I watched a Google+ Hangout last night about blogging and how to drive people to the blog for comments.

It was relevant and on point. Jeff Houck from the Tampa Tribune hosted, and Dianne Jacob Will Write for Food was the guest. After about forty minutes, the bandwidth for Dianne was so bad, Reagan needed a walk, and Elvis looked lonely on the porch, so I tuned out.

In a nutshell, the reason people don’t comment so much on blogs anymore, (in my opinion) we have to many choices for conversation. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr and a gazillion blogs with every topic known to humankind. And we can’t forget text messaging, phone calls and gasp, hand-written letters. Although I honestly can’t remember the last time I actually wrote a letter and mailed it, and I love to write. But mostly I write, okay, I always write on my laptop word processor and then a few clicks and I send it electronically.

What Dianne said about not starting a conversation on a blog hit home. I don’t have a lot of comments on this blog. Hell, I don’t even think I have a lot of lurkers/lookers on this blog. Maybe the reason I don’t have comments or a conversation here is the topic are too vanilla. I cook, then write a recipe with a lede to entice the reader to cook, not talk.

Where’s the conversation in that?

“Oh, nice photo.”

“Mmm. Looks good.”

Today I wanted to post this recipe, but then decided to keep it for my ebook series. I mean, it’s tilapia, right? Not rocket science. Tip: A five-ounce tilapia fillet takes about five minutes to cook.

My takeaway from last night was to think about who my audience is, what they want to talk about and what’s relevant conversation worthy.

I’ll leave you with these questions: