For all of us small-blogs out there with a mildly engaged audience, what do we do to increase participation in our blogs?  Conventional wisdom seems to suggest that we end each post with a lame question or call to action soliciting a response from a barely there, mildly engaged audience.  A fictitious audience.

But this just seems to illuminate the fact that we have no audience and very little participation.  Wouldn’t we be better off resisting this urge and instead attempting to write something of interest?  (for those keeping track, that was a rhetorical question, which, in my opinion, is fair game as they don’t call for active participation).

Plus, I’ve noticed that when I ask a lame question in a blog post, it is ignored, but when I write something interesting or provocative (sans question) it is commented on, rebloged, etc.

I also wonder if lame questions at the end of a blog post are used in lieu of an actually ending to the blog post itself?  Possibly.  Writing a good endings is difficult.

I suggest bloggers would be better off just writing instead of asking their readers (however few) to comment or invoking a question.  Allow people to comment if they want.