The Secret To Building Relationships With B2B Bloggers: Commenting
By Kipp Bodnar
Wed, Nov 11, 2009
In many B2B niches bloggers hold a lot of influence over decision making and can influence traditional media coverage. The problem is that B2B marketers treat bloggers as objects of a direct marketing campaign and bombard them with mail, e-mails and yes sometimes even faxes! My news flash for B2B marketers is that if you treat online influencers like direct marketing targets you will get the same response rate: almost zero.
The reason that so many B2B marketers take the direct response route with influencers is because it is easy. Sure it takes time and money, but the marketers don’t have to get their own hands dirty. They can have their agency design and mail a piece or send a series of e-mails. Regardless of the approach, all of these enable the marketer from having to focus on the reality of caring about what the influencer has to say and having to think about what that means to their business.
Having to interact with a community while understanding the community’s impact on your product is surprisingly difficult for many businesses.
Commenting Your Way To Better Blogger Relations
Since we live in an online world where we each have different ways to be connected: e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, IM and the list goes on and on. When working to build relationships with influencers assume that they are already being spammed and blasted by all paths of least resistance. These paths normally included e-mail, Twitter and Facebook.
So when an influencer is suffering from information overload across channels how do you stand out? Commenting.
Commenting on a person’s blog consistently with insightful thoughts is the best way to begin relationship building with influencers. Every time you leave a comment on a blog it is displayed in the least crowded inbox that individual has, the comment dashboard. The majority of bloggers I know read every comment that comes through their blog dashboard, whether they use Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad or another platform. If the blog has moderated comments then the author MUST look at and read every comment to see if it should be published.
On a crowded day blog comments seem to get a little more attention because so few people who actually read a post and comment on it. My advice to you is to identify your influencers and then work to leave a thoughtful, non-promotional comment on nearly every post they write. You will be amazed at the relationships this simple action can facilitate.
Do you have a commenting plan?
For the record, we read every comment on Social Media B2B and appreciate everyone who takes the time to leave one!
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Tags: B2B, blogger relations, Blogging, commenting
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Very true! I’d also stress the fact to not make “spam” comments. The comment area is not a free ad spot for your business. Leave something insightful. If your blog post is relevant it’s alright to leave a link, but don’t get in the habit of posting “We do that better! Check out our [fill in the blank with your blog, website, product, etc]!!!” on blogs.
Great article!
Yes, I have a plan! LOL I read every comment on each of my blog posts and respond to each one in an attempt to clarify, respond to the commenter’s question, or simply to acknowledge their participation. Just as I am doing now, I comment on other blog posts. But only on those that I can comment on. I’m of the same thinking as Janeile – I don’t spam by leaving my website or contact info. Instead my intention is to develop a relationship with other business bloggers.
Well said Kipp. On top of being a great inroad and a noticeable avenue for engagement, comments can bring immeasurable clarity to what I’m writing. Particularly when a counter-argument is voiced comments greatly enhance the conversation, often leading it to take on a life of its own. Logistical question: what are you criteria for blocking, or rather disallowing, a comment? Profanity? Off-topic? Spam?
I agree with leaving comments to build a relationship with the blogger. However, leaving contact info isn’t spam… If I have strong views after reading a post, I will usually write a response to it on my own blog and leave a link there so that readers can follow my arguments and/or views…
Of course there are bad eggs in almost all social media platforms, you will get people who leave just a link and nothing else relating to the article…. Now that is spam….
Great point about writing a post if you have a lot to say. Works better than leaving a 500 comment. Thanks for your comment!
Patrick,
Thanks for your comment. The most important thing for a company is to have a commenting policy and make sure your readers can easily find it. If a comment violates that policy it should be removed.
Commenting is something Gary Vaynerchuk always talks about as well. In fact, I think commenting on blogs could be a great first step for a B2B organization looking to dive into social media.
Rather than starting with pushing out their own content, just joining the communities that already exist and commenting there will allow them to better understand what the fabric of the social web is all about.
I’ve been working to do more commenting myself, but there is certainly a lot of room for me to grow.
Completely agree with Janelle and Charlene.
In response to Mike’s comment, I think blog commenting is a good place to start in social IF your website has existing social elements of some kind, such as a newsletter sign-up or at LEAST an easy-to-find contact form. Your website needs to have a place for visitors to land other than just your homepage, in my opinion.
Liz: You are right that it helps when commenting if your website has at least some sort of social component to it. Otherwise they end up following that link to your homepage and have no idea what to do.
However, even so, getting out and commenting on industry and/or customer blogs is a great way for a B2B company to start exposing themselves to the blogosphere and what it has to offer.
I also think that commenting and engaging with others outside of the companies own efforts (their blog, their Twitter account, etc.) is a tactic that too many brands are forgetting about. They expect everyone to come to them, when it reality, it takes a lot of outbound work to bring people back in.
“They expect everyone to come to them, when it reality, it takes a lot of outbound work to bring people back in.”
Great point. Completely agree with you there.
Pretty nice post. I just came by your blog and wanted to say that,I agree with leaving comments to build a relationship with the blogger.It is very very convenient to take wherever i go.Hope so i will get the further updates in future.
Thanks,
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