Comment Marketing
Comment Marketing
Rand Fishkin of Moz on using comments to market.
_What makes a comment great?
Basically, every single one of these start with you must leave consistent, high-quality, great comments. Greatness in a comment means a few things.
I. It's gotta be on-topic
Meaning that while you may have lots of very interesting things to share, if you go off topic, you will, even if you provide great value, tick off the moderators of the community. You will often turn off a lot of folks who are reading those comments. It's just not what people are there for. So you've got to keep it on-topic.
II. Respectful to the author and other commenters.
I say respectful because what I don't mean is you can't disagree. In fact, I think it is great to say, "Hey, I really love this post. I think you made some great points, but point number three and four that you made here or this one and that one, I disagree with and here's why. This is my experience or I have this data or I conducted this survey or I want to show you this information, go check it out over here." That is just fine. As long as you are respectful and kind, I think you're in a great position to disagree and to add value. Disagreement actually does add a lot of value.
III. Provides unique value
Speaking of value, we are trying to provide unique value here. We want to provide unique value through our comments. When I say unique value, what I mean is you can't just say things that were already in the post itself, things that have already been mentioned in other comments, or things that are sort of common knowledge, anyone could find them out or they're instantly recognizable, they're sort of already known.
We want insight or tactics, help, context, examples, data, whatever it is that is not found in the original piece or through common knowledge. That's what makes a comment truly stand out. That's what makes people vote up a comment, click on the profile, go check this person out. They seem really smart and intelligent and helpful.
IV. Well-written
There are a few other items. We want to be well-written — so grammar, spelling, language issues.
V. Well-formatted
So you should use spacing and paragraphs, bullet points if they're available in the markup effectively to try and convey your point so that it doesn't just look like a bunch of jammed together words and sentences. If you have a very long run-on paragraph in a comment, it can turn people off from even starting to read that.
VI. Transparent
Finally — this is important — transparent. So you should not try and pull the wool over people's eyes in a comment. We want to not hide our intent or our associations. Even if you are doing comment marketing specifically as a commenting strategy to try and attract people, you can be totally up front about that.
You can say, "Hey, full disclosure, I work for company X, and I wrote this piece, but I think it's relevant and helpful enough that I want to bring it up here. So, with permission, hopefully I'm linking to it. Editor, feel free to remove this link if it's not appropriate. Here's why I'm linking to it and here's what the value is that it provides." Now you've been transparent about your intentions and motivations, your associations, what you're doing. You will get a lot more both forgiveness and leeway to leave comments that are valuable if you do that._
Originally shared by Moz
Comment marketing can be a strong yet largely undervalued strategy, with high potential and low competition. In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand details what you can do to get noticed in the comments and the benefits you'll reap from high-quality comments.
https://moz.com/blog/comment-marketing-how-to-earn-benefits-from-community-participation-whiteboard-friday?utm_source=google_plus&utm_medium=social&utm_content=earn_benefits_from_community_participation&utm_campaign=whiteboard_friday
Rand Fishkin of Moz on using comments to market.
_What makes a comment great?
Basically, every single one of these start with you must leave consistent, high-quality, great comments. Greatness in a comment means a few things.
I. It's gotta be on-topic
Meaning that while you may have lots of very interesting things to share, if you go off topic, you will, even if you provide great value, tick off the moderators of the community. You will often turn off a lot of folks who are reading those comments. It's just not what people are there for. So you've got to keep it on-topic.
II. Respectful to the author and other commenters.
I say respectful because what I don't mean is you can't disagree. In fact, I think it is great to say, "Hey, I really love this post. I think you made some great points, but point number three and four that you made here or this one and that one, I disagree with and here's why. This is my experience or I have this data or I conducted this survey or I want to show you this information, go check it out over here." That is just fine. As long as you are respectful and kind, I think you're in a great position to disagree and to add value. Disagreement actually does add a lot of value.
III. Provides unique value
Speaking of value, we are trying to provide unique value here. We want to provide unique value through our comments. When I say unique value, what I mean is you can't just say things that were already in the post itself, things that have already been mentioned in other comments, or things that are sort of common knowledge, anyone could find them out or they're instantly recognizable, they're sort of already known.
We want insight or tactics, help, context, examples, data, whatever it is that is not found in the original piece or through common knowledge. That's what makes a comment truly stand out. That's what makes people vote up a comment, click on the profile, go check this person out. They seem really smart and intelligent and helpful.
IV. Well-written
There are a few other items. We want to be well-written — so grammar, spelling, language issues.
V. Well-formatted
So you should use spacing and paragraphs, bullet points if they're available in the markup effectively to try and convey your point so that it doesn't just look like a bunch of jammed together words and sentences. If you have a very long run-on paragraph in a comment, it can turn people off from even starting to read that.
VI. Transparent
Finally — this is important — transparent. So you should not try and pull the wool over people's eyes in a comment. We want to not hide our intent or our associations. Even if you are doing comment marketing specifically as a commenting strategy to try and attract people, you can be totally up front about that.
You can say, "Hey, full disclosure, I work for company X, and I wrote this piece, but I think it's relevant and helpful enough that I want to bring it up here. So, with permission, hopefully I'm linking to it. Editor, feel free to remove this link if it's not appropriate. Here's why I'm linking to it and here's what the value is that it provides." Now you've been transparent about your intentions and motivations, your associations, what you're doing. You will get a lot more both forgiveness and leeway to leave comments that are valuable if you do that._
Originally shared by Moz
Comment marketing can be a strong yet largely undervalued strategy, with high potential and low competition. In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand details what you can do to get noticed in the comments and the benefits you'll reap from high-quality comments.
https://moz.com/blog/comment-marketing-how-to-earn-benefits-from-community-participation-whiteboard-friday?utm_source=google_plus&utm_medium=social&utm_content=earn_benefits_from_community_participation&utm_campaign=whiteboard_friday
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