On the heels of my rant about spam, it occurred to me that I didn’t lay out any specific thoughts on how you can go about making valued comments on the blogs you read. We all have blogs we frequent or forums or newspapers. The really good ones get a lot of comments and, most of them, have a moderation system set up to weed out the spam. I know that I only have something truly good to say about once every couple of weeks, so you can’t rely on being a regular as it were. So you’ve just got to be good.
Here are some tips on how to make sure your genuine (and may I say genius) comments aren’t seen as spam.
If you’re a spammer, go away. Silly spammers, tips are for kids!
Maybe not kids in the age appropriate sense, but certainly for real people (who were once kids of someone) hoping to have conversations with other real people.
1. Keep It On Topic – If what you want to say doesn’t make sense where you’re trying to say it, then you shouldn’t say it. There are hundreds of thousands of places to interact on the internet, don’t hijack someone’s conversation because you’re ready to change the subject.
2. Keep It Real – Sometimes you don’t match the typical demographic for subjects you’re interested in. Stick to your own voice anyway. For instance, I love to knit. I’m not talking the “look how many things I can make out of a rectangle” knitting, I’m talking “look at this code: I will knit it, I will wear it, and it will look good” kind of knitting. I am always outside the demographic, but I never pretend to be a little grandma knitting booties for grandbabies.
3. Keep It Conversational – When reading through a thread, don’t reply as someone online. Imagine these people are around a pub table with you and respond accordingly. Don’t join a discussion about pinot varietals with a comment about your current, entirely unrelated project. It would be rude in life and it will be rude here.
The primary thing to remember is that isn’t a foreign system. Begin any contribution to a forum or online discussion with the knowledge that you have something worthwhile to say and say it that way. Points of view have value and when we trust in that value, we’re more likely to state it well and follow up on feedback.
It’s just a conversation.
You say something, I respond and vice versa. And just like that it’s midnight, we’ve talked our way through two bottles of wine, and we have all learned something. We have successful conversations daily that never devolve into disjointed shouting about how successful we are.
Well… hardly ever.
Not Allowed #9: Never comment and then abandon. Always subscribe!
Good advice. I’d add that you should read a while, hang out a little bit, just the way you might stay on the edge of the convo in a bar for a while before you joined in.
Well YOU wouldn’t. I mean the way I would.