Why You Should Socially Promote Articles You Comment On
No matter what your motivation is behind commenting on a post, you should consider going one extra step and promoting the post on your favorite social networks as well. Here are some typical reasons why people comment on blog posts, and the benefit of socially promoting those posts that go hand in hand.
Commenting to Respond to a Great Post
This *should* be one of the main reasons everyone is commenting on a blog post – because the content is so good that it merits a response or leads to other thought-provoking questions. When you are commenting on a blog post that you find beneficial, why not share the post socially by digging or stumbling it in order to increase its exposure so that it can help other readers as well?
Commenting to Form a Blogging Community
Many bloggers comment on other blogs within their niche in order to expand their blogging community, as it is well known that most bloggers (with exception to some of the big names out there) are going to want to reciprocate support for fellow bloggers who have helped them. If your motivation for commenting is to receive comments from other bloggers, then why also get them to notice you on social networks by retweeting their post, making sure to use their @username. Then you may get social support from these bloggers as well, thus strengthening your blogging community.
Commenting to Build Backlinks
Of course, another well known reason for leaving blog comments is to build backlinks to your website. As most link builders know, links on pages that are more prominent on Google are better for your site. What better way to boost the post you just left a link on in Google’s eyes than to bookmark it, especially on dofollow social bookmarking networks! This will help the post gain higher SERPs and a higher PR, making it a more valuable page for your link to be placed upon.
Commenting to Get Traffic
It is well known that you can get a nice amount of traffic from other blogs by leaving valuable comments, especially if you are one of the first comments on the post. The only way you are going to get traffic from this blog post is if others see it as well. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to share it on as many social networks as possible to help others find it, leading them to your link too.
Easy Ways to Share Posts
Whenever you find a great blog post, what is the easiest way to share it? Many blogs have social bookmark links at the beginning or end of each post, most of the time in the form of icons or voting badges / widgets. There are also increasingly popular buttons for easily Retweeting posts via Tweetmeme or sharing on Facebook.
If you don’t want to rely on the post’s social bookmarking options, an alternative would be to collect browser bookmarklets, plugins, or Firefox extensions for the social networks you prefer to use. You can see what certain networks have to offer for easy submissions by checking out their help, support, or tools section (like Delicious). That way no matter what page you are on, you can simply submit it to your favorite social network with ease.
Sharing Exceptions
There are a few common-sense exceptions to socially promoting a post that you just commented on. For example, if you were driven to criticize the post because it was horrendously written, plagiarized, or full of bad information, you should probably spare others by not sharing it and putting into circulation.
Your Thoughts
Do you socially share good blog posts that you comment on? Why or why not? Have you seen any benefits or are you simply happy with spreading good blogging karma?
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