Monday, December 8, 2008

Blog Management for Dummies: Comment Notification

It has recently come to my attention that some people suffer from blogging incompetency to such a degree that they do not have their blog set to email them when they get a new comment on a post they have written. The unfortunate people (who shall remain nameless) in this predicament must stalk their own blog waiting for the first comments, thereby wasting precious hours that could be better spent shopping for and mailing caramacs to their bbff's on the mainland.

As many of you know, when you visit someone's blogspot blog and leave a comment, you have the option of having follow up comments sent to you via email, which frees you from having to return to the blog itself to keep up on the comments that come after yours.

But there is a setting for blog owners that will send every comment made on any post at any time to your email, thus enabling the owner to know immediately when that first comment comes in. This is how it is done.

First, click on the Customize link in the upper right corner of your browser window:


Then select the Settings tab:


Choose the fourth option, the Comments link:


Then scroll down to the bottom of the screen until you see "Comment Notification". Type the email address (es) that you want notifications sent to.

THEN -- and this is VERY important -- press the orange "SAVE SETTINGS" button at the bottom. Viola! Henceforth and forever, you will receive an email in your inbox alerting you to all the witty and clever comments made on any post you've ever posted on your blog. Annoying, rude, and/or boring comments will be sent to your trash folder.

This will free you of having to remember to check the "send follow up comments to your email address" for your own blog. Of course you can still do that, and then you'll get TWO email notifications of every new comment on your blog. If words of affirmation are your primary love language, you may consider this to be a good thing because you'll feel twice as popular as you really are. Embrace the fantasy, I say.

Blog long and prosper, my friends.

18 comments:

  1. LOL...I bet this will help lotsa bloggers...it is so funny cuz i never go to my blog,I use the dashboard and have comments emailed to me...some could be writing girfiti all over my blog and i wouldnt know it ;-)

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  2. Will I ever quit learning from my child?

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  3. Guilty as charged! The blog I stalk the most is my own. I am going to do this--thank you! As for Crash, I think she just likes to have an excuse to waste her time. Clearly.

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  4. Hee hee hee hee. My face is bright red right now.

    I'm so thankful to have you for my BBFF. You take care of all my blogging needs. I'm expecially thankful for your step by step instructions and visual aides.

    And I'm thankful that I'm not the only dummy in the bloggashere.

    And thank you other dummy for saying my name out loud so everyone now knows who I am, even though the FF posted an anonymous link with a big L on the forehead pointing straight to me.

    LY Lisa! :)

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  5. Very coolio instructions. Sadly I needed to be told about the joys of following about six months ago. Always behind the times, am I.
    How is the knee? Fingers crossed that all goes well.

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  6. Oh here is another tip, you have to be logged in when you make your comment or there no box to check to follow comments. Curses, that is the mistake I just made, so I had to comment again. he he

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  7. Thanks for the tutorial. You are so wise!

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  8. When I started blogging I avoided having comment notification... thinking "with as popular as this is going to be, I'm not sure I want my e-mail box overflowing with comments"

    Now... ummm, well - turns out that I'm NOT the center of the universe and having comments fly to the e-mail box is maybe an okay thing after all :)

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  9. I'm so happy I'm not the only dummy around here. Or did I already say that?

    Okay, I already said that. What a dummy.

    So let me rephrase that: '

    Just dropping by to say nani nani boo boo to Lisa, since it turns out I'm not the only dummy around here.

    But thanks for pointing the finger at me. Better to have negative attention than no attention at all.

    I think Brittany Spears said that.

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  10. That's the second time you've referenced Britney Spears. Wassup with that?!

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  11. Thanks for visiting my blog- HA ha ha.. okay okay.. so there are many other ways to describe my project.
    I STILL think they are ADORABLE!

    whose side are you on anyway?

    LOVED the tutorial! Crash told me you were shocked by her dumb-dumb crash-test-dumminess...

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  12. Hey Swirl! Don't tell Crash but I was only pretending to be shocked. I've actually suspected that she didn't get comments auto-sent to her for some time, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to redeem her from her dummy ways. And, I needed a post idea anyway. Plus, I got to make fun of my BBFF! Three birds, one stone.

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  13. Hey... I didn't know about it and I'm the one that has walked some of my family members through the blogging process to get them to put in wish lists.. (I LOVE WISH LISTS!) Thank u for this tutorial cuz I got a whole 8 comments on this last blog meaning a whole 8 emails meaning I felt 8 times better about myself... then of course I wrote myself a note...
    It really doesn't get much better than that and I have u to thank for it. And u don't even know me! HA HA HA

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  14. Funny Farmer, thanks for helping my friend Smart Helm. She is so cool and totally rocks. But she asked my how I posted at 12 midnight. So maybe you should write a post about the joys of scheduled posting.

    big wave for the knee on Saturday. fingers crossed.

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  15. Yes, yes, please post how to "schedule" your posts!

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  16. Welcome to Smart Helm!

    T!!! Somehow missed your comment yesterday! Hee hee on your discovery that you're not the center of the universe. (BTW - I am the center of the universe. Just so you know.)

    Due to popular demand (well actually only a demand of two, but hey that's good enough for me), tomorrow's post will be about scheduling posts to publish in the future. It's so easy I'm almost embarrassed to devote a whole post to the topic, but hey, it gave me another opportunity to show off with screenshots! Wheee!

    (Gotta take my jollies wherever I can get 'em, you know!)

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  17. WOOOO HOOOO!!!! Thanks again!!! This is awesome!!! And of course I had NO idea you were talking about what's her name up the CTD!!! hehehehe!!! Oh wait, I didn't know it either....never mind!

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  18. Thanks for this! Your instructions were helpful and very easy to follow!

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