Categories: Articles

The Comment Economy

The Comment Economy is alive and well.

The debate over why it’s important to comment on a Blog has been beaten to death. It’s clear that comments provide valuable and powerful feedback to the Blogger. It extends the conversation, adds perspective and colour and – from a purely selfish stand-point – most people who leave a comment also provide a link back to whatever content they’re creating (sometimes it’s a Blog, sometimes a link to their flickr photos and sometimes it’s even a link back to their Twitter profile).

One thing is certain: comments are what make a Blog exciting. Beyond the conversation, the Blogger feels a sense of satisfaction based on the amount of comments they receive and the people who comment have a platform to have their voices heard.

Yesterday I posted my business column which runs every two weeks in the Montreal Gazette and the Vancouver Sun daily newspaper (Selling 2.0 – Let The Customer Do The Communicating). I am continually amazed by the flow of phone calls and emails from people saying how excited they are to read it every two weeks. Along with it being flattering, you win too. Here’s how:

The Comment Economy has an underground economy.

For every new person that comes to the Six Pixels of Separation Blog, they’re not just reading my Blog for the first time… they’re reading your comments too (and clicking on your links to learn more). The Comment Economy is as much about you as it is about the Blog owner. All too often, people read a Blog posting and have an idea of what they would like to say in the comment section and never do. The tragedy is not that the Blog owner will never see that comment, the real tragedy is all of the readers who will miss it.

What value does that have?

The number one reason people don’t have a Blog of their own is because they’re worried they won’t have much to say or worried they won’t be able to deliver consistent and fresh content. Commenting on someone else’s Blog adds tremendous credibility when building your personal brand and getting your voice heard. I’ve seen search results pop up on certain individuals based on the comments they have left on various Blogs.

The Long Tail of content extends into comments. The Comment Economy is still rich and highly under valued.

Think of the thousands of new people that might discover you simply because you left a comment on a highly trafficked Blog.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.