The Commenting Conundrum: Are Blog Comments a Useful Measurement of Social Media Engagement?

Judging from the number of articles offering advice, the question of how to encourage more comments on posts is a matter of wide concern among bloggers. In fact, this dilemma seems to be at the heart of the social media model.

Blog comments can be tremendously valuable in multiple ways, of course, from gathering market intelligence to correcting or expanding information offered in a post. The question we’d like to focus on here is whether comment volume is a useful measurement of social media engagement:

  • Is comment volume a meaningful measure of engagement specifically and of communication success more generally, relative to the other metrics available (including friend, membership, or subscriber totals; page
    views; file downloads; and product orders)?
  • Other than those situations in which collecting information via comments is the primary purpose of a blog post, can bloggers meet their ultimate goals without generating high volumes of comments?
  • What would change if comment volume on a given blog was two or three or ten times higher?
  • Is a lack of comments necessarily a negative sign, or is it more just a reflection of how things are?
  • If a blog has only limited commenting traffic, does it truly qualify as a social medium? Or is it really closer to the traditional publishing model, in which readers get the information they want without participating in a conversation?

While pondering these questions, we stepped back to consider our own behavior as blog readers, both in our personal interests and with the thousands of business-oriented blog posts we read every year.

Why Don’t Readers Leave More Comments?

This isn’t a rigorous analysis, but we reflected on our own blog reading habits and extrapolated six possible reasons why blog readers may be reluctant to leave comments.

  • Limited by time constraints. Every professional has too much to do, and leaving comments is just one more item on the to-do list.
  • Not feeling part of the community. Some blogs seem to have a tightknit sense of community, with a core of frequent commenters who are on friendly and even personal terms. To other readers, this close sense of community can seem like a closed sense of community, and joining the conversation can feel like butting into a lively conversation at a party.
  • Reluctant to ask for advice or information. Some blog readers are comfortable using the comment function to ask for information or advice, but we suspect many others are not and would rather dig around to find answers on their own.
  • Having nothing substantial to add. Most of the time, we’d be willing to speculate, most readers conclude that they don’t have anything useful to add. More broadly, blog posts that are clear, complete, and noncontroversial probably won’t attract a lot of in-depth comments simply because there isn’t much for anybody to add.
  • Unmotivated by a sense of reward. Even when readers might have something to add, many probably consider the potential reward (such as peer recognition or promotion for one’s own blog) and conclude it’s not worth the trouble.
  • Sensing that the conversational peak is over. When posts do generate a healthy comment stream, this often seems to peak after a couple of days. After that, many readers who might be motivated to comment probably sense that the show has moved on and there is no point in contributing.

Given how many reasons there are not to leave comments, ramping up comment volume is clearly a challenge. If nothing else, bloggers need to adopt a realistic stance when it comes to getting comments.

Can Readers Be Engaged Without Leaving Comments?

Evidence suggests that bloggers can accomplish communication goals without it showing up in comment volume. For instance, we’ve purchased books, courses, and other products from bloggers without leaving comments on their posts. In these instances we’re deeply engaged as readers and consumers, and they’re accomplishing at least some of their business goals, without us being visible community members in the “social” sense.

A lack of comments might be troubling, in other words, but it doesn’t necessarily signal a lack of engagement.

Bottom Line: Where Do Comments Fit in the Big Picture?

No single answer will fit every situation, but it seems appropriate to ask if the quest for comments can be overemphasized. At the very least, bloggers should figure out where comment volume falls in their hierarchy of goals. For example, are comments mostly “feel good” feedback, a real information source, an opportunity for readers to share their knowledge, or something else entirely?

And now to demonstrate our finely tuned sense of irony, we’d like to ask for your comments on this article. As a blog reader, do you find comments from other readers generally valuable? Are you a regular commenter yourself? Why or why not? If you blog, do you view comment volume as an important metric of engagement?

Employment Communication: Four Essential Steps to Building a Personal Brand

If you teach employment communication and job search strategies as part of the business communication course, personal branding can be a great way to help students understand what they have to offer future employers and how to focus their communication efforts.

Even though personal branding is a hot topic these days, more than a few professionals have probably expressed the sentiment of “I don’t want to be a brand; I just want to be a good employee.” However, like it or not, personal branding affects everyone, in every profession.

The Automobile Analogy

Automobiles offer a great analogy to help students understand the importance and meaning of brand. Volvos, BMWs, and Cadillacs can all get you from Point A to Point B in safety, comfort, and style—but each brand emphasizes some attributes more than others to create a specific image in the minds of potential buyers. Common mental associations for these brands, for instance, are the safety emphasis of Volvo cars, the performance emphasis of BMW, and the luxury emphasis of Cadillac.

Employers think about potential employees in much the same way. Three candidates for a particular job might have all the basic skills required—they can all get an employer from Point A to Point B—but the first might come across as a highly focused technical whiz, the second as a potential business leader, and the third as competent but unmotivated and uninspiring. The impressions an employer forms can help or hurt the job seeker, and they can range from spot-on to wildly inaccurate, so it’s vital for candidates to take control of their brand images.

If You Don’t Brand Yourself, I’ll Do It for You

Even though some people are reluctant to brand themselves or even disdainful of the whole idea, personal branding always takes place. The only question is who is in control. BMW could leave its brand image entirely up to others, letting drivers, mechanics, and journalists decide what “BMW” means. All these parties decide for themselves what “BMW” ultimately means to them, of course, but the company works constantly to shape that mental picture, through everything from its product advertising to the architectural nuances in its dealerships.

Similarly, if job seekers don’t establish a clear brand image for themselves, interviewers and hiring managers will do it for them. A good place for students to start grasping this concept is to realize they have already established a personal brand with their professors, classmates, teammates, and others, based on how they’ve behaved and performed in the past. Now is the time to become more conscious of that brand and to consciously shape it for long-term professional success.

Helping Students Identify and Promote Their Personal Brands

To help students craft their personal brands during the job search, guide them through these four steps:

First, figure out the “story of you.” Simply put, where have you been in life, and where are you going? Every good story has dramatic tension that pulls readers in and makes them wonder what will happen next. Where is your story going next?

Second, clarify your professional “theme.” You want to be seen as something more than just an accountant, a supervisor, a salesperson. What will your brand theme be? Brilliant strategist? Hard-nosed, get-it-done tactician? Technical guru? Problem solver? Creative genius? Inspirational leader?

Third, reach out and connect. Major corporations spread the word about their brands with multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns. You can promote your brand for free or close to it. You can spread your brand message by networking—connecting with like-minded people, sharing information, demonstrating skills and knowledge, and helping others succeed.

Fourth, deliver on your brand’s promise—every time, all the time. When you promote a brand, you make a promise, a promise that whoever buys that brand (as in, hires that employee) will get the benefits you are promoting. All of your planning and communication is of little value if you fail to deliver on the promises that your branding efforts make. Conversely, when you deliver quality results time after time, your talents and your professionalism will speak for you.

Personal Branding Resources

Here are some great resources on personal branding to share with students:
www.personalbrandingblog.com

http://altaeeblog.com
http://blog.brand-yourself.com
www.krishnade.com/blog
http://cuberules.com
www.jibberjobber.com/blog
http://theengagingbrand.typepad.com
http://blog.brand-yourself.com

Do you teach personal branding as part of employment communication? If so, what advice to you have to share with other instructors?

Have Your Students Judge Their Promotional Skills Using Real-Life Test Results

As George Bernard Shaw famously put it, the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. One of the great promises of online business communication is the relative ease with which companies can test to see how well their communication efforts are working.

Online marketing expert Anne Holland’s website offers a great opportunity for students to test their acumen by predicting the relative performance of actual split-tested web communications. The archived tests on the site are subscription-only, but each week's new test and a commentary on the results are available for free.

When Self-Expression and Professional Standards Clash: Body Art in the Workplace

Generational differences abound in the workplace, but few are quite as visible as body art: tattoos, piercings (other than ear lobes), and hair dyes in unconventional colors. According to survey data from the Pew Research Center, people younger than 40 are much more inclined than those over 40 to display some form of body art. For example, people 26 to 40 years old are four times more likely to have tattoos than people who are 41 to 64 years old.

With such profound differences, it’s no surprise that body art has become a contentious issue in many workplaces, between employees wanting to express themselves and employers wanting to maintain particular standards of professional appearance. As employment law attorney Danielle S. Urban writes in Workforce Management, the issue gets even more complicated when religious symbolism is involved.

Who is likely to win this battle? Will the body art aficionados who continue to join the workforce and who are now rising up the managerial ranks force a change in what is considered acceptable appearance in the workplace? Or will they be forced to cover up in order to meet traditional standards?

Have your students expressed any opinions about their right to display body art in the workplace?

When Free Speech Isn’t Quite So Free: Legal Hazards in Online Communication

Millions of bloggers, tweeters, and forum posters appreciate the free-wheeling nature of online communication, but a growing number are learning that free speech sometimes has a steep price. As Santa Clara University’s Eric Goldman emphasizes in this helpful overview article, “Most people have no idea of the liability they face when they publish something online.”

Anonymity is no safeguard, either. Even anonymous posters have been sued for negative remarks after the websites on which they left comments were forced to reveal their identities.

These legal and ethical issues in online communication offer intriguing and sometimes troubling examples to discuss with students. To find cases to cover in class, a good place to start is the “Legal Threats Database” maintained by the Citizen Media Law Project.

We’d love to hear about your experiences teaching online ethics, etiquette, and associated legal matters as part of a business communication course.

 

Hall of Shame: How Not to Tell Customers That You’ve Made Your Software Easier to Understand

We’d be willing to bet that database software generates the highest profanity-to-mouseclicks ratio of any category of personal computer software. Database concepts in general are fairly complicated, and the powerful software that lets users create and manage databases can add layers of operational complexity.

Any news about improvements in usability is good news, but Microsoft tripped when it tried to explain that ready-made templates in its Access database software help hide the complexity. The introductory screen for an online Access training course begins with this assertion: “If you think databases are hard to understand, you’re not up to date.”

In other words, “The reason you’re stupid is that you insist on wasting your time worrying about your actual job, life, family, and so on, rather than following the brilliant innovations being made by database software designers.” Or more simply, “If you’re dumb, it’s your fault.”

We exaggerate the effects here, but not by much. Blaming the customer for not understanding the product is bad enough, but Microsoft takes the extra step of implying that it is the customer’s responsibility to keep up with what the company is doing.

Rather than insulting the customer and dredging up negative associations about database software, the promotional copy could’ve said something along the lines of “New ready-made templates make it easy to harness the power of Microsoft Access.” This puts the burden of complexity on the product, where it belongs, but it also moves the conversation in a positive direction by talking about solutions to a problem. And nowhere does it criticize the customer for not being smart or up to date.

On the plus side, Microsoft does provide us with a great example of a situation in which using the word you does not equate to demonstrating the “you” attitude.

 

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