Social Media Explorer blogger and all around good guy Jason Falls recently tackled an issue on his blog that some people, especially companies, struggle with in the digital space: How do I comment on other people’s blogs without selling?
We here at The Urbane Way deal with this on a daily basis. We maintain blogs on behalf of our clients and work hard to craft engaging, relevant content. But that’s only half the battle. The other half is increasing the digital footprints for these clients by going where the readers are — whether it’s social news sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, Facebook and Twitter, or even other blogs.
We do this to find out what makes our readers tick, what inspires them, what they find entertaining. But when you jump into the conversation without doing your homework, you risk alienating or even offending them.
Jason’s response to the question was simple: Don’t sell when you’re commenting.
And as is typical in most blog posts, the comments section is where the conversation really took off. Mack Collier chimed in with a comment that really resonated with me. He said:
“All the company has to do is speak in the voice of the customer. Of course, most companies can’t do this, because they have no idea what the customer’s voice sounds like, because they never talk to or listen to them.
Which is a far bigger problem, IMO.”
The takeaway here, I think, is that everyone is becoming preoccupied with what to say and how to say it, especially when talking to customers or potential clients, but the primary focus should be on the people you’re talking to and what their needs are.
If you’re commenting on a post just for the sake of commenting on a post, you might be a spammer. If you’re including a link to your product or service, you might be a spammer. If you’re not contributing to the conversation in any way, you might be a spammer.
Most reasonable people are able to distinguish selling from simply talking, and as Mack said, if you make an effort to know your customer well enough, that should really help remove all doubt.
Post by Erica Finley, senior journalist at The Urbane Way and @Erica_Urbane on Twitter. At The Urbane Way, we specialize in social media marketing and PR and lifestyle branding. How can we help you?
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