Posting frequency / How to get more comments

[64Guitars]

I've noticed that a few members have been posting several songs almost every day. Although, we don't currently have any rule against this, I'd like to point out why this is bad for the site and for the poster.

We all post our songs with the hope of getting some positive feedback and encouragement from our peers. And we usually get it. That's what makes Songcrafters such a great site. But it's also a very active site and most of us don't have time to listen to all of the song posts and comment on them. So, when we check our unread messages and find that many of them are from one or two members who've been posting several songs per day, we feel overwhelmed and will often decide to skip all of that person's songs. Instead, we'll check out someone who's only posted one song and we'll post a comment on that song. So, if you want to get more feedback on your music, I'd recommend posting only one song at a time. Then wait a few days to give people a chance to listen and comment before you post another song. I think you'll find that people are much more responsive to your songs that way.

If you don't believe me, take a look at the posts in the Original Songs board, sorted by number of replies:

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?board=91.0;sort=replies;desc

The song with the most replies (155!) is Geir's "This is a Song". So far this year, Geir has posted seven songs. That's an average of 1 song every 7.4 days or roughly one song per week. Yet his jukebox has 273 songs in it, so it's not that he doesn't have many songs to post -- it's just that he's wisely spread them out over a long period of time, giving other members time to take in each song and appreciate it. Geir's songs always get lots of comments. Of course, that's partly because he's such an incredibly talented musician and we all love him.   But I think that if he had started posting 3 or 4 songs every day when he joined Songcrafters years ago, many members wouldn't have bothered to listen. And those who did probably would have got fed up after a while. I think Phil Collins is an incredibly talented musician and I was a huge fan (I've seen him live with Genesis and with Brand X), but I'm one of the many people who got sick and tired of hearing his voice every time I turned on the radio. I think overexposure cost him a lot of fans. So my advice to all members is don't become the Phil Collins of Songcrafters. Become the Geir of Songcrafters instead.   Spread out your posts to give other members time to listen to them and comment instead of posting many songs in a short period of time.

Aside from the fact that many of your posts will be largely ignored if you post too frequently, it's also unfair to other members. A lot of people don't have time to visit the site every day. When they do get a chance to visit, there's no way they can listen to every song that's been posted since their last visit so they just check out a few songs from page one of their favourite board(s). If a few members are dominating page one because they're posting too frequently, that unfairly bumps other members to subsequent pages very quickly where they could go unnoticed. So, by reducing the frequency of your posts, you're not only improving your chances of getting comments, but you're also helping to keep a level playing field at Songcrafters so that each member has an equal chance of having their song listened to and commented on.

I think the main reason that some members post several songs per day is that they have a large collection of previously-recorded material (often spanning several decades) and they want to post it here to get some feedback. Please don't. We don't mind the occasional blast from the past but please don't post your older work too often. We want to hear what you've recorded this week, not what you did in 1986. So get out your recorder or fire up your favourite software DAW and record something new. If you need some inspiration, consider recording something for one of our current festivals. There's still time to record a protest song or something for VarietyFest (covers of songs by Dio, Captain Beefheart, Wire, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Doors, or Neil Diamond) for our Jan/Feb festivals. And we'll soon be voting for our March/April festivals. I'm sure you can think of something to record for one of these festivals. Or record any song you like. It doesn't have to be for a festival. Although, there are some advantages to posting for a festival. Your song will be added to the festival jukebox and the extra attention of that often means that you'll get more comments than you might otherwise.

Most people who've got a large back catalogue of recordings already have them posted on another site such as SoundClick or alonetone. If you want people to listen to your older work, I'd recommend putting a link in your signature to another site containing your songs, with a comment like "To hear more of my music, please visit my SoundClick page" (or whatever). Better still, you can include icons for popular music sites in your signature which are linked to your own pages. This guide describes how to do that:

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?action=articles;sa=view;article=4

If you need help editing your signature, send me a PM and I'd be glad to help you.


Another important tip for getting more comments is to make sure you comment on the songs of other members. We all support each other here. So to get comments, you have to give comments. This hasn't been a problem recently but in the past we've had a few new members who posted some songs, got lots of feedback, then disappeared without commenting on anyone else's songs. That's not fair and it's not how we do things here at Songcrafters.

You don't necessarily have to comment on the songs of each and every person who comments on your songs. I've seen that a few times and I think it's pretty obvious that those people are just trying to fulfill an obligation. Instead, you should comment on the songs that you like, regardless of who posted them. But you should try to keep the number of comments in the same ballpark as those that you received. For example, if you post a song and get about 20 comments, then you listen to 2 songs by other members and post a comment on each, don't pat yourself on the back and consider yourself a good member. There's a bit of an imbalance there. You need to listen to a lot more songs from other members and post more comments. I'm not suggesting that you count the comments to your song posts and make sure that you post exactly the same number of comments to other people's songs. That would be silly. But you know whether you're in the same ballpark or not without counting. Just try to give as much as you get (or more). If you do, you'll find that there will always be people who are happy to comment on your songs when you post them. Unless you've become the Phil Collins of Songcrafters.

If you're one of the people who've been over-posting, please don't feel bad about it. It's largely my fault for not making things like this clear to new members. We've never had many rules here at Songcrafters. I've noticed in other forums that people seldom pay any attention to rules anyway. Instead, we just try to set a good example and hope that new members will follow it. That usually works quite well. In the few cases where it doesn't, we will either send the member a friendly personal PM or post a public message such as this. The public message isn't intended to embarass or offend anyone but it has the advantage that other new members might see it in the future. Still, I should probably update the Welcome message that goes out to new members to make them aware of our posting etiquette and the advantages of spreading out their song posts over a longer period of time.

[Migs]

sticky ?

[64Guitars]

sticky ?

Done.

[Vaisvil]

Since I recently posted a song from the 80's amongst a flurry of other posts I can't help but feel this is in part a message to me. I would like to add a couple points here. First off - what ARE my thoughts on your long post 64 guitars?:

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=13646.0;msg=177997

An answer to the question posed by facemask93  Shame nobody commented on this , i loved it , i love Tull , and i know where you are coming from , i think you did a great job , you got a really nice tone on your acoustic , and the vox is fine , all round enjoyable listen man

Robbie Burns

And I said...

Thank you very much for the comments!

I have to say that I don't come here often and usually a community gives back what it receives and I haven't been giving much. I'm spread pretty thin these days and my main focus is microtonal music - but I do enjoy my roots - like this album by Tull.

[Vaisvil]

I would like to add that a public post like this makes songcrafters look less than friendly.

I have been a part of (or ran) a lot of communities and usually this sort of thing is better handled by private messages. Sure it takes more effort but it reduces the possibility of negative controversy by orders of magnitude.


And I really have to take issue with but please don't post your older work too often. We want to hear what you've recorded this week, not what you did in 1986.

So Sgt. Pepper is out? We shouldn't listen to Deep Purple or Led Zeppelin because they had their peak in the 70's? Somehow Devo's performance of Satisfaction has lost its impact? http://www.myspace.com/video/al/devo-satisfaction/1041008

With all due respect that is an absurd statement to me. If you wrote a killer song in 86 I'd want to hear it. Tape hiss and all.

Best Regards,

Chris Vaisvil

[Blooby]

I understand this will be close to an impossibility, but I suggest we leave this thread alone before everybody and their brother goes on the defensive. 

Just a thought.

Blooby

[Tony W]

I think it's a well written, well articulated post 64, thank you.

It's against everything in my being, but I'll be taking Blooby's advice. 

[Gnasty]

[Burtog]

The first post (64's) makes sense to me!

[Oldrottenhead]

The first post (64's) makes sense to me!

yup good advice i should heed , i posted song 11 and 12 of my uke album  one after the other, 12 garnered a good response song 11 zilch.