Use Comment Boards and Forums Like Quora to Portray Thought Leadership

When we look back at 90s films, watching the characters be amazed by AOL and email, you have to feel sorry for them.

We are 13 years into the 21st century and already there are suggestions that other platforms are taking over the conversation. Nowadays, we predominantly use Facebook, Skype and Twitter to converse with friends online, or we use email and Skype to hold business meetings, send documents and arrange meetings when at work.

However, with the demise of fax, dial-up broadband and the previously stated AOL - how long does email have left? What else is out there to keep the conversation going?

Since the dawn of websites, businesses have typically used them to create brand awareness and engage with customers. In that 90s era it was acceptable to just, ‘stick a forum on the end of your site’, or even drastically worse, ‘plonk a guestbook on the website’. Today, it’s all about creating a socially integrated website, essentially, a website that implements the best of social media within your content itself - i.e. sharing buttons such as Facebook 'like', Google’s '+1' feature and Twitter's 'retweet'. However, there is a way you can optimise your web content further.

You might have cleverly predicted the suggestion ‘comments section’ (not least as it’s the title of this blog) but what about commenting on others blogs? Of course, online comments haven’t had the best of reputations lately, with complaints growing about trolls and other matters. 

Troll (Forbes’ definition): “Nasty commenters who drag the conversation into the gutter without offering any insight or value."

Negativity has surrounded online comment sections for websites, blogs and the alike as more of these ‘trolls’ rear their ugly heads.

However, it can also be a fantastic marketing tool for companies wanting to increase brand awareness and customer engagement. If you want to do these things successfully, why not follow our tips?

• Add to the conversation: Don't just comment here, there and everywhere, with 'What a great post!' or 'That's really informative, we'll definitely make a note' - it adds nothing. If you are strategically commenting - which is what you have to do to make it work for you - then you should be thinking, 'What can I give that the writer hasn't already?'. Use your own knowledge and skills to progress as a 'thought leader', add insight and extra value to the piece. You could even convince the reader that your knowledge should forward them into your blog, i.e. 'I think... I have already written an article on this subject with further detail/from a different angle'. This means linking to the relevant blog post, not the homepage of your website - make it easy and valuable for any potential readers.
• Use your name: It's never classy to shout from the rooftops 'visit my website'; it's also never human-sounding to refer to yourself as your brand. I would never go to an event and say 'I'm Thrive, nice to meet you', so you shouldn't do it on blogs. Be yourself, use your real name, or at least, 'Joe Smithson @ Smithson Electronics'. Brand awareness is great, but to achieve it don't be a stone wall, use your personality and individuality to attract new customers. Always remember you are representing your brand if you include a URL, so be careful when commenting, and rarely give away personal views, particularly if they could be construed as controversial.
• Abandon SEO tactics: Generally-speaking, search engines don't follow links on blog comments, so you are only going to get an audience through those reading that blog. This might initially make you think there's no point, but you'd be totally wrong. If you carefully research bloggers and decide where your best chance at a relevant audience is, and add a strong comment then you're more likely to reach people who are willing to click through to your blog. Keywords, therefore, becoming unattractive and it's best to leave them out, as they serve no purpose, except risking making you look like a spammer.

Getting the right strategy for blog commenting is hard to master, at first. Start by recognising similar-minded bloggers and come up with how you can relate to what they're saying - in a way which adds to the conversation.