“Why isn’t anyone commenting on my wonderfully crafted, insightfully clever blog posts?” You, like I, may have asked yourself this question many times.

Reasonable question, right?

After all, your stats look good, you’ve got loads of unique visitors each day. Your topics are fresh and timely and, most importantly, original –not some re-purposed article dribble from a cheap content service.

You are using a blog platform like Wordpress or Blogger, your theme looks good, you don’t have Adsense crammed into every virtual inch and finally you’re a darn nice person who cares about little furry animals and frequently calls your grandmother just to see how she’s doing.

So, what gives? Why no comments? What does the “social” part of social media have against you and your excellent blog?

Well, I think I have an explanation, or at least the start of one…

If you are new to blogging, there is an ugly truth you need to understand.

“Social media is not a completely altruistic and symbiotic kingdom of happy people sharing wisdom via online conversations.”

The truth is — Everyone has a reason for participating in any one of the many social media activities, whether it’s blog commenting, article submitting, wiki creating and updating, etc…

So what are the REASONS people participate?

Well, at the risk of sounding like a pessimistic curmudgeon, I am here to tell you that there are only 2 reasons people participate in social media:

There, I said it! Sorry if it offends, but please let me explain…

I am of the opinion that ambition and vanity, like just about anything else, have both a good side and a bad side. For example, vanity keeps you from ignoring your appearance and becoming a caveman in slippers. Ambition motivates you to act boldly and allows you to feel entitled to a better financial position.

Of course, the dark side of these two very human qualities is also at work in social media as well. (all I need to say on that is—SPAM)

Ambition and Blog Comments
Until your blog has some search engine ranking or a significant RSS subscription base, most savvy online marketers will not waste time commenting on your post.

Why?

It is not because your content isn’t awesome. You have to remember the motivation…AMBITION. What would commenting on your blog do for them?

These folks are only thinking logically after all. In the few hours they have each week to pursue their online marketing dream, they are either browsing for gold nuggets of wisdom that will make them money or they are building links.

So, while your content may be gold, until you get some weight with Google or Feedburner, you are not worthy of a backlink (comment) to these webpreneurs.

Vanity and Blog Comments
The way vanity ties in is a little less obvious but I am sure it will quickly make sense to you.

Contrary to what you financially ambitious folks out there may think, there are actually a lot of people who put recognition way above financial gain. These bloggers are not interested in how much money they make as much as they are interested in their reputation and online persona.

These people won’t be compelled to comment on your blog because of PageRank or backlink power but, rather, they will consider how their comment, their connection to you, will affect the way others see them. If you are an anarchist spouting prophecies of government destruction and they are too, well, you will probably get a comment extolling your wisdom. On the other hand, if you are anti-Google and direct your blog post to a particularly Google-gaga group, you will get blog comments as well, criticizing your viewpoint.

Blah and Blog Comments
One thing is for sure (whether you believe my “everyone is essentially in it for themselves blog commenting theory” or not), if you put in BLAH in you’ll get BLAH back.

So, whatever you do, please post content that has an opinion, some personality, and if you can find one, a picture that evokes an emotion or a thought.

Do this and you can be sure that eventually, your PageRank will hook the “ambitious” bloggers into commenting and your well-defined persona will attract a dedicated set of “vanity” commenters as well.