blog comments

Why Would You Bother to Comment?

This is a guest post following a great chat I had with Valerie Merahn Simon, and is a nice follow-up on my recent post about Twitter and blog comments.

If you?re like me, you read a lot of blog posts. Many of them are good posts. Some you?ll even share via Twitter or email. But only once in a while will you be motivated to comment. Commenting is a contribution. It requires time and effort and thought.

So why are readers willing to invest themselves in someone else?s blog post?

Controversy

Sometimes it?s hard not to ?jump in?. When David Mullen & Lauren Fernandez asked Should Newspaper Have Outed an Intern for Plagerism? on Communications Catalyst, 107 comments ensued. A recent post on the Bad Pitch Blog regarding the controversial outing of the ?reverse bad pitch? of ?Mike Hendricks and the Laws of Shamelessness? resulted in 57 comments.

Another Bad Pitch post entitled ?Simply put, thank you? about the very successful Bad Pitch Blog Night School garnered 0 comments. Of course controversy does not have to mean scandal. One of the most highly commented recent posts on Marketing Profs Daily Fix was Help! I Have Social Media Rejction Syndrome which inspired a spirited debate over whether it is appropriate to connect with those you don?t know on LinkedIn.

Expertise

Do you believe you can offer value and insights to the conversation? That the post needs your expertise? When Jeremy Porter posted The Best Schools for Journalism on Journalistics, his community was well prepared to contribute (28 comments). Whether they agreed with the schools on his list, or they felt he left off a school, his readers know journalism schools and felt compelled to share their opinions.

Similarly when Lauren Ferenandez asked her readers The 1.2 Million Definitions of PR: What?s your take? a discussion including 50 comments emerged. Her community understood the question, had an opinion and felt that were well suited to make a contribution to the conversation.

Questions

Is the blog a conversation with the reader, or simply offering a monologue? Jerimiah Owyang does a fantastic job of integrating questions alongside valuable insights to engage readers. A great example of this is Owyang?s recent post How to Kick Start a Community- An Ongoing List. With 72 comments the list did become a community undertaking.

Chris Brogan offers a similar example with his recent Simple Touch Points of Loyalty post, which offered 9 Simple Touchpoints of Loyalty and asked for help identifying more. Over 112 comments followed. One of his least commented posts Why I Will Promote Teaching Sells (just 8 responses) doesn?t speak to readers, so much as speak at them. In his words, ?I wanted to share that with you clearly, and tell you a bit about the program, what I like about it, and then, I?ll let you go take a look for yourself.?

Does every post demand comments and interaction? Not necessarily.

Many of my favorite bloggers, brilliant thought leaders such as Shel Holtz, rarely receive more than a comment or two per post. These posts may be viewed by hundreds and shared by many, yet fail to evoke the often elusive comment. There is a unique skill, an art even, to crafting posts that elicit a written reaction from readers.

What was the last post you commented on? Why were you compelled to leave a comment?

Valerie Merahn Simon serves as a Senior Vice President at BurrellesLuce media monitoring and measurement, and writes a national public relations column for examiner.com. She is also co-founder and host of #PRStudChat, a monthly twitter chat between PR professionals and students moderated by Deirdre Breakenridge. She can be found on Twitter or LinkedIn and once in a while, if sufficiently motivated, commenting or even guest posting on a blog!

Is Twitter Killing Blog Comments?

If you’re a blogger, you’ll know how comments make a blog. They can take the original post into a whole new level altogether, with opposing views and discussions opening up some great viewpoints.

Personally, I’ve used the comments on some of my posts (and those on other blogs) as inspiration for new posts here. I’ll add my comment on the original post, and then expand on it with a new or slightly different take. That then opens the discussion up even further, both on the new post and the original (play fair – always link back to your inspiration).

While content may be the instigator, it’s the conversations by the community that often make the content. And maybe it’s just me, but Twitter seems to be taking more of the conversations and making them 140-character bites.

I’ve seen many great posts by some truly remarkable bloggers be tweeted, and the conversation remain on Twitter. Points and questions raised in the post start the conversation rolling, but instead of via the comments section on a blog, they take place on the little blue bird nest. And that’s a shame.

There’s nothing wrong with this, of course – after all, Twitter is the king of instant feedback and interaction. And weekly events like #journchat and #blogchat , and others like them, show just how effective a medium Twitter can be for conversations. And yet…

Imagine how much a conversation could build without the limitations of 140-characters. Imagine how opposing views could be fully fleshed out with unlimited text. Imagine how communities could be forged, and new friendships built, through the reasoning and acceptance that long tail blog comments can offer. Imagine being the catalyst or inspiration for a blog post by your favourite blogger, all from a single comment you left.

Of course, you could say that it’s down to the blogger to make the content as open as possible, to encourage discussion – and this is true. Yet at the same time, maybe we (as readers) need to take part more as well? Maybe we need to encourage bloggers more by being part of their community, as opposed to rubbernecking on Twitter?

There are a myriad of ways for conversations to take place. Sometimes little snapshots like Twitter are ideal, if you’re pressed for time. But isn’t it nice to get away from the noise at times, and relax where you have time and space to say what you really want?

What’s your take?

photo credit: Shirin K. A. Winiger

Blog Comments and Reputation Central

When people think of reactions from blogs, they normally think of negative reviews or inspiring stories.

Comments aren’t usually high up on the list of monitoring and watching what’s being said online.

Yet they should be, as a recent post by David Henderson and the subsequent conversation in the comments section show.

I won’t go too much into the actual blog post or the comments, as they’re both recommended reads and will give you a far clearer view of who may be in the right or wrong. What the post does highlight is that a blog comment can go even further than a blog post at painting an individual or company in a less than flattering light.

The gist of the post and resulting conversation is that David Henderson suggests that WordPress is an excellent medium for hosting your own online newsroom. Countering this is Steve Momorella of TEKgroup International, a company that develops and maintains online newsrooms.

What could have been a good discussion about both the validity of having your own online newsroom and how good WordPress is at running such a tool instead develops into a messy claim/counter-claim regarding the post and follow-up comments.

David seems to take umbrage with a comment made by Steve about the usefulness of WordPress and calls it a lack of understanding on Steve’s part. Steve is unhappy about David’s “disrespect” and so points out an error on David’s website.

This then results in other commenters joining in and by the end of everything, there’s a veritable “he said, she said” feel to everything.

While it makes for hugely entertaining reading, it also shows how a simple blog comment can taint someone’s view. I read David Henderson regularly. I respect him immensely and find him to be a great source of information and knowledge (although his constant putting down of PR does jade, after a while).

I didn”t know Steve Momorella prior to his comments on David’s blog post, but I do know of him now. Because of that blog post and its comments, I felt both David and Steve came out a little less positive than they otherwise might have.

While Steve’s comments have merit, they did come across as slightly leaned toward promoting his company which could be classed as comment spam. Whether that was the intent or not is down to Steve’s interpretation.

For David’s side, I felt he was being a little defensive and it maybe encouraged Steve to counter more than he would have.

From an outsider’s point of view, it could be seen as Steve is a promotional spammer and David doesn’t like comments that disagree with him. I know this isn’t the case with David and I’m guessing it’s not the case for Steve.

But see how easy a conversation in blog comments can sway a point of view?

Are you always thinking slightly about what you say and how it’s said when you comment on a blog? Or do you feel that it’s not something to worry about too much and just say what you feel regardless? Can comment conversations get away from you?

The comments are yours (no ironic pun intended).

photo credit:?Andi?

Community Spirit and Blog Comments Redux

A couple of days ago, I wrote about Fake-Twitter and concerns of how it could be misused.

As a (partial) result, the site received an official takedown notice from Twitter and I received some of the most heated and angry comments ever from a post.

That’s cool. People have opinions and sometimes these opinions are strong, and the comment section is where these opinions are allowed to be expressed.

It’s one of the reasons that I have an open comment policy. Some people emailed me asking why I was allowing the comments to stay when a lot were personal and derogatory. Simple – I believe in free speech and the right to air grievances. Of course my post wasn’t going to be popular with everyone and the comments bore that out.

But, as I say, that’s people’s prerogative and I won’t stifle that. Where I will (and did) draw the line is when you attack my readers and others leaving comments. If you have a gripe with me, fine, take that out on me – I’m big enough and ugly enough to take the heat.

But the community that are sharing their views? If you attack them with vitriol and over-the-top abuse, I will delete your comment. I think that’s fair.

Speaking of community, that’s one thing that was a positive result of the post, no matter what “side” you were on.

Although it led to some pretty personal comments against me, the response from the Tumblr community in particular was actually pretty cool to see. These are the friends of one of the guys who came up with the whole Fake-Twitter idea.

When it became clear that “one of their own” was involved, they quickly got together and started posting humorous parodies of me on Tumblr, along with their comments on the post itself.

While I may not be a fan of the personal attack over reasoned argument, it can’t be denied that the community spirit that I believe in and encourage was present. For that, I congratulate them.

We may not always agree on everything; we may not always agree on most things. But one thing we can agree on is that community and support is the way forward – isn’t it?

photo credit: nataliej

Internet Censorship, Google Style

Google seems to be coming in for a lot of stick at the moment.

Many Twitter users are aghast at the thought of Google buying Twitter, and their handling of popular blog tool Feedburner has come under fire (including here on this blog).

Some of the criticism is justified, others less so. Yet is it any surprise that Google continues to come under fire when the company itself seems to go out of its way to upset the community it relies on for its userbase?

Here’s an example.

Yesterday I asked if Google bought Twitter, would they would be a benefit or a hindrance to the micro-blogging site. I cited Google’s handling of Feedburner, and the fact that their Gmail email service is still in beta after five years. I linked this to the official Gmail blog.

The link resulted in some new traffic that I may not have had, with the readers of the Gmail blog obviously curious about the Twitter angle and Google’s involvement.

Today, I noticed that the link had been removed from the Gmail blog. And not just my link – there was another one that asked how a company can keep a product on beta for five years (which is now back on the blog, bizarrely).

(As a test, I’m linking there again with screen capture at my side – let’s see if they’ll allow this link and if so, for how long).

So, does Google only link to stories that are positive about their company? Are they trying to paint a picture that all is well with their services, and that they’re still every web user’s friend?

Wouldn’t it have made more sense to allow the link and maybe respond to the post in question?

Open up discussion and have some healthy debate about what users would like to see and whether this is feasible or not, as well as address blogger issues at the same time?

It’s a shame. By removing the link to a non-congratulatory piece, Google have taken a step down the Internet censorship path that web users hate. Sure, it’s Google’s Gmail blog so they can do what they want – that’s their prerogative.

But the end result of this is that Google begins to look like the indie band that struck it lucky and hit superstardom, and then forgot all about the fans that put them there. Instead, they’d rather hang with the faux celebrities and hangers-on that only stroke their ego.

Of course, you could say Google’s so big they don’t need to worry about what the little guy like me says. Funny thing is, though, upset enough of the little guys and it soon becomes a big guy problem.

And with little guy alternatives to Google’s services becoming more widespread, where would that leave Google?

photo credit: Larsz