Blog commenting is a way to go out into the blog world and let people know that you exist. When I got my first comment, I was happy. But soon I started to get way more comments than I could handle. I thank all the people who took the time and commented on my blog. But when I see a one liner comment that looks like this: “Hey thanks for sharing; nice post; great post!” Then I wonder:
If my article is a “Great Post!” then what is JK Rowling’s Harry Potter? If my YouTube video is a “Great Video!” then what is James Cameron’s Titanic?
Well I know sometimes my articles or videos come in handy for a person who is in need of that information. That information just saved their lives and they want to say something to thank me but don’t have any words, so they just post a one liner like “Thanks for sharing” –type of comment.
Don’t do this! Please don’t do this. It does not add any meaningful contribution to the piece of content.
Instead you sound like “I don’t care what you have to say; I am here just to drop my link landmine so that someone will step on it at some point and land on my blog.”
So let me share 10 comments you can write other than the one liner “Great Post!”
1. Genuinely explain to them why it helped you
Does this information in this video or article really help you? You want to say thanks to the author? Then say in a few lines how it saved your day. For example, I want to fall asleep early when I go to bed, and I watched a video that shares a tip that helped me go to sleep easily.
So, I went to that video again and wrote a detailed comment on how it helped me, how long it took, and shared with others that it exactly worked.
2. Add the additional information
We see a lot of articles and read a lot of things that we already know. But we like to read the same thing again just to learn one or two new things. If I ask you “How do you get more comments on your blog?” you can come up with 12-15 ways.
But an average article will usually share 10 ways and make a blog post about it. You can drop one more tip in the comment which is not covered in this article. So it will add value and boost your comment.
3. Add your experience about a product/service
Once I wrote an article about my internet provider and asked my readers if they have experiences with them or with their rival company. Amazingly a lot of people shared their experiences with this internet provider and some even wrote about the rival company that they are using. So when you see an article that shares about a product/service you have used, you can drop in your experience as a comment.
4. Join the discussion with others
Some people will ask questions and share opinions in the comments section. You can hit the reply button and start a conversation with those commentators. It shows the author that you are here for the community, not for the shallow promotion.
5. Write something negative
Bloggers are used to hearing nice things. Why don’t you write something negative?
I’m not saying you should start a fight for no reason; there are plenty of things which you may disagree about with the author. A smart blogger will keep that comment and continue the discussion. Just remember that you should judge things with facts and not with emotions.
6. Add some missing information
No blog post is perfect. You can always add something to the article.
For an example, someone wrote a tutorial on how to create a logo. They shared everything except the tip on how to make this logo transparent. You can drop a comment giving some extra information on how to make that logo transparent.
7. Add an update for old articles
For an example, you see someone wrote about the Google Reader, a while ago. You can drop a comment to inform that Google Reader is going to shut down soon. There you have it, an updated piece of info that you added to the article. You are awesome!
8. Add more resources in the comments
Blogging is all about sharing information. If you can provide links to articles that provide additional info (related to the post) –people will love it and visit these links.
In WordPress if you put more than 2 links, your comment will be moderated. So make sure you contact the author and explain why you added these links (if you have to.)
9. Introduce yourself and how you found this blog
Sometimes it helps when you introduce yourself in style. A few days ago I landed on a blog from Technorati.com (It is a blog directory.) I landed on that blog, read a couple of posts and dropped my first comment. I was honest and said that I found your blog from technorati and I saw your blog is on the top 10 risers. The author was interested and asked me more about it. So you see I made my debut for that blog and made a contact with the author. The next time I commented, the comment was instantly approved and the author knew about me.
10. Ask a question
This works best when you really want to learn more about this topic directly from the author. Trust me, no matter how pro you are, no matter how many years you are in internet marketing, there are still many things you don’t know or you don’t understand. I am a pro in WordPress; people hire me to build their websites; I teach my students about this platform. Yet I still don’t know anything about taxonomies, and I don’t know what I don’t know. I asked my friend Courtney about it a few weeks ago and she explained it to me in the simplest form.
As Steve Jobs said “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” –feel free to ask questions, no matter how pro you are and how stupid that is.
And this applies to blog articles, Podcasts, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube videos. You can make a better place by not writing those one liner comments. You will have more of a chance to get in touch with the author and the readers when you write meaningful comments.
Don’t aim for 10 one liner comments. Write just 1 awesome comment a day and you will see how things work out in your favor.
It’s okay! We all make mistakes!
Don’t think that I am the Mr. Smarty-pants here who does everything right when it comes to commenting. No I don’t! I did these mistakes too by writing one liner comments, that’s back then when I thought commenting is just for building links. Now I know that commenting is about building relationships and it takes time.
So go ahead and write a comment (genuine) on this article. Write how it helped you; add some missing information; create a discussion; write something that you don’t agree with me about; introduce yourself and how you found this post; ask a question; share your experience; add one more point.