What Makes a Great Company Blog: Comments

If great content is the #1 trait of a great company blog, properly handling comments is #1-A.  Great content pulls in readers and if you can use that content to encourage comments and then reply to the ones left in a proper manner, you'll convert readers into a community.

I also write for the marketing blog Daily Fix, and one of the writers there, Ted Mininni, always has several comments to his posts.  Notice that his most recent post currently has 28 comments.

But also notice that 14 of those comments come from Ted himself.  Ted does an excellent job of making a point to reply to each commenter, and thank them for adding their 2 cents.  Since Ted has a reputation for replying to every comment, readers want to comment on his posts, because they know that he will respond. 

And you should keep that in mind when receiving comments on your blog.  Readers leave comments because they want to have a say, but also because they want you to respond.  They have done you a favor by leaving feedback, and you can say 'thank you', by replying back.

Of course the added benefit is that as your post gets more comments, it means that readers are more likely to read the comments section to see what discussion is happening! 

Look at your blog, do you see any posts with only 1 comment?  If so, why didn't you answer that one comment?  How many readers didn't leave that 2nd comment, because they saw that you didn't reply to the first?

Get in the habit of making every effort to answer every comment left on your blog.  If you can do this, you'll likely find that your readers get in the habit of leaving more comments!

Tomorrow I'll look at the sidebar elements for a great company blog.