So you follow some industry gurus and their blogs, but do you take advantage of the knowledge that you receive?
Commenting on blogs will do several things, among them getting the blogger to notice you, and if you do it on a regular basis, you can start building a relationship with them. Comments with links (that aren’t self promotional) will send visits. If the link continues to gain traction, this could be an ongoing source of referrals to your site.
I recently read a post by Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz on Recommendations for Blog Comments as a Marketing Strategy that had some interesting points. Rand highlights 10 recommendations for blog comments, and they include the following:
- Read at least 5 posts by an author before commenting. Get a good sense of their interests and perspectives first.
- Read at least 3 posts worth of comments. See how the rest of his followers are responding to get a better sense of community.
- Read previous posted comments on the thread. You don’t want to say something that has already been addressed.
- Write more than a tweet but less than a post. Make your point in 2 or 3 paragraphs with an appropriate link.
These are some good points and we all should take advantage of participating. If not, we’ll never get engaged with those that we want to.