstorming where it says State Here. Hit Enter to save your text and another box pops up. Click it in the middle to enter another thought and then you can start building the map.

You are free to change the colors and position of various of boxes. Just spend a few minutes, and you will get used to it. Very easy to discover all the functionalities. Just give your map a name, and save it If you want to share it online with others.

You can use the mind maps you created for your ebooks, reports, blog posts, project groups etc. The more you visualize your ideas, the easier they will spread. Ideas that spread, win!

Popularity: 15% [?]