From Commenting to Social Media
Comments are cool, but they take forever and after all that writing, you only have a few of them to show for your labor. Comments are only created as fast as you can create them. Well, no kidding, you think. But before you think I’m simply stating the obvious, here’s what I’m really getting at: comments don’t scale. The return on time invested for blog comments can be rather limited compared to other methods of driving exposure and traffic to your blog.
Consider:
- You can only write one comment at a time on one blog at a time. This is highly inefficient unless you choose your blogs (and your timing) very carefully.
- If your comment does not engage the blogger and the blog’s readers, it will fail to drive significant traffic to your blog.
- Following comments after yours by subscribing to them is death by a thousand cuts to your ability to produce revenue: you can’t be producing and consuming at the same time. Consuming costs money, it does not make money.
- In order for you to reach a lot of people, you have to go to a lot of blogs, since centralized commenting services which write comments back to blogs don’t exist.
In no way am I down on comments! Commenting on other blogs is often something which bloggers do until it fails to effectively serve their goals. You want to build up the strongest social media presence you can while this is happening, so that you can make use of the social media multiplier effect.
A well-thought-out comment strategy is essential. One good comment at the right place and time will shovel in the traffic. This is important: if you have already been very successful at commenting, you don’t want to stay stuck in that place. There is a next step, a step beyond comments.
The Social Media Multiplier
Social media for blog marketing is a different animal. The way that many social media sites work, a multiplier effect is possible, where the effects are scalable to a high degree, but you do the same amount of work (or less).
Here’s what I mean:
- Once you reach a certain size of audience, you don’t have to ask anyone to submit your content to social media sites. Your audience will do this for you, and you simply count the traffic. Why does this happen? Because your audience is getting a benefit for themselves by doing this, but that benefit is also passed on to you.
- Instead of one link created by you to your post or blog, many links are created simultaneously by your friends and followers. Spreading your content is a way they provide value to their friends and followers, who may also spread it to yet another group of people. There’s no better example of this than the “retweet” on Twitter, where one user re-broadcasts the tweet (post) of another across groups of friends. One person can drop a link in a tweet and it will echo throughout the twitterverse (as it’s called) in just a few minutes.
- You don’t have to scramble to travel all over the web to get these benefits. You stay on one Twitter page, or you use a Twitter program, or everything happens within the StumbleUpon or Mixx interface.
Modeling the Successful
Modeling those who are successful is time-tested way to become successful yourself. Here is something to think about: do the biggest names in the blogosphere go around commenting on other blogs? No. Not only that, they hardly comment on their own blogs! They’ve reached a point where commenting does nothing for them and it doesn’t scale.
However, nearly all of them have highly active Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn accounts.
Why do you think that is? What are they getting from that?
Keeping up with comments is hard but still worthwhile if you can manage it. Personal touches go a long way. It’s like “thank you”, when done sincerely it makes a real difference, when done because you feel you should, not so much.
@Chris – Yes, sometimes they are worth following. I find any more that that I’m not really missing out on much by not subscribing to follow-up comments–if I comment at all, which I find I am doing less and less. This keeps my inbox a little cleaner and me a little more sane. What’s funny is that as I was reading over my post in the light of day (this was some late night writing
), it occurred to me that the same “price” is paid when I get into a big discussion on Twitter. In light of that, I wonder which is more worthwhile in the long run.
I guess it comes down to the conversation, much like in life
I like subscribing to comments, especially on a controversial or very creative post. It gives me some insight as to what others are thinking, and I get a chance to go visit the commenters blogs and learn new things/meet new people.
I do agree that commenting all over the place can become a full-time job…btw, I am sub’d to this comment feed
@Chris – Without a doubt, go sincere or go home!
@Stephen – I agree, there are some posts’ comments that are worth following in their own right. I’ve seen James leave a comment just to say he was subscribing to comments so he could watch the action.
Here’s another point to consider: do you own the space where the action is taking place? Does that action benefit your site or some other site? That’s my concern with social media. What happens on Twitter belongs to Twitter: it’s their traffic, their PageRank. Yes, it drives traffic to my blog, but really I’m just “renting” from Twitter. If Twitter disappeared, so would a lot of content I have created on it.
When the conversation takes place here, it directly benefits my site. It’s totally my traffic. I’m not “renting.” I own my own content and can take it with me (I’m sure I can “back up” my tweets, too, I should look into that).
I get caught up in notions of producing vs. consuming. There needs to be a balance and I’ve needed to be in “producer” mode lately due to a combination of projects and time constraints. Consuming doesn’t make money. So my commenting on other blogs or feeling the need to follow others has diminished significantly. But there is no way I could diminish my attentions on my own readers here.
I really haven’t liked social media for quite some time now. I think the traffic is bogus and I’d rather do other things with my time.
Hmmm. Interesting idea, “owning vs renting”. One way that I look at it is that if I am commenting and Tweeting, even though I do not own the space, it serves as a billboard for my opinion, my expertise/experience, and a pointer to more info at space that I do own. The cool thing about comments is that you can leave a customized URL in the website field for people to follow, pointing them to relevant info, or a directory.
Very interesting post! While I comment to make my presence known, I don’t comment for the ROI. I comment because I have something to contribute to the conversation. I think that is more important, in the long run.
I also agree that the “big guns” in the blogging world rarely comment on their own blog posts. While I understand they get far too many comments to respond to each personally, I do like reading their responses. It shows that they are blogging to have a discussion with their community, not to just broadcast their opinions.
Kimberlee
@Franklin – I think many are having a different experience than you regarding traffic. I find I get highly relevant traffic from social media: high numbers of visitors with low bounce rates. We have a lot of choice in how we pursue blog marketing and social media marketing, and many methods work, so it comes down to personal preference combined with good results.
@Stephen – I like to think of it as moving people from the social media territory onto my own turf. Social media marketing is designed to drive traffic back to the blog, where blog marketing continues. Doing that effectively isn’t as easy as just voting or posting your own posts (which achieves the opposite of what you want).
But unless a blog you’re commenting on has high traffic and you’re really grabbing attention on it, I think you will generally get more traffic from social media.
@Kimberlee – I think perhaps you should think more clearly about your motives.
What is “making your presence known,” and what is the purpose of that? That almost sounds like marketing… 
If you’re just jumping into a great discussion because you love to converse with people, that’s a different motivation entirely. It will still attract people to your blog, even though you may not be consciously working towards that.
Hi Michael,
First, thanks for commenting back.
As I said, I really appreciate that.
Here’s what I mean. Yes, I comment to put my name out there, to let others know that I am blogging, and that I have opinions about others’ blogs.
However, I do not base my comments on which blogs will give me the highest traffic. For example, I will not look at my stats, and say “I commented on Blog “A” but I received no traffic; therefore I won’t comment on that blog again.” I think that is unfair to everyone in the blogging community.
Limiting your commenting because it is not beneficial to your business breaks down the sense of community in the blogging world.
I hope this clears up what I was trying to say.
Thanks, Kimberlee
@Kimberlee – You have explained yourself very well, yes. I understand perfectly! You must be a writer, or something.
Thanks for clarifying.
Michael,
I can see what you mean about other social media. Really, I can. But it is a big time-suck (or can easily be, I should say), and I guess I just prefer the results from being a commenter.
Didn’t you say something last Friday night about comments being like mini-posts? I’m there to think out loud, to engage the author and other readers in a conversation, to learn and to have my own views challenged. For me at least, Twitter/ SU can’t give that. And commenting does result in traffic for me, but a slow, steady burn kind of traffic. It’s relationship-building.
I’m steadily reducing the number of blogs I read where the author isn’t a part of their conversation. I don’t want sermons, I want discussions.
That frees up my time to build value— “rented” at others’ blogs, and “owned” at my own. Twitter and other social media could probably be a handy part of that, but I only have 24 hours in my day, and I never get to the end of a day with any leftovers!
Every once in a while someone really gives me pause about Twitter. Thanks for making me think hard about it!
Regards,
Kelly
@Kelly – Yes, I did say that. I’m not dissing on comments, I’m just contrasting them to social media for a clearer picture of the benefits. There are a lot of people who are going to reach a point where the world has moved on without them, and they’re going to have one hell of a time playing catch-up. Maybe I shouldn’t care, but I do, because I see social media as imperative to success in internet business.
Hi Michael,
Totally true. This post of yours comes as a glove. The reason is because today I was thinking at this when I looked at my web analytics. I was looking to see a blog that I post everyday if it sends me some traffic.
The answer is NO. It doesn’t matter how much thought I’ve put in a comment the best thing that it offered to me was some followers on Twitter or some friends on LinkedIn. This is it. Maybe if I would add a tag near to my name will help a little bit but I don’t think it would make a big difference.
So why I keep commenting on your blog for example or on other blogs. I think I comment on blogs that offer me something and this is the way I’m giving back : I’m helping to create a community on that blog. Because, for me at least, comments are a powerful thing that makes me go forward.
Michael,
Agreed. I’m afraid that may happen to me about Twitter. I do spend an odd moment, once every couple of weeks, thinking about that very possibility. Yet, that work-life balance thing is there, saying sorry, “work” is full, and “life” is delightfully overflowing. Where would I stick Twitter? Something else would have to go.
Maybe someday when I’ve missed the bus entirely, I’ll regret not jettisoning some other activity for it. For now, I think of the blog-world as my social medium, and I’m pretty happily social within it.
Until later,
Kelly
Well,nice discussion. I have been following along in my e-mail in-box all afternoon, and I like how it is progressing.
I think that Kimberlee is commenting for the right reasons, even if she thinks she is doing something else entirely.
As for myself, I used to comment all over the place, in an effort to drive traffic. Then I found that some of the bloggers were really cool to talk to and the commenting was replaced by e-mail/phone/guest-posting.
Now I comment to engage, provide value, and establish “name recognition” around teh interwebs.
I get e-mails all the time from people who saw a comment someplace (even from a year ago) and had a follow-up question.
So I do think that commenting is valuable, but as with all things, moderation is the key.
I’m glad you pointed this out about commenting, Michael. While I love commenting and receiving comments back, it can take alot of valuable time away from writing and other important tasks.
I would say that the most important thing is to build good relationships with a few key players, rather than try to be everywhere.
@Conrad – Exactly. And the best relationship-building happens behind the scenes: private emails & phone calls, DMs on Twitter, and the ultimate is face-to-face meetings.
Actually commenting and doing social media is something really powerful to build up your marketing, and you’re right most people will do commenting on other people blog, its obvious and i used to do that thing when i was a noobie. While Social media is probably something new that major people haven’t thought on how to use it. They may feel its only to build relationship with other people, but actually there’s more use to that and marketing is most people will use for this media.
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