Comment Challenge Day 28: What's Your Blog Commenting Strategy?

Yesterday we looked at how commenting can help us build our personal brand. Today, I want you to check out this article by Caroline Middlebrook on developing a blog commenting strategy. Do you think it's important to take a more strategic view of commenting and to have a plan for how you want to incorporate commenting into your overall online behavior? If so, what is your blog commenting strategy? Remember to tag your post with "comment08."

Comments

[Colin]

Hi Michele, the recent tasks that have been set for the comment challenge have definitely provoked some thinking. It's taken me back to why I'm blogging in the first place. I'll be writing more about that in my own post.

With respect to the particular question of commenting strategy and Caroline's article, I think my take would be to reflect on the purpose of your commenting. There seems to be a commercial angle to what Caroline writes, but if the purpose is to engage in dialogue and seek reaction, the strategy/methodology will be the same. So, while my blog may not be out to make me money, I've been challenged to think a little more about whether or not I want more people to interact with me and what I write about. A strategy may be in order - and it would be nice to see a few more dots on my clustrmap. ;-)

[Michele Martin]

Hi Colin--I'm glad that the activities are getting you thinking more. That's always my goal! :-)

I agree that Caroline's approach is more "commercial," and that made me hesitate about using it as a resource, since I know that commercial posts tend to turn off educational bloggers. At the same time, as you point out, her ideas can certainly be applied in a non-commercial arena and the idea of being strategic in commenting is something that we should all consider in terms of how we want to make connections, etc. If we're trying to make a learning network, then presumably we need to be strategic about that, too, although the specific strategies may be somewhat different than those that Caroline suggests.

Looking forward to reading your post!

[Rob O.]

To consider it a "strategy" might be assigning a bit too much pre-thought to it, but it's part of my overall online behavior.

I think most bloggers crave or at least really appreciate the validation that comments offer. As a blogger, I can think of no more tangible indicator that my message or ideas are being received than for readers to leave comments on my posts, so I consider commenting to be an integral part of being a good netizen.

[Michele Martin]

Hi Rob--I definitely agree that the comments we receive as bloggers can be powerful validation for our thoughts and ideas. Here, though, I'm thinking about how strategic we are in terms of commenting on other blogs--do we need to think of the comments we leave as strategically as we might consider what we post on our own blogs, as being part of the overall "branding messages" we send out about ourselves? What I'm wondering is if there's value in us thinking strategically about how we comment elsewhere. Do you think that our commenting practices should be more strategic in that sense?