Ruminations of an Online Instructor / MD

Blog Comment Strategy for Day 28

May 28, 2008 at 10:55 pm | In 31 Day Comment Challenge, Blogging, Distance Education, Dr. Kirsti A. Dyer, Edublog, Ruminations Blog, Teaching, comment08, online education | 1 Comment
Tags: Blog Challenge, Blog Comments, blog strategies, blog strategy, Blogging, comment08, edublogger

In looking at the challenge activity for today, I suddenly realized that I don’t have a particular Blog Commenting Strategy.

Prior to the challenge, I would comment under the following situations. I comment when

I find something or a post that I am interested in
If I think that an article has been done well, to leave praise
To leave a related link and share information.
To thank the blogger or commenter for something.

According Caroline Middlebrook in her post on Do You Have A Blog Commenting Strategy? there are several distinct goals when leaving comments on other people’s blogs. Caroline’s goals for leaving blog comments are:

Grab the attention of the readers
Grab the attention of the blogger
Develop my personal brand
Create some backlinks

Out of these reasons, I would only be using the “Create some backlinks” and “Grab the attention of the blogger” since this is the only category that fits with my other main reason for commenting, to share information. I hadn’t really thought about using blog comments to develop my personal brand.

If I start doing this, I need to ensure that my comments don’t end up being viewed as blog spam or Spam in Blogs.

More on Blog Commenting Presence

Michele commented on yesterday’s post, on Personal Branding:

…a big part of communicating about our brand and what we stand for, but we also say something about ourselves by the comments we leave elsewhere. How do you feel you communicate about yourself through the comments you leave on other blogs?

I realize that I’d set up a different presence for commenting on the Edublog Blogs and for commenting on Blogger Blogs

For Edublogs I am drdyer

I liked the Voki so much that I decided to use it as my edublogger persona. The Voki was also a way of creating bit of a different blog presence and blog comment presence from the one that I use for Blogger, perhaps to create a new presence for my edublog.

For Blogger Blogs I am Kirsti A. Dyer (probably going back to Kirsti A. Dyer, MD)

My Blogger presence uses a real photo of myself that is a couple of years old. This is the photo and the name that I use professionally , so the Blogger presence is more of a professional representation.

Answering Michele’s question: How do you feel you communicate about yourself through the comments you leave on other blogs?

I think that my blog personas send out a strong ‘professional’ message, so much so that it may discourage others (particularly in my Blogger blogs) from commenting. Since my Personal Branding, or Strong Internet Presence involves my background, my credentials and my professional degrees, I don’t believe I could do this any differently, unless I were to create a different “Mom Blogger” persona for use in a more personal setting.

Continue reading Blog Comment Strategy for Day 28…

Introducing ProfessorDoc - My Voki

April 16, 2008 at 4:55 pm | In Dr. Kirsti A. Dyer, Ruminations Blog, Teaching, Voki Avatar | 1 Comment
Tags: avatar, Computer generated, Edublog, edublogger, speaking avatar, voki, Web 2.0

I was inspired by the Edublogger post about “Adding A Voki Speaking Avatar To A Post or Page of Your Blog” and thought it would be something interesting to add to the site. I am do not particularly like being video taped, but don’t mind recording messages.

I am pleased to introduce My Voki,* or a talking voice character, a computer-generated version of myself, Dr. Kirsti A. Dyer a.k.a ProfessorDoc. She will give you a brief introduction to the Ruminations of an Online Instructor - MD Blog. To hear the message, simply click on the arrow in the frame below.

 

 

What is a Voki?

* Voki comes from Vox + Loki = Voki. “Vox” is Latin for voice and “Loki” is a prankster character in Norse Mythology.

Continue reading Introducing ProfessorDoc - My Voki…