Brafton recently reported that CMOs say engaging content is key to corporate blog success, and marketers cited comments as a measure of engagement. Now, the results of a recent poll from Birds on the Blog suggests people tend to comment on blogs because they view this activity as a way to add to the conversation.
The poll asked a random sampling of 100 consumers why they comment on blogs. It offered five answers – "for networking," "to correct the blogger," "for SEO/traffic and links," "to add to the conversation" and an "other" category, allowing respondents to provide their own answer.
The majority of respondents (60 percent) say they comment to add to the conversation. Networking proved the second-leading reason that people blog, followed by efforts to boost SEO. "Other" was the fourth-most popular response, and people claimed they chose this answer because they commented for several of the suggested reasons.
As if to prove the validity of the poll, several commenters to Birds on the Blog's post about the results continue to list other reasons they comment, building on this conversation.
One consumer offers an insightful comment, saying, "there are some blogs that I find challenging to respond to, they're either not in my field of interest, my opinion hasn't been sought or it hasn't helped me learn something new."
For marketers, this suggests that infusing questions into blog posts and covering trending topics that invite opinions will help boost comments. It also reaffirms the results of the CMO survey Brafton covered last week, indicating that blog content should be relevant, fresh and informative to effectively engage consumers.
Efforts to create timely blog content that is fuel for social chatter could pay off. Inc. magazine has reported that consumers prefer to do business with brands that have active social pages.
