ideaLaunch Blog

Photo: Associated Press

Thanks to social media, you didn’t have to watch the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) to know about the Kanye West – Taylor Swift – Beyonce debacle (but if you’re still not in the loop, check out what Kanye’s publicist has the joy of dealing with now).

That Kanye is all class, I tell ya.

Right. Anyway – what does this have to do with commenting on blogs and websites? Just as Kanye barged in, attempted to steal someone’s thunder, barked his agenda and completely misread the crowd – as does many a so-called marketer who’s looking to drive traffic to his website.

I’m sure you’ve seen it – you’ve come across a great blog post, perhaps from the likes of Seth Godin or Mashable, that is bound to spark some terrific dialogue. You take a look at the comments and amongst the real banter are those generic and embarrassing “Great post. If you like that topic, check out www.blahblabblahblah.com!” comments.

What makes these marketing efforts particularly embarrassing is that they’re often done on behalf of decent companies that have put a lot of effort into their web content.

You might have fantastic web content. You might know your SEO basics. You might be following a well-meaning content marketing strategy that focuses on getting as many inbound links as possible. But that’s no excuse for lame, clingy, self-promotional comments that only serve as noise on a quality website. They’re not only obnoxious, they’re also reputation damaging.

The comment section of blogs and websites IS a great place to network and drive some traffic to your website, especially if you have relevant content a specific audience would be interested in, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. The walk onto someone else’s stage and shout your message or url – a.k.a. “The Kanye” – is the wrong way.

Want to know the right way to link to your site from the comment section of other websites? Stay tuned!

Tags: blogs, content marketing, linking, social media

This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 4:50 pm and is filed under blog, content marketing, marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.