For any small business blog, it is important to formulate a blog comment strategy and policy. Business blogs, whether personal or business, fall under the “social media” category and are designed to not only post articles, but to let readers respond and interact. How you handle those responses makes a big difference to your online business profile and reputation.
To help you form your small business blog comment policy, we provide you with a few tips below:
Blog Commenting – Allow or Not Allow?
The first thing you must decide about your small business blog is whether to allow readers to comment on your blog or disallow comments altogether. Disallowing comments gives you full control over the content seen on your business blog and will provide you with no worries about discussions, good or bad, on your blog. But how do you know if your readers like the content?
Allowing comments can not only give you a better picture on who is reading your blog and provide you with valuable target market data, but it also encourages them to return to read new posts, or even to read responses to their comments.
Should You Moderate Your Business Blog?
If you decide that allowing comments is the right thing to do for your small business blog, then the next step is to decide whether or not to moderate comments as they come in.
Moderating means that the blog owner has a chance to read and review all comments, and decide to publish the comment or delete it. Moderating has plenty of pros and cons. Here are a few:
- Pro – You get ‘first glance’ at all comments and can publish the ones that are most constructive or flattering.
- Con – Editing or pick-n-choose comment moderation can be seen as censorship and could make you appear to be a dictator of your small business blog comments.
- Pro – Readers can get true first-hand stories and customer testimonies.
- Con – Readers could choose not to buy your product based on negative comments
- Pro – You show that you are reaching out and getting in touch with customers.
- Con – You could get spam comments from nasty online marketers.
Spam comments are usually “cloaked”. That is, you might get an original comment like “great article!” but there will be a promotional link to his website in the comment itself. Or a comment might even spout a bit about his product. In the worst-case scenario of comment spamming, an auto “bot” will simply leave unwanted marketing messages in a comment on your site. You may have seen these scattered through blogs you read, promoting fake Rolex watches or infamous sexual virility pills.
Due to the potential for spam, especially if your small business blog gets regular updates, more traffic, and better rankings on search engines, moderating comments may be the best choice.
Handling Negative Comments
Understand that if you allow comments on your business blog, you will likely receive negative ones in addition to positive ones.
Also, keep in mind that the internet is populated with individuals whose sole aim is to smear negativity wherever they roam. These people are usually labeled “trolls” and will write negative blog comments and responses that are not constructive, flattering, nor appropriate. For this reason it may be a good idea to moderate your business blog so you can filter the ‘troll’ comments.
However, there is some good in publishing negative blog comments. Here are a few strategies when faced with them.
- Is the negative comment constructive? – A negative comment may be constructive. The individual may be giving you feedback that can help you improve your product or service, or even help you avoid mistakes in the future.
- Ignore it? – You could publish negative comments and choose to ignore them. This may be a good strategy to avoid getting into a heated debate.
- Let others respond. – You may not have to respond. Your loyal readers and customers may come to your aid and protect your honor with their own responses.
- Respond diplomatically. – If you do respond, be diplomatic. Always use a positive tone, acknowledge the commenter’s opinion, and clearly and tactfully state your position and rebuttal.
- Responding directly to negative commenter. – And finally, if the negative comment is constructive enough and you feel it warrants individual attention, consider writing and communicating with the negative commenter directly by email. This may create a constructive dialogue that will help you solve problems and could help you gain a loyal customer.
