I really appreciate Kami Huyse’s three part process for organizations that want to get involved with social media – Active Listening, Outreach and Engagement.
The listening part seems easy enough. Even engagement makes sense. But students (and probably lots of new bloggers) get nervous about the outreach part.
I understand their apprehension. Listening is anonymous and (they think) chances are no one is going to read their little blog. But outreach! Yikes. There’s 100% chance the blogger will see their comment.
So, here are five tips to leaving good comments:
1) Be relevant and timely. Rather than comment on the general awesomeness of the blogger and their blog, talk about what you appreciate about the particular post. You don’t have to agree, of course. If you disagree, same tips apply. Relate your disagreement to the post.
2) Contribute to the conversation. Don’t comment for the sake of commenting or to just say, “nice post!” One of the simplest comments is one that tells the writer what you’re taking away from his or her post. Or maybe the blogger left out an important facet of the discussion and you’d like to bring that up.
What I’m not saying, but I hope is clear, is that you should be polite. Do not attack the blogger personally and obviously keep your comments clean. If you’re representing a client and doing outreach on their behalf, please mentally underline and highlight that last sentence.
I’ve heard stories (which of course I can’t find now!) about junior account people lambasting a blogger for not agreeing with his client’s position on a topic. Ouch.
3) Know when an email is better or when to just leave it be. If you cannot be relevant, timely or you don’t have anything to contribute to the conversation, but you want to develop a relationship with the blogger, try sending an email.
If you’re angry about the post and you can’t find anything of value to say, maybe it’s better to leave it and walk away.
I read a really stupid review of local client’s business. It was vapid and clearly not well thought out. The blogger was clearly new (she only had three posts) and after drafting a couple of comments, I ultimately decided to just leave it alone. There was no substance to her post, which prevented conversation and I remembered Hanlon’s Razor…
Never assume malice when stupidity will suffice.
4) Keep it short and sweet. If it’s longer than, say, 50 words (my arbitrary rule of thumb), save it for your own post. In fact, I often encourage my students to leave a comment on the “linky love” post to which they are already writing a response. Clearly they have a point of view, so why not share it with the blogger and get some visitors to their blog out of the deal.
5) Be accountable and take ownership. Do no post anonymously. Ever. If you’re posting a comment anonymously, think about why. And then see #3.
Image: Corbis
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Kami Huyse