Blog commenting, if done correctly can lead to increased brand awareness and traffic to your website. If done incorrectly, it can easily lead to a tidal wave of PR problems for your business: Dissatisfied customers, angry blog owners and a flurry of frustrated posts on communities about your unethical business practices.
If done right though, blog commenting can be one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal.
The foremost benefit is the ability to spread your brand and message on the social media hot spots that your customers congregate. Howie Schwartz, one of the top Social Media Marketers online terms this “conversation domination” By injecting yourself into conversations that people are already having you can effectively build a brand, authority and presence in that marketplace. You also gain the ability to direct the tone and flow of conversation that will help establish yourself as the go-to personality in the marketplace.
This can only be achieved through natural, conversationalist blog commenting. Unfortunately most marketers typically opt to link-spam a large number of un-targeted blogs as opposed to dominating a handful of hot spots as the unquestioned authority.
This type of subtle but effective approach to blog commenting leads to its second, greatly overlooked but far more powerful benefit: Networking.
Blog owners will appreciate the contribution you’ve made to their communities through your consistent flow of high quality comments, and will do their best to reach out and and return the favor to you. You will create opportunities to work together and mastermind with other authorities in your marketplace. They may very well become your greatest spokesmen, further spreading and amplifying your message in exchange for the value that you’ve added to their business.
That remains the greatest power of blog commenting and something that very few of your competitors will ever be doing.
Next time you are blog commenting look beyond the PageRank and NoFollow stats of the communities you post to. Follow these simple guidelines and you’ll leapfrog past 95% of your competitors.
1. To find relevant blogs type in “Keyword + Blog” into your favorite search engine. You will receive a laundry list of blogs to comment on sorted by the most authoritative and popular ones on top as ranked b Google.
2. Use Google Reader to your advantage. There are numerous ways to use Google Reader as part of your Internet Marketing toolkit, but one of its greatest strengths is its ability to save and follow a list of blogs you feed it. Subscribe to a blog and you will always be notified when a new post is made relevant to your business.
3. This leads to our third point. Try and be the first to comment on a new blog post. This will allow you to direct the conversation from the outset and build more awareness amongst readers.
4. “Brand” Yourself. The most successful marketers know how to sell THEMSELVES. A recognizable writing style and set of opinions combined with a picture will help you stand out in the crowd.
5. Only make a comment if you have something valuable to add to the conversation. Don’t link spam. Try to offer an alternative or more complete view to the original post and draw the readers attention to what you have to say.
Just follow these 5 simple guidelines and you’ll be well on your way to building a significant following through blog commenting.