One of the biggest issues in the corporate blogging world is whether or not you should allow readers to comment on your blog posts. There are two main schools of thought to the issue, basically yes and no. However, we believe that it is important to allow your readers to interact with you, and comments are one of the best ways to do this. You just need to make sure that you are handling the issue correctly for the best results.

First, you should make your decision about comments at the beginning of your blog and then stick with them. Don’t flip flop, allowing comments and then changing your mind. It will give a bad impression of your company and make it seem as though you are trying to hide something from the public. That’s not the image you want to project.

Next, you should think about allowing some not so flattering comments on your blog. No one likes controversy, but the fact of the matter remains that it can increase your page views. Don’t be afraid to allow some bad comments on your blog, just as long as you can answer the issue calmly and appropriately. Obviously, if a comment is just vitriolic and damaging, you should not approve it, but sometimes, bad comments and your response can lead to greater reader loyalty and they will want to back you up.

We’ve mentioned approving comments because we believe the best of both worlds in blogging is to allow comments, but on a moderated basis. This means that all of the comments will go into a queue where you can read and approve them. This is much safer and helps cut down on comment spam as well as people who are just looking to start trouble. It takes a little bit longer, but you will be able to have a lot more peace of mind.

Next, you’ll want to set some ground rules for your comments and make sure that you enforce them fairly. For example, you can state that no profanity or hate speech is allowed, and that some posts may not be approved based on their overall content. If people know this going in, you can cut down on the amount of people that are screaming censorship.

You’ll never be able to please all of the people all of the time, but allowing comments on your blog can be very good for your company. In fact, sometimes the blog comments can be more interesting than the blog itself in some cases. You’ll also be able to increase your page views as your readers keep coming back throughout the day to follow the comment thread.

Used wisely, comments are very powerful and can be beneficial to your business. You may want to hire a blog management company to help you with this process so that you can free up your time to actually work for your company instead of having to babysit your blog.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-06-18 05:08:36. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• The Downsides of Free Blogging Platforms for Corporate Blogging (Blogger, etc... focus on how posts may be deleted forever without warning, lack of professionalism, etc...) In a lot of different instances when it comes to blogging, making use of a free blogging platform can really come in handy. If you are writing a personal blog or a blog that......
• How to Avoid Corporate Blogging Disasters For those thinking about starting a corporate blog, there are a few caveats that should be considered before you ever throw your hat in the arena. The blogosphere can be a scary place if you are not prepared and it is easy to have a disaster of epic proportions on......
• Getting Into the Corporate Blogging Habit As with any task, developing effective habits can mean the difference between success and failure. Many first time corporate bloggers don’t take the time to develop good blogging habits and as a result, they don’t do as well as they should. Here are some tips to help you get into......
• Is Your Blog Compelling Enough? Time and time again, if you are a corporate blogger, you’ve probably heard about the importance of compelling content. What you may not know however is what constitutes this type of content. If you’re not taking the time to craft posts that your readers will find compelling, you may be......
• Corporate Blogging Made Easy One of the best ways for a company to reach out to their customers and build a strong brand is corporate blogging. However, there are a lot of misconceptions out there and a lot of room for error. Let’s take a look at some techniques that you can use to......

• Niche Marketing and Choosing a Niche Niche marketing is a type of marketing that falls out of the normal realm of mainstream business, or that involves focusing on one specific product or one specific type of need that allows niche marketing businesses to boom. Niche marketing is capable of meaning different things to different people because......
• Jobless rate falls to 9.7 percent in January [/caption] The unemployment rate in the U.S. unexpectedly dropped to 9.7 percent in January, indicating the labor market may be poised to climb out of its deepest slump since World War II. More than half a million Americans found work, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington, helping push......
• 10 Ways to Apply Twitter to Public Relations Twitter seems to be everywhere these days. Sam Champion and Chris Cuomo (and they are obsessed) from Good Morning America are on it and so is Oprah. But what's all this tweetness about? And how can you, as a public relations professional, get "in" on all that Twitterful action?...
• Cable Bills Too High? Disconnect, Renegotiate Better Rate or Watch TV Online? No wonder everyone is wondering why their paycheck disappears so fast.  The cost of everything seems to be doubling lately. Especially when it comes to overpaying for cable TV. Marc Hedlund (from the Wesabe Blog) posted a small, yet highly informative graphic that gave me one of those Aha! moments......
• Choice Beyond Thinking Choice seems so readily obvious. People claim to make choices, and then complain about the consequences of those choices. We make choices every day if only minor ones, but do people really choose? Do they take the action that choice supposedly is? In my experience people tend to choose by......