Blog Comments: social media for website promotion
Blog commenting is super way to build links back to your book’s website and to promote yourself as an author. Furthermore, reading blogs and engaging in feedback is an easy and effective way to generate traffic without needing an expensive advertising campaign. As an author, you’re no doubt proud of the book that you’ve written and in a perfect world you’d love to shout about it in the comment section of each and every blog that you can find. Unfortunately, blog commenting requires some consideration so that you don’t end up causing more harm to you and your book than good.
When you visit someone’s blog, take the time to read it and get to know what the blogger’s content and focus is about. Familiarity will give you better insight when it comes to leaving a more profound comment rather than commenting just for the sake of it. Avoid ambiguous comments like, “This is a great post. Thank you for writing it.” Try to leave something of value. If readers of your book simply stated that your book was a “nice read” it would be frustrating to you as an author. The same thing goes for blog comments. Make each one count.
Don’t shamelessly self-promote you or your book right out of the gate. Instead of appearing as a resource, it looks pretentious and arrogant. Add value to the blog and the conversation of others. Consider sharing other resources that are relevant to the topic of the post versus linking to your book’s website just for the sake of slapping a link into the comment.
Be considerate when you comment. If a blog post is focuses on an opinion or perspective that isn’t in tune with your own you don’t have carte blanche to verbally berate the blogger. It reflects poorly on you and it can generate a whopping size of bad publicity that will make it difficult to recover from as an author. Be a gentleman and a lady and politely agree to disagree or avoid commenting at all. In cyberspace, biting your tongue is more aligned with taking the high road than not.
Blog commenting isn’t an art, it just takes some common sense. Think before you post your comment. Once it’s out, it’s out for good.
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