Yesterday at IdeaLaunch, we spoke about the shame of commenting on blogs in a manner akin to a common spam bot … or Kanye West. Today, we’d like to chat a bit about the right way to comment on a blog when your goal is to drive traffic to your own web content.

The sad news for the lazy marketer is that it takes a bit of time, a bit of work and a bit of – gasp – being genuine in order to do it right. The good news, though, is becoming involved in social media marketing can be as cheap as free if you have the time and inclination to do it yourself (and we can show you how to hire a writer or marketer that can do this for you if you’re short on time and inclination). Here are some quick tips:

• Monitor your brand and industry with the passion of a tween stalking the Jonas Brothers. You’ll discover websites, writers, editors and companies that feature web content that is right up your alley. Put their sites or blogs in your RSS Reader (or any other web content management system you use) and read, read, read. Get a sense of their reader base, how responsive they are to comments and their takes on different subjects you may have expertise or interest in.
• Don’t be a John Doe of the web. When posting, fill in the fields that ask for your real name or brand, e-mail and website – and be consistent about it (don’t sign off as “Darth” one day and “Mr. Vader” the next). Some websites use commenting programs like Disqus for loading comments. Take the time to complete your profile with these programs. Never comment anonymously or pretend to be a random “fan” of your own web content – that is lame, lame, lame and easy to spot.
• Engage in the conversation. A generic comment of “great post!” is just that – generic. What did you like about what was written, specifically? What do you take issue with? Maybe there’s something other commenters have said that’s struck a chord. Bring value and momentum to the discussion (but don’t act like a know it all). Show your personality, sense of humor and insight.
• Keep the blatant self-promotional whoring to a minimum. If you only show up when you can talk about yourself (by linking back to your own web content), no one is going to take your voice seriously. Blog writers love comments – it saves them from questioning whether they’re just talking to themselves and web crawlers. Share your thoughts, compliments and questions even if you don’t have anything to directly promote or link to. This is important for rapport and relationship building – one of the top commodities in the Web 2.0 world. Plus – if you’ve completed your comment profile, people can still easily find your website.
• Ping that thing. Pingbacks, talkbacks, linkbacks, whatever you call them, are automated systems that show up in most blogs when another website has referenced a post – and they, like other fantastic widgets, are your friends. Has someone else’s blog post or website inspired you? Create web content that directly links to the post in question. If pingbacks are in effect, a portion of your content with the link will be automatically fed into the original blog’s comment sections. Web content marketing should never be fully automated – so make sure your web content is engaging, interesting and presents a voice people will want to read.

Do you have other tips for being a savvy commenter when it comes to web content marketing? Let us know!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Content Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.