One of the things that I love about WordPress are the plugins that allow you to extend the features and functionality of your site.  One plugin in particular that I had been looking for (but had never used) allowed you to automatically follow up with your blog comment authors after their first comment on your site.  Developed by Justin Shattuck, this is a great way to quickly touch base with those who are interacting with your blog, thank them for their time, or encourage them to take additional action on something.

Justin describes the plugin and what it does, on his site:

Comment relish is a Wordpress plugin developed to send an e-mail message to users who comment on your website who have never commented before. The message dispatched to the user is defined within the plugin’s preferences. Numerous tags have been integrated to allow for information to be included in the message easily (I.E.: timestamp, author name, comment, ETC.). More thoroughly, it allows you to send out a genuine thank-you style / relishing message that informs your readers of what else is going on.

Using Comment Relish

The plugin itself is fairly simple and straightforward to use.  Simply upload it to your site, activate it, and then customize the email.  Below is a screenshot of what the plugin looks like in the admin area:

You have the ability to create an email that is automatically sent to a blog commenter, the first time they leave a comment on your post.  You can customize it to include a variety of different fields that create a personalized email.  The fields included are:

• Author’s Name
• Author’s Website
• Author’s Email
• Author’s Comment
• Comment ID
• Post URL
• Post Name
• RSS Feed
• Short Date (or Short Date & Time)
• Long Date (or Long Date & Time)

A few tips on using the plugin

This plugin is quite powerful in what it is able to do.  While it’s a great way to bring visitors back to your site or encourage them to do something, you want to be sincere and overly promotional.  However, including a reminder to subscribe to your RSS feed, sign up for your newsletter, or view their post can be a great way to build a dialogue.  It is also great for reminding them where and what they posted – if you’re at all like me, you sometimes to forget to follow up on comments.

Download Comment Relish

This WordPress plugin is completely free – and you can download Comment Relish on Justin’s site.