People hate spam! But not as much as we hate spammers! I mean, they are the kind of people we all avoid at any cost. We would never do business with a spammer or risk having our good name associated with a spammer, right?
So why do businesspeople leave comment spam on blogs?
Comment spam is the name given to those comments you see on blogs, which are just thinly disguised sales pitches. They add nothing to the other comments or the blog itself and are regarded as totally unprofessional, just like email spam. Sadly, you see comment spam on every well read blog, including jimsmarketingblog.com.
In this post, I explain the dangers of posting comment spam, PLUS share a few tips on how to use the comments section of a blog professionally, to help you and your business!
Comment spam doesn’t work
The primary reason not to use comment spam is that it just doesn’t work! In fact, it will simply damage your reputation and hurt your business. By the way, the kind of comment spam I am talking about here are comments posted by people – not those that get caught in your spam filter and are sent by spambots.
Comment spam: Counting the cost
Just 30 minutes ago, I spoke with a business owner, who highlighted the danger of posting comment spam. In fact, our conversation is what’s prompted me to write this post. He told me that he had spoken with a business consultant last week and was really impressed, so impressed that he was going to hire him.
However, before deciding to hire the consultant, he decided to check the consultant out. Part of this was a simple Google search on the consultant’s name and business name. After 5 minutes, he quickly changed his mind and decided not to hire him!
Why?
Because he found a number of comments this person had made on blogs, which were clearly just spam; comments that were cheesy sales pitches for this consultants services. As he put it to me;
“Jim, why would I hire a spammer, I hate spam! This man clearly has no idea about business or the importance of acting like a professional.”
Comment spam = Self-generated bad publicity!
The reason people post comment spam is simple. They believe that by getting their spam in front of the readers of a blog or forum, they will increase the number of people who are aware of them, and that this is universally a good thing for their business. It isn’t! Comment spammers are simply telling everyone who reads their spam that they are spammers – something to avoid! It’s nothing more than self-generated bad publicity.
Comment etiquette
If you want to use commenting on blogs as a way to build your reputation and increase your reach and influence, use the opposite approach to the comment spammers.
Here are a few tips, based on comment etiquette:
- Only comment if you have something to say that’s worth sharing.
- Remember that the comments you leave on a blog will be searchable by potential clients / customers, so only leave comments that you are happy for them to read!
- Don’t include your website or blog’s URL in the comment. It’s already included in the link where your name is. Adding a SECOND link is generally regarded as looking cheesy (at best) or just plain desperate! It’s not easy to negotiate your fees with a potential client / customer if you give the impression of being broke.
- Most blogs (like this one) have anti-spam software that automatically removes any comment with more than one link. If you do link to something in the comment you leave, make it relevant to the other comments or the original blog post.
- Avoid OTT self promotion. It’s fine for you to show your brilliance with the value of your comment, but people are turned off by blatant self promotion.
I believe that if a comment spammer could see themselves the way you and I see them, they would stop instantly. I read somewhere that when a businessperson spams a blog, they think it’s okay – that when ‘they‘ do it it’s different; because ‘they‘ don’t see themselves as spammers.
There are many ways to professionally position a person and / or a business as a valuable must have for one’s target market. Comment spam is not one of them.
What are YOUR thoughts on comment spam?
Share your thoughts or experiences regarding comment spam – Plus, do you have any tips you would like to share on how to get the most from commenting on blogs? Let us know!
Related posts:
Jim
Amen. Here is my take: Spammers spam. They justify it in all sorts of ways. Using programs because “you don’t have the time to be social” is no better of an excuse than “I am a weak minded, money hungry manipulator”.
Sorry, I have grown to despise the act of spamming. Putting links in your signature line is one thing. Running from one blog to another (or one social network wall to the next) just to put your pathetic links in…that’s just sad.
That said, I no longer have to worry about any of this! Why?
SOCIAL MEDIA!!!!!!! Winners win. Spammers lose.
If you can’t add massive value in this emerging technologically driven SOCIAL movement, you won’t matter.
Jim, you add value. People love you for it. Period. You could spam people and they wouldn’t recognize it as spam. That is the beauty of “getting it”.
Love ya!
Danny
Danny,
Thanks for a very concise insight.
Good comments. I run a tourism website at ……just kidding. I do run a tourism website though and it is disgusting the amount of worthless chatter that gets posted. I just love to moderate them out.
Great post Jim.
Frank
All good stuff – but I would add one caveat: when you search for a person online to see what kind of web-droppings they’re leaving (as you mentioned early in the post), make sure you’re tracking the right person. Unless it is a really unusual name chances are very good that there are possible dozens of folks with that same name. How do you know if the person you’ve determined is spamming someone is the same person you’re trying to do a little digging on?
Be careful of jumping to conclusions…I’m just sayin’…
Hi, I do make a living selling flowers, if you want great flowers, call me on… just kidding.
Great post – again, Jim.
I don’t like spam, spammers or comment spam much either – you make great points, and hopefully encourage those who practice spammin’ to find proactive ways to add value (and drive people to their product because of it).
I found this well thought out and helpful. Thanks again! Cam
Jim
Great debate about what is and isn’t spam as it refers to Social Networks.
Interestingly, following your advice of last week, has instantly put me in the cross hairs of those who think they are the moral gate keepers of the web.
Same people who have ads on their blogs, make use of FREE gmail apps etc.
Strange but then again, it’s always in the eye of the beholder.
Fantastic post Jim. It’s interesting that even in a post about how ineffective spamming is, someone actually posts a spam comment. You couldn’t make it up.
Thanks for your post Jim – that certainly stirred up the responses!
Good comments all – I had to read through them to see if I was adding or just repeating!
I want to ADD that comment spammers, like those who stand out when they do it in Twitter, are SO 20th Century (a bit like Bankers at the moment!)
Here and now in the 21st, we all seem to get so much more from the social media – it just becomes fun to comment, as long as it’s relevant. Spam might be in the eye of the beholder, as some have said above, but we all know it when we see it & we are just becoming less tolerant of it – there is simply NO NEED FOR IT. PERIOD.
I love your posts, they’re so thought provoking, so you’ve scored again with this one!
I finish, as always, with “Keep ‘em Coming!”
Thanks Jim.
I loved what you wrote about comment spammers. I wonder if many of them just need it pointed out. It could just be over enthusiasm (ha, who am I kidding!) Is there a “Social Media Navagating for DUMMIES” out there. I would love a copy so I am not one of “those” people! I need to be careful. I am within 100 miles of where they make SPAM!
Great read! Thank you!!
(by the way, I don’t know if you are familiar w the Nottingham Panthers Hockey but I am a huge fan, in Iowa, no less!)
Jim:
As always, a great post as well as thought-provoking comments.
I’d like to say two things – as a novice to blogging, I’m still learning about the do’s and don’ts. I think that the spamming you’re referring to is basically bad manners – using someone else’s space to self-promote. What I’ve been doing (& I don’t know if this is acceptable or not so would welcome feedback) is going in to the offending comment and deleting the obvious link, as long as the rest of the comment has something relevant to contribute.
The other thing I’d like to say is that, for we “baby boomers” who have been in sales for many years, a lot of the rules/guidelines/accepted practices for blogging and social networking are counter-intuitive for how we were trained. We were trained to be promoters, to “pitch” our products, to maintain a professional (distanced) relationship with our customer, and to throw as much —- on the wall to see what sticks. So, now we need to incorporate blogging and social networking into our “marketing” but that requires an entirely new skill set – one that requires us to be much less obvious and more subtle, and one that doesn’t yield the quick and direct responses or results to which we are accustomed.
So, as the “boomer” generation becomes more actively involved in this internet world, you “young un’s” may need to cut us a little slack as we learn the ropes.
When I first started making websites allowing comments, ie OrionRobots this was in a pre-captcha era, and without any sophisticated spam filtering. I was inundated with spam. Consider my site was meant to be family friendly, dealing with Lego etc, some of the spam was extremely inappropriate. The first thing I had to do was remove anonymous comments, and force register/login. However, that put off some of those with something to say. It is a difficult game to play balancing allowing genuine comments – ie those relevant and not overlinked, against those that were total spam. If it is somebodies robot website or blog, I let it slip normally. But there is a line drawn when they post the same post on each of the forums.
Hi Jim,
But, I’m now building my confidence level, and, like Andy, above, I am learning to simply use DELETE. I have learned that I don’t need to allow the nasty stuff/spam in to begin with since I can moderate it.
First of all, thank you so much for putting all this info out there for us. I’m glad I found your site! For someone like me who is very new to social networking and blogging, finding someone willing to help guide us through this jungle is of great value. I was quite nervous about allowing comments on my different blogs because I was afraid of “nasty-grams” & inappropriate content. I figured that I’d rather not have any comments than risk having my sensitive ego crushed.
After reading this, however, I do think I need to go back in and delete some comments that I “approved” initially. I now suspect are not serving any real purpose other than a link back to whoever left it. There is still a learning curve, but this post (along with the comments) has been truly helpful. Happy Holidays, and thank you again for providing a great service!
Kath
Agreed but many sites go way too far in what they consider comment spam. altMD, for example, pays a full-time acupuncturist to contribute to conversations across the web. Most of the time, we already have expert content on the topic so he writes ~200 word response 100% specific to topic/question and then posts link to full expert info on altMD. 95% of the time, however, our posts get deleted and/or we get banned, which is crazy. Yes, the intent of our posts is to promote expert content on altMD. BUT, what we do is FAR from spam. Like my comment to your post on do-follow links, I think that restricting quality posts like ours on blogs, forums, etc. is a major challenge to the future quality/success of the web.
altMD,
If you pay someone to mass-comment on other people’s blogs – you are deliberately using these blogs as unpaid advertisers. This is not about commenting at this point, it’s about advertising.
That’s going to hack-off a lot of people and might be why you find yourself getting deleted?
Yes…BUT…This is an $80,000/yr. doctor personally responding to each specific issue, adding tremendous value to all the sites we post to. This is not a bot and it is not copy and paste and it is not OTT self promotion. It is a doctor specifically answering questions. That today’s web treats that as spam is a big problem IMHO. And for the record, we would LOVE for others to pay doctors to come to altMD and contribute expert content to us for free…
altMD,
Regardless of who you pay to do this for you, it’s still YOU using another person’s blog to provide YOU with free advertising.
They are not going to like it, hence the deletes.
I think it’s also likely you will find your sites URL blacklisted if enough people ‘SPAM’ your comments!
Hi Jim,
My blog has been getting what are called “PingBacks.” Is that also spam? Should I be deleting those? There is no actual comment attached – but they are coming into my blog as a comment “needing moderation.”
I also got a comment that said words to this effect, “Love your blog. By the way, if you are interested in…” with a link in the text to their site. Is that also something that I should be deleting?
Since I’m still new, the thrill of seeing someone seemingly take interest in what I have to say is still there – do these folks instinctivly look for people who are obviously new with the hope that we’ll just “approve” the comment?
I hope I’m not appearing too paranoid about this! I just want to incorporate best practices right at the get go.
Thanks for your insight.
Kath
if what we do is spam, then there is no community (as you reference in your do-follow link post).
Contributing EXPERT content to websites that rely on UGC to drive traffic is hardly free advertising….
Treat others as you would want to be treated and we will take all the EXPERT UGC that we can get…Not spam but QUALITY content…
On YAHOO answers, we are selected the best answer 95% of the time. Elsewhere, we are selected spam 95% of the time…Same content…IMHO Blog and forum owners are nuts to allow YAHOO (and GOOGLE) to benefit from our content while they turn it away.
The irony is that we are the ones who are actually concerned about posting to all these sites because we are basically helping them generate expert content that costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to produce and that will ultimately compete with us for top placement for competitive keywords.
We’re not looking to fight with anyone and certainly arent looking for anything “for free”. We’ll contribute our content where we’re appreciated and do our best to add as much value to those “partners” as we can.
Kathy,
Some pingbacks are fine, others are links to sites that have copied your post and are seeking to get a link – from your blog to theirs.
Check the pingback link and if you like it – allow it.
altMD,
I’m ok about people including a link in their post – so long as the info’s good I see no problem.
The Internet is just a series of links – I am always MORE likely to allow a link than to not allow one.
I even have posts on this blog where I TELL people to tell everyone else who they are and what they do – This one’s had 430 comments:
http://jimsmarketingblog.com/2008/12/11/building-your-twitter-network/
Please feel free to add your details.
Comment spam is almost worse than email spam. Spewing self-promotion on blog comments is pure Internet evil.
I engage on blogs that I love and I join the conversation with my commentary. I think I respect the value in comments because I’m a blogger myself and have to address the issue of comment spammers.
When it’s appropriate I may link back to a specific entry when there is a need to do it. Otherwise I retain my links back in the comment forms. I also leave my Twitter ID (@JoeManna) in the comment too.
When it comes down to it — you need to give a damn. Give a damn about the blogger, the conversation, your contribution and yourself. Otherwise, you may just end up in my Akismnet filter.
~Joe
I kept wondering why people think comment spams will enhance their brand visibility, if it does at all, it only damage the image they think they are building. I wish we all take a que from this insightful piece
Your already thinking…hey up! here’s another spammer! Partly true. I was looking for blogs to post on and found this one. However, given the blog was actually on subject for what I am actually now doing, in this, it may not be spam, if that makes sense??
Anyway, regarding the reputation side of things, you are right but there are times when it could be seen from another point of view. Take what I am doing right now for instance. OK, it hasn’t turned out that way but I just came here for a free link…a link to my business directory. Surely that tells people that my directory is being promoted and if it isn’t already, it may be heavily linked to and backed up with links in the future?? That is what people want from a web directory where they’re are in turn advertising their businesses. I think as long as it’s done sensibly, then posting in blogs can sometimes be seen as good.