There are not many things more beautiful and appreciated to a blogger than a good comment. We bloggers live for them.

When we open up our site in the morning and see a new comment sitting there waiting to greet us, well it makes our day – one sparkling gift handed to little ol’ us in the middle of the big, big blogosphere.

Yes, comments are the jewels of the blogosphere.

But how can we thank our loyal friends and readers for giving us these treasures?

First and foremost, we can return the favour!

We can visit their blogs and leave them comments. The golden rule of blogging – do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. It makes the blogosphere go round.

For my first year or so as a blogger, I tried to visit every commenter every time they commented. I spent at least two hours a day blog visiting. But when my Wordless Wednesday Mr. Linky started to hit 60 bloggers a week, I could no longer keep up. Meanwhile, my inbox began to overflow with review requests, etc AND I had a baby!

I lost the battle. I had to admit I could no longer visit all my commenters. I do try to visit as many as I can. But I hate to not return the favor to everyone. I appreciate my commenters so much and I DO want to visit their blogs and get to know them!

Blog visiting and commenting are how I have made my best friends online.

Leaving a comment is like walking up to a new friend in the playground and introducing yourself. It is how we make friends in the blogosphere.

What if we want to do EVEN MORE???

Because we want to do even more to recognize and thank our commenters, we have created a new weekly carnival…

Say It Forward – Carnival of Loyal Commenters

Say it Forward is a new weekly carnival where bloggers feature their loyal commenters!

Each blogger will write a post featuring one, two or three of their loyal commenters and then add that link to the carnival Mr. Linky at 5 Minutes for Mom.

In the posts, bloggers can include photos, bios, interview questions or even quotes from their comments – whatever works best to turn the spotlight on commenters and show them how much we appreciate them taking the time to read and comment on our blogs.

What if the commenter we want to thank isn’t a blogger? No worries! Shine that spotlight anyway! Share their comment(s), their name – anything you can to say THANKS!

Link Up and Get New Readers

To get your commenters even MORE attention, come back here every Friday and add the permalink of your weekly Say It Forward post to the Mr. Linky so that others can find these fabulous commenters!

And then start visiting the other links in the Mr. Linky. I mean come on — these people are the kind of readers YOU want reading YOUR blog.

These are the FUN blogging folks YOU want to be friends with.

Go to THEIR sites. Read THEIR blogs. And of course, leave COMMENTS.

Oh – I can just see all the friendships forming already…
It is a beautiful thing!

Button Code

If you want to include a button or banner in your post, here are the codes:

Just pick a button and copy the code below it.

Summary

So, to recap — How to Participate in Say It Forward

1. On Fridays, choose a commenter, (or two, or three) to feature in a Say It Forward post.
2. Come back to www.5minutesformom.com to add your permalink to the Mr. Linky.
3. Visit other Say It Forward posts and discover FABULOUS bloggers who are fun, friendly and loyal commenters.
4. And don’t forget to let your readers know that you are participating in Say It Forward so they can go find all these wonderful commenters and read their blogs.

P.S. Thanks to Steph from Adventures in BabyWearing and Managing Editor of 5 Minutes for Parenting for the name idea, “Say It Forward.” (As you may know, Steph is famous for her comments.)