I appreciate it! I went into the site and was thinking about setting it up, but decided against it for now.
Man, that's tough to say. I try to catch up on comments every day so I don't get behind. If you're trying to get to every comment, that's one way of doing it. I heard somewhere that someone recommended staying around for at least 30 minutes after posting so you can respond to comments. I don't know if that actually helps engagement or exposure on the trending boards, but it at least gets people thinking about your stuff more.
Another way would be to post and then reply to comments from the previous post. So if you're sticking with two posts per day, you could make the second post and do replies to the first post. The downside is that you would have to have a system to catch comments that come in after that.
The way that I think would be easiest is the one I use. I'm on a smaller scale, but I still think it would work for you. Start by going in to "replies" which are people's comments on your blog. Find the oldest one that you haven't looked at. Whatever replies are on that post, take care of them all at one time. Once you're done, then go back to your replies list and start scrolling up. Hopefully the ones on the same page group together.
While you're scanning replies look at the comments icon. In the example below, I know I haven't responded, because the little icon still says 0.
Another option to quickly see if you've dealt with it is you could even set your slider to something low, like 5% and upvote each of the comments, so it's easier to see that they've been addressed. The downside is that scavengers might be attracted even to that. Basically anything over $0.01 I would assume you'll have the spammers and multiple-account people going after it, so that's probably not the best idea, but I wanted to throw it out there for you.
I don't know what system you're using now, but as long as you're methodical about it, it will be easier than if you randomly use different ways to get back to people.
Lastly, don't be afraid to use the mute button. I know it's hard to use because as a nice person you don't want to hurt someone, but if someone's just a spammer/scammer, it's probably better to ignore them. That will save you a bit of time. Everyone else who hasn't ignored them will see the comment, but you won't, so you won't even know it's there. ;)
Any thoughts? Does any of that help?
Man this helps a bunch. I actually used to use the method you use now. It was much easier though to just go down each page and comment like that as opposed to clicking "replies and finding the comments for that particular post.
Starting in the morning I will try to stick around for 30 minutes to an hour to answer comments. I also just ordered a green screen which I plan on also using to respond to any comments in video form that I may not get to in the future.
Do you have any experience using Xsplit or green screen?
Glad it's helpful! Steeming should be a fun experience. Yes, there's a business side to it, and posts have to get out, but if you can be as efficient as possible, then you can use the rest of your time to enjoy it.
I don't have experience with green screen, but it sounds like it would be cool. I wouldn't mind getting some video responses to my comments. That's a cool idea.
Are you planning on using it for more posts as well? Give yourself a little more freedom when making videos? Or are you thinking just a more attractive background image that's static... like the pictures at the bottom of your posts?
I would use it for posts and answering comments yes. I would also use it to make encouraging videos when the weather is bad or whenever I feel like it. That would give me a little more freedom since I probably won't do much or any post editing.
As far as the background of the green screen videos I would use something like that yes. I am just experimenting with all this because it is so new to me. Just trying out new ways to release content.
I think it's a great idea to pursue new ways of creating your content. You might find that something else works really well and just continue with that. I hope it goes really well! :)