After six months of blogging, one of the things that has started to dawn on me is that bloggers and the blogging community are a very self centered group of individuals.

I know from several little campaigns that I have run and from seeing some of the campaigns run by others, there does not appear to be a high participation level from bloggers. I have been running my 1000 blogs against whaling campaign and I am struggling to get to 100 – forget the 1000.

I have also conducted several competitions with very little response. One competition I ran only got two responses – figure that out!

Bloggers want visitors, they want people to leave comments and they want subscribers to their feeds. I have got news for everyone, it is a two way street. You participate and others will reciprocate. What really strikes me as odd is that often a competition or campaign, such as my whale campaign only require a comment on a post. For that you get a link back to your blog, you also get exposure. I don’t know how many times I have read a comment on a blog and followed the link to see what else that person has to offer.

I can understand why some of the big name bloggers don’t respond to every campaign – they are often inundated with requests. I have a lot of respect for bloggers like Andy Beard, he at least does respond, even if it is just a flying visit to leave a comment and move on. I am sure he visits many blogs each day. Other ‘big name’  bloggers do not even answer emails or respond to comments – unless your ‘in’.

Are you self centered? Do you visit a blog, have a quick read and say yeah yeah yeah and move on? Or do you comment, do you sign up for campaigns? Do you follow links to other blogs? Or do you drop an entre card and run off to the next site?

Bloggers are self centered. Some really get into the spirit of blogging. I have met some really nice bloggers who comment, communicate and even exchange emails. There are some great blogs and some very passionate bloggers out there. Collin from feedflare is one such blogger who is trying hard to get his new blog up and running and has a great competition going – check him out if you have the time.

What are your thoughts – are bloggers self centered or do I just have a poor perception? What is your experience when it comes to competitions or campaigns – do bloggers participate or is it a hard struggle? I would really like some feedback on this issue.