Here's what I think on the comments front: yes and no. NO because of, as you said, each comment has a link BUT it's an internal link that wouldn't count as a click-out. To my understanding and I could be wrong since I've been out of the game a while, the quality of the link matters more than the existence of the link.
So that brings us to YES as numerous comments do have valid clickout links, such as links to reference articles and generally external sites. Those ideally matter.
In terms of followers, I'm on the fence. And the reason is that I'm running a similar test project trying to determine if the number of followers and engagement here on Steemit can directly correlate to a continuation of engagement off the platform. What I mean is my account is a shared account based on a website. We're relaunching the site soon and are looking to use Steemit as a vector to advertise and as well as the blog portion. Traffic should flow equally from the site to Steemit and from Steemit to the site. Before launching I'm equalizing the estimated number of Steemit followers (quality followers, not the auto-follow ones) and the number of followers I know the site will have (established community that once had a massive database of 30k+ members). If this works, it may inspire other startups to create a Steemit presence as a key part of their engagement campaign.
Therefore as I said, I'm on the fence on how much in-site followers matter vs the number of members Steemit has in general. I'd have to guess it'd be treated on the same level that let's say Instagram followers are treated by search engines but I cannot tell you what that level is.
Didn't mean to hijack your post with this essay response, great project and I'm going to follow you to see how it pans out.
That is actually a great response and I am very curious about what you will find. $3 of upvote for you! ;-)
You are probably right when it comes to followers. For comments, I am really wondering if commenting on related topics that are connected to my niche would have an effect...especially high quality comments that create engagement (like yours) where people would actually click through to my account or article I refer to.
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Heh thanks. I've been thinking of posting my findings so far as we've tried the community transfer through several platforms now, although it's been a few years since the last attempt. I'll gather my thoughts on it and make the post later if you want to watch my feed.
So far my take on the high quality comments is the Steemit community, through the various levels of quality and engagement desire of posters, inadvertently discourages discussion in comments. Prior to registering I spoke to a buddy who's been here much longer than I. I asked him about discussion in comments as a potential replacement to the old message board system (since our site orbits around message board front/databases). His response was that due to the number of spam/shit comments and lack of reciprocal engagement by some OPs to insightful/long comments, commenting isn't what it can potentially be. The latter I'd see as particularly problematic as it discourages commenting and thereby discourages the insertion of links as references and so forth. If I wrote you my War and Peace essay and you replied "thanks for your comment" I wouldn't bother commenting again.
There's also a question of etiquette which you may set me straight on. If I reply to your comment but a link to my own post is included, I assume I may get flagged by someone who is not necessarily yourself who disagrees with comment linking. I've noticed that Steemit etiquette is a highly subjective matter. While linking my own post in a comment is internal linking, the prevalence of this practice in facilitation of an indepth discussion would also naturally lead to a prevalence in linking outside sources, thus improving the SEO value.
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I think that a lot of those issues can be solved. For example, chainbb is a message board interface built on top of steem by @jesta (check out chainbb here). It is possible to get rid of "bot" comment by disqualifying the custom json of it's source.
The goal is this format is for people to be able to host their own forum on their own domain and have full control over it...just like phpbb. I think that might just be what you are looking for.
When it comes to linking in the comment section, I think it is just a matter of relevance. For example, just above, I shared a link that is helpful and add to the discussion. There is no reason for anyone to flag that.
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Looking into it. I was not aware that Jesta build a message board, only the stats service. This may and may not work for our purposes. It would depend on the level of control and the potential for censorship (flagging). Can't say much until I really explore what Jesta made so I'll stfu for now.
Finally got my post up, you can check it out here. Tried to not make it a wall of text.
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Talk with him on steemit.chat :-) im Ill look into your post
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Flagged. Bring value instead of begging
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