blog comments

Blog Comments, Digital Universes, and the Future of Social Conversations

Back in “the good old days”, conversations around a blog post would happen at source – the blog itself. This led to a few direct results:

The blogger would be seen as an “authority figure”, since the ability to spark conversation meant his or her thoughts were worth listening to and debating;
Commenters could share their thoughts and, by adding extra value to the conversation, potentially increase awareness and interest in their own blogs or social footprints.

Then social media happened (and, yes, I firmly place blogging as one of the granddaddy’s of social media, but for this post I’m going to separate the distinction).

Instead of blogs being the sole recipient of comments, now there were Facebook discussions, Twitter conversations and, more recently, Google+ threads. The domain of the blogger was no longer the domain of the conversation.

For bloggers, this was seen as a major problem – just Google has social media killed blog comments to see how much concern there is. Personally, I blame crap content over social conversations when it comes to this complaint, but then I’m a grumpy bugger.

For brands, who used blogging as a way to garner immediate and direct feedback on company culture, product launches, etc., the problem was more pronounced.

Instead of being able to monitor on a single domain, the question of scale reared its head as multi-channel conversations painted a much more fractured picture of how their brand was perceived.

The thing is, this new challenge shouldn’t be viewed as a challenge, but an opportunity.

The Hyper-Extended Conversation

While having multiple discussions going on at the same time causes its own set of problems as far as scale goes, it’s also nothing really new.

Just because a pre-social blog post kept comments on its domain, that doesn’t mean the topic wasn’t being discussed elsewhere. Email shares and forum posts, for example, continued the conversation away from the eyes of the blogger.

Additionally, despite what many bloggers might think, our blogs aren’t the centre of everyone’s digital universe. Web users have vastly different social behaviours – some prefer engaging on blogs, while others prefer their own “safety zones” in the shape of their chosen social network(s).

As people and as businesses, this is how we learn – by allowing people to share honest thoughts and acting on them.

Often, blog readers may be put off commenting on a post. The reasons can be many:

There’s already a lot of conversation happening, so why add more at the source?
The blog community seems like a clique.
The blogger doesn’t respond, so why should you leave a comment?
The reader simply doesn’t feel comfortable offering their details to comment.

All valid reasons to not comment – yet these very reasons (and more like them) don’t mean that same person won’t discuss the post elsewhere.

This unwillingness to comment on a blog directly, but still discuss elsewhere, offers a great learning opportunity for those looking to truly understand what makes an audience tick, both from a blog reader angle and potential customers through a business blog.

The Closing Loop of Fragmentation

Technology vendors are recognizing this need for closing the loop on fragmentation, and are trying to offer solutions that marry the best of blog commenting in their native form with their social counterparts.

For example, Livefyre – which I use on here and pretty much all my blog properties – took a big step in collating the conversations around a blog post with their SocialSync feature.

This cool feature identifies conversations on Twitter (see above image) and Facebook Pages, and delivers them into a blog’s comment stream. This ensures any additional discussions on two of the bigger social networks aren’t missed, as well as enables the blogger to reply directly from their own comments back into that network.

While the SocialSync feature is perfect for bloggers looking to truly optimize the conversation, Livefyre’s business solutions for brands goes even deeper and offers social signals from multiple touch-points online.

Livefyre’s main competitor, Disqus, offers their own take on closing the conversation loop. As well as pulling in Reactions from Twitter, the company provides deeper insights into the community around your blog.

By analyzing the kind of content your readers consume elsewhere, as well as the content that encourages them to leave a comment, Disqus can recommend similar content on your site.

By providing this overview, you can tailor the content you produce based on the goals around your blog – discussion, consumption, lead acquisition, and more.

Disqus’s ability to implement these focused tactics based on comment intelligence, and Livefyre’s true social integration, offers a glimpse into where we’re going and how content producers can truly drive their own deliverables.

If you’re a self-hosted WordPress blogger, then Comments Evolved for WordPress offers a simple, out-of-the-box solution that collates the main comments around your posts in one place – on your blog itself.

The plugin allows you to run either native WordPress comments (the standard system that comes with WordPress), or a choice of Facebook, Google+, Livefyre or Disqus.

From a social network angle, if your post encourages discussion on Google+, these will show under the G+ tab. If the post is shared on a Facebook profile, any subsequent comments on Facebook will be pulled in.

It’s a quick solution for those looking to see the bigger conversational picture and offers more options for readers to use their preferred system.

The Future of Social Conversations

While these current platforms, and more like them including the likes of Echo and IntenseDebate, are looking to offer an all-round experience when it comes to blog commenting, the future should be looking to move way beyond even that.

Comments are merely the starting point of where we can go – the possibilities and insights comments can truly offer are limited only by the vision of what we see as important, and the technology to provide these goals.

Influencers and Advocates

While comments offer social proof and validation for the interest in a blog post topic, the actions after that are where we, both as bloggers and brands, can gain the real value from.

Which commenter drives even more interaction on the post with other commenters?
Which commenter extends the conversation and drives more traffic your way by sharing elsewhere?
Which commenter evokes you to rethink your position the most over time?
Which commenter jumps into other blog posts elsewhere to promote your argument over that blogger’s?

These are just some of the data points we can gather from following the social footprint of a commenter, and identifying who the influencers are in our community, and how that ties into blog or brand advocacy.

It helps us reward these folks and increase the loyalty we already enjoy with them, as well as identify who may be the best “community marketers” that can help us when we have something to share – an offer, promotion, news, etc.

Emotional Resonance and Content Strategy

One of the biggest advantages a blog has over more mainstream print media is the ability to connect on an emotional level.

While you can still find some excellent examples of emotional reporting, especially in Time Magazine, which seems to be going through a renaissence, most print publications don’t position themselves as emotional connectors, mainly due to editorial standards and restrictions.

Blogs, on the other hand, can offer a very distinctive and human voice behind the content, which can connect emotionally with the reader and build a long-term fan.

While that reader may leave a comment advising of how much the post meant to them, on less emotional posts, it’s harder to decipher.

By combining sentiment analysis technology with Natural Language Processing (NLP) and a blog’s chosen comment system, the blogger (or brand) can start to see which content instilled which emotion.

Did the content leave the reader elated, happy, sad, blase, concerned, etc.?
Did certain parts of the content offer one reaction, and other parts of the same content offer another?
How did they share that content afterward – positively or negatively?
How did they feel when you responded in the comments to one of their questions – did you grow confidence in your ability to be conversational, or alienate a previously friendly face?

These are just some of the ways we can use social intelligence in comments and the reactions from our content, and start to see what works, what converts, what instils actions and reactions and how these compare to the actions we were hoping for.

By doing so, we tailor our content creation to be the strongest it can be, and – ideally – provide exactly the type of content that delivers on whatever our goals may be.

Social Conversations and the Win Factor

Now, for the average “hobby blogger”, this may seem like something that’s way overblown and unnecessary and that’s probably true.

But as we move towards content creators becoming mini-media operations, and brands looking to both connect with their creators as well as tailor their own corporate content more strategically, it’s a future that’s worth thinking about.

From the blogger’s side, they become more authorative and produce the content that makes their part of the web more attractive than others in their field.

Subscriptions rise, content is shared, and the conversations around the blog – regardless of where they are – drive consistent and informed content.

From the brand’s side, they understand the consumption behaviour of their customers – existing and potential – and deliver the type of content and calls-to-action that increase ROI, loyalty and brand share of voice.

They can also only identify the very best bloggers and content partners to work with, based on relevance to not only the brand but the brand’s goals, and how that blogger and his or her audience fits into them.

From the reader’s viewpoint, they receive only the very best content and non-invasive promotional offers and news, based on their own previous decisions that have helped shape the new consumption model they’re now part of.

Of course, there needs to be a strict adherence to respecting privacy. Data is powerful when used properly – but dangerous precedences can be set in motion when this power is abused.

But for the companies and content creators that build and use this data ethically, the future of social conversations awaits. And it’s even closer than we think it is today…

For an excellent complementary piece to this post, please check out The Broken Art of Company Blogging (And the Ignored Metric That Could Save Us All) from Dan Shure on the Moz blog.

Update March 17, 2015: After almost three years of using Livefyre, I switched over to a mix of wpDiscuz and Postmatic. More information on that can be found here.

image: Reilly Dow

Welcoming Livefyre Comments Back to the Blog

If you’re a regular reader of the blog, you’ll notice that I’ve switched the Livefyre commenting system back on, after using the vanilla WordPress option for the last few months.

I was one of the early beta users of the system, and loved the way it took blog commenting and turned it into a real-time chat (as this experiment and the subsequent results show).

However, along with it not really fitting into the blog’s redesign at the time, there were some features that Livefyre lacked, which saw me revert to the standard WordPress comment system (albeit one that was heavily optimized by Bonsai Interactive’s Creative Director, Lisa Kalandjian). But I’ve always kept eyes on the system, and met the team at a conference earlier this year.

And I’m glad I did, because today’s Livefyre is a completely different beast from when I was test-running it, and the features that weren’t around then have made it into the new version. So the time seemed right to switch it back on. So what’s new?

Latest Post or Conversation

Perhaps one of the biggest things that Livefyre lacked previously was the latest post option (or Conversation, as Livefyre calls it). This is what the CommentLuv plug-in offers – the option for anyone leaving a comment to have their last post visible as a link back to their blog.

Where Livefyre’s version differs is that it’s (currently) only for those with a Livefyre account. While it doesn’t offer the same benefits of CommentLuv because of this limitation, it’s a clever way to encourage sign-up. And the cool thing is, if you have multiple blogs, it pulls the last post from the newest publication, so it gives all your blogs an equal amount of promotion.

Simple Site Wide Moderation

When I first had Livefyre switched on, its dashboard area was pretty basic. There were your account details, and the blogs you had registered, and that was pretty much it. It didn’t really allow for analytics or moderation (something the Disqus platform was better at). Not any more.

With the new and improved dashboard, you have much more control. This includes white-listing commenters, banning spammers, marking comments that are offensive so Livefyre can learn them, and more.

It’s a far better system, and makes running the back-end of your commenting system a much easier task.

Improved Social Sharing Options

A lot of bloggers – myself included – have wondered about the effect social networks have on blog comments. Do tweets and Facebook conversations mean fewer comments on the blog (though more overall)? And will the freestyle comment stream of Google+ affect this even more?

Either way, there’s no doubt that a lot of conversations about a post are missed, because they’re taking place on Twitter, Facebook, etc, and not everyone has an account on these platforms. This is where Livefyre is stepping in, to really cultivate the conversation around a post.

Their new SocialSync feature gives you the option to have tweets and Facebook posts become a part of the post’s comments. This is similar to the Reactions feature on Disqus, with a difference – Livefyre’s way of doing things seems better suited to social conversations being part of the comment stream.

For instance, simple retweets aren’t counted (or shoudn’t be). Instead, only extended conversations around a post are pulled into the comments. The same goes with Facebook – if you share a post on your Facebook Page, then any wall posts by your connections will be pulled over to your post.

It’s not perfect – for example, I’d love the option to be able to reply to Facebook posts from the blog comment (much like you can with the Twitter sync). Additionally, the SocialSync conversations currently split the comments if there are more than 50, as opposed to being at the end of the comment stream (although Livefyre have said they’re looking to fix this). But as a first attempt at really integrating all conversations around a post, it’s a great start. Especially if Livefyre can work a way to include Google+ comments.

The Little Things

So these are three of the main differences in the Livefyre system since last being activated on here. They’ve also added some nice little features – more sign in options (Google and LinkedIn), along with the option to view oldest comments first. Couple these with more CSS options, so you can code Livefyre to suit the design of your blog a bit better, and Livefyre has pretty much got most options covered for a one-stop commenting system.

There are some more features on the way, too, with perhaps one of the most-asked for additions due imminently – the option to allow guest commenting, where you don’t need to have one of the current sign-in options to leave a comment.

I was a big fan of Livefyre before. I think it’s fair to say that, with the new features, I’m pretty much sold on them as the best commenting option out there. Obviously there might be some hiccups along the way, but I’ve always found the Livefyre support to be second-to-none.

And you can’t ask for much more than that.

Building an Audience with Commenting Communities: Smart, or Sleazy?

This is a guest post by Danny Iny.

Have you heard of comment trading communities?

It?s a new fad that seems to be sweeping the blogosphere (or at least a few corners of it). Basically, the idea is that a bunch of people get together and agree to comment on all of each others? posts.

Some bloggers are experimenting with the idea, some love it, and others hate it.

I?ve been thinking about this a lot lately. A short while ago, I emailed a successful blogger whose audience I thought would be interested in a post I had written, asking for a link (this wasn?t out of the blue ? I?ve corresponded with this blogger on a few occasions).

The blogger responded that I could go ahead and post the link in the comment community ? everyone else would take a look and comment, just so long as I did the same for them.

I thanked the blogger and said that I would head on over, but I didn?t ? and I probably never will.

Okay, before we go any further, it?s time for full disclosure: I had participated in one round of this blogging community, which means that I commented on nine blog posts, and nine other people commented on one of mine.

It wasn?t a great experience, for two reasons:

A few of the blogs really stunk. Most were pretty decent, and some were great, but I felt very uncomfortable being committed to leave a comment on a blog that I was completely unimpressed with.
A few of the blogs were about things in which I have no interest. They were good blogs, near as I can tell, but they were about subjects that I neither know anything about nor have any interest in exploring. And yet, I was committed to leave a comment.

So what did I do? Well, I had made a commitment, and I take commitments seriously ? on the good blogs that interested me I left solid comments, and on the others I left comments that were friendly and encouraging, but vague and non-specific.

I feel like I?ve littered on the blogosphere.

Contrived, but reasonable?

My experience was mixed, but I?m not ready to make blanket condemnations. I discovered some really great blogs through it, and sparked a couple of great online relationships. And I?m not the only one.

The most commonly heard argument against these communities is that if people have to leave a comment, then that comment isn?t really worth anything, but I?m not sure that I agree.

I mean, sure, if people leave crappy, fluffy comments, then there?s no value to them, but if the comments are well thought-out, and insightful, then what?s the problem? Bloggers want others to read and interact with their stuff, and at the same time they?re looking for blogs for whom they can do the same. Isn?t this just a way of formalizing and adding some structure to what they want to be doing anyway?

In other words, some might see it as contrived, and I agree ? it?s a contrived solution to a very specific problem, but maybe it works?

My hesitation from doing it again is that I?m not comfortable having to comment on blog posts that I don?t like, or have no interest in.

Maybe this is a solvable problem?

Niche-specific, approval-required communities?

What if a blog commenting community were created that met the following two criteria, to address the main issues that I had with my comment community experience:

Each community is around a specific niche, so that everyone is ? at least in principle ? likely to be interested in everybody else?s writing.
Each community is moderated, and blogs are reviewed before being admitted into the group. This will make sure that terrible blogs never make it in.

If these two criteria were in place, I would give it another shot, and my guess that a good number of other bloggers would do the same. But I may be wrong?

Now I?ll turn the conversation over to you ? I had a feeling that this post would spark a lot of debate, which is why it?s being published here, where the microphone is a little bigger than over at Mirasee.

What do you think? Do you think this middle ground solution makes sense? Do you think blog commenting communities are a false economy, or the best thing since sliced bread?

Let?s get the debate going!

About the author: Danny Iny is an author, strategist, serial entrepreneur, and proud co-founder of Mirasee, the definitive marketing training program for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and non-marketers. Visit his site today for a free cheat sheet about Why Guru Strategies for Blog Growth DON?T WORK? and What Does!, or follow him on Twitter @DannyIny.

A Slight Intermission on Blog Comments Respect

every care and courtesy Hi guys.

So today was meant to be the third part of the 7 Days to Turn Your Blog Into a Social Media Hub series. This will appear tomorrow, as something’s been chewing on my mind today (and apologies to anyone who was expecting the Hub post).

When I write a blog post, it’s obviously my point of view. Once it’s in the open, though, it then becomes a shared point of view with you, the readers – and your point of view is what builds the discussions around a post. Sometimes you’ll agree with me; other times, not so much. And that’s what makes the comments after a post such a fervent breeding ground for ideas.

I don’t even mind if you attack me for my views. Heck, I’m big and ugly enough to take your shots, and it shows me that you’re passionate about a topic – and I would never discourage passion.

Besides, I’m the person that’s invoked that reaction, so if it’s an attack, let’s have it open and unfiltered.

What I won’t accept, however, is attacking other commenters. They’re like you – simply offering an additional view on the starting topic. By all means, attack me – the blog is my home and as the owner, I’m responsible for what goes on inside. But attacking another commenter – that’s poor form.

I’m a firm believer in an open comment policy; I don’t moderate before publication, because I feel that stints genuine interaction and conversation. Going by the conversations that have happened over the months, it would appear that most agree.

Let’s play nice and keep it that way. Like I say, attack me if you wish – as the instigator of discussion, I’m open to all views and words. But let’s treat the guests (and that includes you) nicely.

What say you – fair?

photo credit: Martin Deutsch

Goodbye DISQUS, Hello WordPress

Old Friends So it wasn’t that long ago I mentioned I was moving my comments system to DISQUS.

The fact that the system was being used on more blogs, and also had social media integration with its Reactions feature that pulled stats from anywhere else your blog was being discussed, seemed pretty cool.

Yet, lately, DISQUS seems to have had some continued issues.

One is that the Reactions (the comments from Twitter, Digg, etc, that show up as trackbacks) seem to be stop-start as to whether they show or not. Another issue (and far more serious) is that DISQUS doesn’t seem to be set up for commenting when viewing a blog on a mobile or smartphone.

At first, I thought it may just be me, but then Ari Herzog pointed it out as well. Considering that more people use their smartphones for browsing now, this is a bit of an issue.

So, time to swap back to the good old WordPress standard comments option. I can also switch CommentLuv back on, which for community is one of the best WordPress plug-ins ever (CommentLuv shows your last blog post and is great for finding new bloggers).

I will say this for DISQUS – their customer support is usually pretty top-notch. If they can get the mobile aspect sorted, and also stabilize the features like Reactions (which means stopping the unrelated porn links that can appear), I’d be more than happy to try again.

In the meantime, I kinda like the new stripped down approach. How about you?

photo credit: David Reece