Blog Commenting — Worth It?
Yesterday a colleague called, all aglow that he’d placed a “major blog comment” on a national news article for one of his clients. “Major blog comment?” I mused. “Um. . .Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”
From all the furious effort companies and agencies devote to posting comments, one might conclude it’s the new holy crusade of PR. No sooner does an article appear in national press than PR people blurt out comments by the score. The same happens in trade press, though to a lesser degree. Whatever the media outlet, editors accept nearly all comments. Since anybody’s can be posted, everybody’s usually is.
Aside from providing PR people with an easy “hit,” what’s behind the current rash of commenting? Likely it’s the herd of social media pundits, who give me a rash on a number of matters. The common wisdom among this lot is that commenting on others’ blogs and articles helps drive traffic to your own web site. Izzat so? Writing in DailyBlogTips, Daniel Scacco notes that including your url in a comment may well draw traffic for awhile, but mainly when your blog is new. After that, trying to attribute traffic spikes to a comment is a crap shoot.
So is commenting worth it, or just a waste of time? Let’s mull that.
There may be some merit in commenting on trade media articles. So few readers actually weigh-in on trade stories that their remarks are virtually guaranteed of placement bump-up against the story itself. Great positioning? — you bet. Anybody who reads the article also sees the comment right away. But does the comment generate measurable new traffic to a company’s own site? Heck if I know.
What about national media — is it worthwhile posting comments there? That depends. When readers have the option to “recommend” a piece, popular comments can fly to the top of the heap and gain great position. Just as often, though, comments are published in chronological order. The odds of one comment standing out among the multitude posted are nil. As for generating new traffic to the commenter’s site, who knows?
In the end, comments are just a poor man’s letter-to-the-editor. They don’t qualify in any true sense as a placement, and don’t rank anywhere near a guest blog, byline or op ed in importance. You say you posted a “major blog comment”? So can my toy poodle.
Bark back if you like, but be sure to include the ROI on your PR comment program.
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