Web Business Marketing Blog

Bloggers post articles, and readers - more often than not also bloggers - respond. What could be simpler? Then why are things so complicated?

Commenting in the blogosphere, and managing those comments is one of the many things in life to which no perfect solution exists.

The blogger’s perspective

Most serious blogs moderate comments, and so they should! Even when you’re convinced to give up control of your message, spam comments can be a multiple of genuine comments, and you need to filter these out. Wordpress’ Akismet module deserves a thumbs up here, as it does most of the work for you.

But often even non-spam comments can be of limited value, like the ‘great article’ comment with a link to the commenter’s blog. Comments can be off-topic, badly spelled or self-serving. Across cultural boundaries, they can also be perceived as offensive, even when not intended. Therefore, as a professional blogger, you should have a blog policy, acting as your contract with the user. Whatever you put in them, the most important article in your blog policy is the last one, where you announce that the terms of use can change without prior notice. This is needed as one can never imagine all the ways how users will interact with a blog.

Still as a blogger, it’s worth a moment of consideration what kind of comments you wish to receive:

• Some blogs succeed in attracting vast amounts of comments of high quality. E.g. the Oil Drum Europe consistently attracts 10’s if not 100’s of comments. For example, the article on Olduvai Revisited attracted 462 comments when I last visited. Who reads 462 comments, and what inspires a reader to submit the 463rd comment?
• But quantity and quality do not blend well together. Many blogs attracting large comment traffic have comments of varying quality. I’m sure you can think of a few examples.
• And many blogs seem to attract very limited comments. E.g. this blog.

Some bloggers respond to every comment. I guess it’s considered good practice, but it also appears as always wanting to have the last word. The real quality of a blogger should appear in the ability to let readers score (to freely paraphrase Dame Edna). As a blogger, I prefer to give the last word to the reader, but will not shy away to comment when it adds value.

Beyond a certain point, discussion becomes pointless. Some bloggers close posts for comment after a few weeks or month. Unwittingly, this unnecessarily reduces the lifetime of content. An alternative is to view each post as a microsite,, where the post, its related links and comments define an issue or subject. I rather prefer to keep discussions open, and occasionally revisit old posts if something relevant can be added. Either way, this is just one of the many variables to consider.

The reader perspective

Many commenters are also bloggers, and need to divide limited time between their and other’s blogs.

In any case, comments are part of your personal online brand. So should you comment immediately (and be on top of a list of 462 comments), or respond after a period of reflection (and be submerged). I tend to print out interesting articles, and read them a few times before formulating a comment.

But it frustrates me that once you submit a comment, you loose control and ownership. A moment of inattention, and a spelling error or worse is there forever.

Tracking your comments becomes the next challenge. Some blogs allow you to subscribe to discussions to which you contributed, but this just further fills up your inbox. Tools such as cocomment or SezWho can help, but as Yoda would say: “A perfect solution there is not”.

Some moderation policies may not suit you. And as bloggers have every right to set their policy, you have the right to opt-out. But you also have the right to create a comment on your own blog, referring to the original article.

Commenting outside the blogosphere

The blogosphere is not the only place where you can comment and interact. You can also comment on usenet, Google or Yahoo Groups, Yahoo or LinkedInAnswers, …

Where to comment

Their blog or your blog are not the only places where you can comment. Other bloggers may pick up a story and post about it on a third blog. Or a story can be bookmarked, for example in Diigo or Junta42, where it can be discussed as well. Or somebody may discuss an article in a Facebook Group or other social platform.

Systems and tools to help you out

If you’re building an online brand on a focussed topic, a tool such as cocomment is practical to integrate your comments, and even post your comment stream on your site. Unfortunately, advertising is the price to pay for using cocomment, and since you’re building your own brand, you probably do not want somebody else’s ads.

An alternative tool is SezWho - for early adopters only.

If you only want to track your comments for yourself, or share them with your team, creating a diigo group might be your best solution.

And yet another approach is to post your comments as posts in your blog, or set-up a dedicated comment blog.

Conclusion

In an ideal world, I’d like to have a reader-like tool, that not only allows me to track the internet, but also comment inside the reader. It tracks my comments, produces my comment blog, submits comments to blogs and allow me to edit and re-submit.

And since this is the 21st century, I’d want to have it free, and without ads.

It should not be far into the future to have such comment managers and aggregators appearing as one of the next steps. Meanwhile, we’re stuck with some hard manual labour.

Links

WebHelperMagazine.com - Interactive News & Tutorials for WebMasters & BlogMasters