In our Intelligent Blog Commenting post, we discussed 5 social branding rewards that you can easily reap if you mastered intelligent blog commenting. Today, we will discuss how you can effectively turn your blog commenting into a branding magnet in 7 easy steps. Enjoy!
- Dig for High Traffic Blogs in Your Niche Market
- Do some Google blogs search
- Take advantage of popular blog directories such as Technorati and Alltop
- Go for a Tweet survey or write the following on your Facebook wall: “Tell me the top 3 blogs that you MUST read every week no matter what”. You will be surprised at the interesting answers you will get in that regard
- Check the blogrolls of the blogs you come up with in order to uncover even more relevant blogs
- Stay informed on what’s going on your target blogs It is a good idea to use a web-based feed reader such as Google reader to ensure you are up to date with your chosen blogs.
- Let Twitter Lists Do the Work! It is a good idea to see what your favorite bloggers are doing on Twitter. Fortunately, Twitter lists are there to help you categorize these bloggers so that a 5-minute daily scan would give you an overview of what they are buzzing about.
- Get to Know your Favorite Bloggers Don’t just settle for knowing what you favorite bloggers are up to because you want to build a relationship with them as we discussed in the previous post. In Twitter jargon, effective engagement translates into retweeting, responding to tweets and messaging the bloggers of interest. Doing that consistently will certainly draw their attention to you.
- Provide Quality Comments Consistently Before starting to comment, it is a good idea to spend a week or so just reading your chosen bloggers’ posts in order to get a general feel of their core interests. This way, you can deliver relevant comments that will grab their attention. On top of that, here are few pointers to help you create killer blog comments.
- Choose a post topic that you are really knowledgeable about
- Your comment doesn’t have to be lengthy, but it MUST be informative. Even if you included just one quality tip or insight, it serves the purpose. Quality here means offering some valuable piece of information to which your readers would react by saying:”Aha! I didn’t know that before”. Becoming the “Aha” expert is no smooth sailing but it’s the only way intelligent blog commenting can be called intelligent!
- It’s ok to offer a counter argument as long as you can back it up with viable evidence. In fact, counter arguing is very effective in stirring up some heat and is a no-fail curiosity arousing tip. Yes, you want to entice readers and keep them coming back for more. Be the naughty boy sometimes!
- It’s perfectly ok ( even recommended) that you get personal in your comments as long as you meet the quality goal
- Let Your Avid Readers Find You Outside The Blog You need to leave a link when you comment but don’t overdo it. Many people opt for using their Twitter profile links and that’s a clever idea indeed because it is very subtle. Also, it will allow your loyal fans to follow you on Twitter. If they want to dig deeper about you (which they should after you gave them a killer comment), they will check the URL form in your Twitter profile.
- Finally, Grab Your Spot in The Lime Light… Now that you have done your intelligent blogging homework (posted outstanding comments consistently), it is time to enjoy the fruits of your labor and contact the blog owner for a guest blogging spot. Alternatively, you may want to interview them in your own blog. I couldn’t tell which strategy is better. Both are awesome for your social branding. You choose!
There are so many ways to pinpoint those commenting-worthy blogs. Here are some of them:
That’s all I was able to come up with after some rigorous brain squeezing 
. What other blog commenting for branding tips have you tried or considered trying? Also, where would you rank intelligent blog commenting compared to other social branding techniques such as a Facebook branding page or a YouTube VSEO video? Thanks in advance for your valuable contribution. To our success!
