I’ve read a few of Stephen Spencer‘s posts lately about the importance of commenting on blogs for bloggers and other online marketers. In a nutshell, he argues that (legitimate, thoughtful) comments are as important as posting one’s own blog posts, in that they help build relationships. I wanted to share my comment on his post:
— My Comments —
Nice experiment. I admit, that carrot helped encourage this comment. Is the general premise here that by commenting on other blogs you are building repoire and building a relationship with those bloggers, such that this relationship may be leveraged at some point in the future?
Not to cheapen it, but essentially I believe that is how most people view traditional networking – making contacts and relationships with the idea in the future these can be leveraged.
In that sense, I guess blog comments are the Web 2.0 version of networking, in much the same way that hyperlinks are the Web 1.0 version of endorsements.
—
Any other thoughts on this?
I think there’s certainly a dimension to this discussion that relates to community building (networking). If you see the same name again then it helps to build up a certain awareness of the other individual.
There is a much simpler reason IMHO. That’s just to provide a ‘splash’ so that the author knows that when he or she ‘dropped a stone’ in the well, at least one other person thought about the post and was motivated to make a comment. It’s a small ‘reward’ to the author but it helps to make it all worth-while.
I’m not sure but I guess we’ll see where my comment takes me.:smile:
Hi Jon,
I agree that it bears similarities to traditional networking. The difference is that a blog comment touches the blog’s readers as well as the blogger. So in that sense, this form of networking is digitally augmented and amplified across the blogosphere.
Thanks for the comment! 🙂
Stephan