Ruminations of an Online Instructor / MD

Blog Comment Strategy for Day 28

May 28, 2008 at 10:55 pm | In 31 Day Comment Challenge, Blogging, Distance Education, Dr. Kirsti A. Dyer, Edublog, Ruminations Blog, Teaching, comment08, online education | 1 Comment
Tags: Blog Challenge, Blog Comments, blog strategies, blog strategy, Blogging, comment08, edublogger

In looking at the challenge activity for today, I suddenly realized that I don’t have a particular Blog Commenting Strategy.

Prior to the challenge, I would comment under the following situations. I comment when

I find something or a post that I am interested in
If I think that an article has been done well, to leave praise
To leave a related link and share information.
To thank the blogger or commenter for something.

According Caroline Middlebrook in her post on Do You Have A Blog Commenting Strategy? there are several distinct goals when leaving comments on other people’s blogs. Caroline’s goals for leaving blog comments are:

Grab the attention of the readers
Grab the attention of the blogger
Develop my personal brand
Create some backlinks

Out of these reasons, I would only be using the “Create some backlinks” and “Grab the attention of the blogger” since this is the only category that fits with my other main reason for commenting, to share information. I hadn’t really thought about using blog comments to develop my personal brand.

If I start doing this, I need to ensure that my comments don’t end up being viewed as blog spam or Spam in Blogs.

More on Blog Commenting Presence

Michele commented on yesterday’s post, on Personal Branding:

…a big part of communicating about our brand and what we stand for, but we also say something about ourselves by the comments we leave elsewhere. How do you feel you communicate about yourself through the comments you leave on other blogs?

I realize that I’d set up a different presence for commenting on the Edublog Blogs and for commenting on Blogger Blogs

For Edublogs I am drdyer

I liked the Voki so much that I decided to use it as my edublogger persona. The Voki was also a way of creating bit of a different blog presence and blog comment presence from the one that I use for Blogger, perhaps to create a new presence for my edublog.

For Blogger Blogs I am Kirsti A. Dyer (probably going back to Kirsti A. Dyer, MD)

My Blogger presence uses a real photo of myself that is a couple of years old. This is the photo and the name that I use professionally , so the Blogger presence is more of a professional representation.

Answering Michele’s question: How do you feel you communicate about yourself through the comments you leave on other blogs?

I think that my blog personas send out a strong ‘professional’ message, so much so that it may discourage others (particularly in my Blogger blogs) from commenting. Since my Personal Branding, or Strong Internet Presence involves my background, my credentials and my professional degrees, I don’t believe I could do this any differently, unless I were to create a different “Mom Blogger” persona for use in a more personal setting.

Day 28: What is Your Blog Commenting Strategy?

The activity for Day 28 was to look at developing a blog commenting strategy and whether we think it is important to have a strategic view of blog commenting or developing a plan for incorporating commenting into one’s overall online behavior.

Accomplishments for Day 28

Deciding why I leave blog comments.

Looking at reasons why other people leave blog comments.

Deciding that I generally do not comment to grab attention.

Spending a bit more time thinking about my Blog Commenter Persona/Personas.

Trying to determine what I feel I communicate about myself in blog comments.

Writing and Posting Day 28 of the challenge.

Reflections and Revelations for Day 28

I realized in doing today’s activity, that I still have a lot of fear left over from the early days of the Internet, in not wanting to be accused of practicing medicine online, or be accused of giving out medical advice.

Reiterating my response to Michele’s question:

I think that my blog personas send out a strong ‘professional’ message, so much so that it may discourage others (particularly in my Blogger blogs) from commenting. Since my Personal Branding, or Strong Internet Presence involves my background, my credentials and my professional degrees, I don’t believe I could do this any differently, unless I were to create a different “Mom Blogger” persona for use in a more personal setting.

This blog post is part of The Comment Challenge, comment08.