I think I actually took 'quality content' to refer more to posts than to comments. Empty or general praising is not my cup of tea too. I meant to say that any praise should be directed and highlight an area that the author of a post did well in..In the spirit of positive reinforcement. :)
When the author sees that people appreciate how he is doing one particular aspect of his post content, he will be encouraged to incorporate more of the good 'practices' in the future.
Now for quality comments, I don't think praise of the comment works well. Then I would say, go for making a relevant point that is in direct response or somehow in line with the ideas being expressed by the one who wrote the comment. This kind of recognition allows the Commenter to enjoy the possibility that someone enjoyed and found his comment useful, which is also a form of intrinsic motivation.
I think the operative word is 'active' followers :) And yes, let's also not forget to keep on consistently producing and we'll see where we are in a couple years.
That is totally true, positive reinforcement is definitely a huge motivator!
I think the reward kind of built in when you get 2 way communication, basically people want to be heard. Listening to what they have to say and react or engage constructively with that is I think a higher form than recognition than the empty " great post" "Great comment" dynamic. Of course that is a great opener if afterwards you say WHY you think it is great, then we are talking about something entirely different.
Yes the active followers is really what makes your account valuable. The number is meaningless if you got all of them through follow exchanges e.g. !
I am convinced in 3 months both of us will have a hard time believing where we ended up! Such is exponential growth!