Do you respond to comments to your posts? Do you spend time making comments on other blogs? Have you set comment guidelines for yourself? It may be worth revisiting how you think about comments, both in terms of how you deal with the comments to your posts and those you make in other blogs.
In this age of conversational marketing, responding to comments helps you show your readers that you are listening and participating. That’s important especially if you are in the service business. The action of referring to the content readers share with you and addressing any further questions will set you apart. It shows your commitment.
As well, it will buy you additional permission to engage with your readers and tell them about the work you do. That is no small feat in an increasingly crowded marketplace where doing what you say you do counts more every day.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that many blog posts often gather the “great post” and “‘atta boy/girl” in the comments. That is when you are fortunate enough to get comments to your posts. If you are leaving comments like those in other blogs, I encourage you to reconsider. You may be depriving yourself of opportunities to develop relationships – and relationships are key in conversational marketing.
The main reasons why comments are by and large left out of a full social media marketing strategy are:
– being time starved. Social media and the wealth of projects these activities can generate are filling your days. That is good. There is only so much time you can dedicate to writing at other people’s bogs. You need to care for your own.
– testing the waters. When you don’t know someone, you are inclined to stay general in what you say. You are not familiar with who else is reading and commenting and are still getting to know the author. Will they respond? Bottom line: is this going to be a waste of time?
– being afraid of not sounding knowledgeable. The more popular the blogger, the easier it is for a new blogger to feel intimidated. After all, they are successful because they know so much more, right? Actually some of the kindest and most unassuming people I met are the folks who’ve succeeded beyond imagination.
There is also the issue of negative comments, which others have addressed extensively here. Let’s focus for a moment on the reasons I listed here and any other that you might have. Leave me a comment to begin the conversation on why it is a good idea to have a comments strategy.
Next post, we will talk about the tactical part.
