conversations

Can We Stop Calling It Blog Commenting Now?

Think of the last time you got together with friends, or family, or even colleagues from work.

You enjoyed the company, you laughed, you caught up on missed life events, and – hopefully – had a really good time, right?

As you reflect on that time together,?there’s probably a good chance that the key takeaway for everyone is that you all enjoyed both the company and conversations.

Because, let’s face it, conversations – and those that help make us more educated, or filled in, or even better people – can make all the difference between a drab experience and a fun one.

So why don’t we treat blog comments the same way? In fact, why do we continue to even call them comments when, in truth, they’re very much the same as the awesome conversations we have offline?

We Don’t Just Comment Our Way Through Life

Ever since blogs were set up to enable comments in the Web 2.0 era, they’ve been a mainstay of many a blog. And rightly so.

From opening up an extended dialogue around the post itself to fostering friendships within the blog’s community, blog comment sections have been one of the unsung “heroes” of the blogging world.

And yet…. all too often, they’re either looked upon with disdain due to the belief it’s just a breeding ground for immature trolls or spammers, or they’re ignored as being a tacked-on surplus area that no-one really cares about.

The first reason is down to the blogger – yes, there are trolls and spammers, but if you really care about your blog and your audience, you’ll handle these issues the way they should be dealt with. The technology exists.

The second reason is a fair one – and, for me, it’s all down to the use of the words “blog comments”. Specifically, comments.

Think back to the opening part of this post, and the example of a great time with people you like, and the wonderful conversations that sprung from that.

Now, imagine if, when looking back, you’d described the evening as “oh, yes, we all commented really well together, and left such great comments after everyone had said their piece.”

How ridiculous does that sound? Right? Stupid ridiculous!

So why do we take conversations after our posts and call them comments? Because that’s exactly what we should be calling comments – conversations.

[bctt tweet=”#Blog #comments are true #conversations, pure and simple. It’s time to start treating them as such. ” username=”DannyBrown”]

Comments, by perception, are throwaway snippets of soundbites that are soon forgotten.

Conversations, on the other hand, are true one-to-one and one-to-many sharing of thoughts, agreements, disagreements and more, and can live as long as there’s a new thought shared.

And comments as email? They don’t get much more conversational than that.

It’s Time to Shift the Comment Mindset

Although a few years old now, there’s a reason The Atlantic called email “the best thing on the Internet”.

From that piece:

Email is a refugee from the open, interoperable, less-controlled “web we lost.” It’s an exciting landscape of freedom amidst the walled gardens of social networking and messaging services.

Simply put, it’s the simplicity?- and, most importantly of all, privacy – of email that enables true conversations to take place, as opposed to the guarded, stilted ones that can be found on social media and groups.

Email’s usage is ubiquitous across so many cultures and generations, and the buy-in is minimal. And that fact you’re sitting in a comfy spot to send and reply to an email makes it easier to settle into a “this is a personal conversation” mindset.

I see it here in the conversations around my posts, due to my use of Postmatic.

Comments are thoughtful. Caring. Educational. Raw. Real. Honest. Fun. Happy. Encouraging. And so much more.

Because if there’s one thing I truly believe, “blog comments” are deserving of so much more than the reputation and perception they have.

They’re more than a breeding ground for waste and hostility. They’re more than a throwaway line at a second-rate comedy open night.

They’re true conversations, pure and simple. It’s time to start treating them as such.

A version of this post first appeared on the Replyable blog.

At Some Stage the Conversation Has to Advance

Over on Facebook, author and marketer Geoff Livingston posed the following question/statement:

Apart from the misplaced punctuation mark in CEO’s (*cough*, sorry Geoff, couldn’t resist!), it’s a great question, and one that solicited some great responses (mostly along the lines of CEOs don’t need to tweet).

Because, simply put, a CEO has one job and one job only – to meet the goals set for the company by the Board of Directors. In that role, he or she becomes responsible for four key tenets:

Communicator – ensuring the outside world and/or media are kept up-to-date with the current business.
Decision maker – responsible for the overall strategy and policy making.
Leader – advising the board of progress, motivating employees and driving change in the organization.
Manager – overseeing the day-to-day challenges and operations within the organization.

See any mandate for tweeting there, or being active on social media? No – because, as Geoff rightly points out, the role of a CEO is far more reaching than the occasional tweet.

So why are we still having this conversation about CEOs and the need for them to tweet? Simple – social media is stuck in a time-warp created by a number of “experts” severely lacking in true business acumen.

I Have a Klout Score of Eleventy Billion, Therefore I Am

Don’t worry, I’m not going to start one of my anti-Klout rants here. But the influencer model and social scoring metric has led to an epidemic of businesses looking to the wrong people to help them with their goals in social media.

Whereas previously consultants and agencies had to work their asses off to get to a level of expertise and trust before they began advising corporations and organizations, now you just have to appear to know what you’re on about and have that validated for you by your impressive social score.

It’s not really the fault of these platforms either – although they have exacerbated the problem with their “You’re no-one unless you’re a social someone” approach.

Social media in general has allowed people to rise from nowhere and become “the voice” that people should listen to when they speak.

Never mind the fact that their LinkedIn profile has no experience of actually running a multi-million dollar company; or shows any kind of success metrics or return except a high score on the latest influencer platform and a speaking slot at some non-descript conference.

And yet these are the folks that are advising CEOs should be stepping away from their daily duties and responsibilities to their employees, shareholders and customers, so they can impart 140 characters of wisdom that may have been vetted and scripted anyway.

It’s advice that seems to have been pumped for the last 5 years or so – as Doug Haslam put it on Geoff’s Facebook wall, “We’re still talking about this? <kicks time machine to make sure it hasn’t malfunctioned and sent me back 5 years>.”

It also shows the maturity this space still has to go through, and the nonsensical talk that “experts” need to advance from.

Customers Don’t Necessarily Care About the Tweet Owner

One of the main arguments put forward by these social media wonks (using Geoff’s description) is that by having the CEO tweet, the brand becomes more human and awesome.

Sorry, but you can’t pay the bills with awesome.

Can CEOs tweet and improve the brand perception with customers? For sure, and there are many examples of this – Zappos and Virgin are two that spring to mind.

But they also had an incredible culture within the company too, that the CEO mandated as part of his Leader role. The true success of these brands, and others in the social space, is not that the CEO is tweeting – it’s that the CEO empowered others to be truly human in their interactions with customers.

The majority of customers don’t care if the CEO tweets or not – what they do care about is an excellent product, a fair price, and a superb experience both during and after the sale.

That kind of return is what the CEO is employed to achieve – and he or she employs the right people to do that, whether it’s in sales, HR, or social media. Getting that part right is the role of a CEO – not hovering about on Twitter in the hope of “being awesome”.

Something those that are advising a CEO what to do had they ever had the actual experience of what that incurs behind them.

Otherwise, continuing the same kumbaya conversation will only hurt in the long run, and then everybody loses. Especially business.

Note: My friend Jeff Esposito has a great post today on the same topic.

Making Time for Conversation

My friend and business partner Troy wrote a great piece yesterday about whether or not technology has improved or hindered our communication skills. It’s a timely topic with some awesome comments, and well worth the read.

It reminded me of something that happened a couple of years ago, that was a perfect example of the point Troy makes.

My wife had taken me to Niagara Falls for my 40th birthday, and it was truly amazing, awe-inspiring, majestic ? all these words and more that I would have thought were being over-expressive had I not seen the Falls for myself. So yeah, the Falls were simply amazing.

While we were there, we had some time to kill on the last day before catching our train, and so we did a bit of walking. After 2-3 hours, we thought it?d be nice to relax and have a break. So we found a food court with a bunch of empty tables and sat down. This is where I found myself wondering how we really are as communicators and conversationalists.

While my wife was at the ladies room, this elderly lady came in and bought herself an ice cream. She looked as if she may be about 70-80 years old, and she was by herself. She had a wedding ring on her wedding finger, yet as I say she was alone. And that got me thinking.

Was she alone because her husband was simply at home having a restful day? Or was she alone because her husband had already passed away, and she was simply whiling away her time? If that was the case, did she have any family? Did she have any friends that she could spend time with? And if so, why weren?t any of them with her now?

This led to another train of thought ? perhaps she had no-one to turn to. Perhaps she was at that age where all her friends had either passed away as time caught them up, or were infirm and in an old people?s home. This thought saddened me.

Friendly or “Friends”?

Every day, I talk to strangers that I?ve never met via the likes of Twitter, or Facebook, or via comment boxes on blogs. I discuss everything and anything with people on the other side of the world, and don?t think twice about starting a conversation with them, because I see them as “friends”.

Yet I couldn?t strike up a conversation with a lonely-looking old lady who may have really appreciated the company.

Have we really come so far as to only communicate via technology now? Has the art of real conversation died, or is it still there? Do we need the facade of technology to allow us to open up to people?

I couldn?t help but think of that lady on the way home, and of the missed opportunity to offer some company for even just a short while. I?m sure it would have been easy enough for my wife and I to ask if anyone was sitting beside her and strike up a conversation ? but we didn?t. And I feel bad about that.

So here?s?the thing. The next time I?m in a similar situation, I?m going to strike up that conversation. I?d rather be gently refused than to not speak at all. After all, it?s easy enough on Twitter ? surely real life should be the same?

image: JKonig