Most people are aware of best practices for writing a company blog posting. But what about posting a comment to a blog? Are there best practices? Indeed there are. After conducting extensive research, here are my top 10 tips for posting a blog comment that will encourage engagement and help facilitate a conversation. I hope you find this useful and will post a comment on MY blog.

1. Familiarize yourself with the blog. Research the author and get a feel for the overall purpose and personality of the blog. This includes reading the blog comments as well. Having this background knowledge will allow you to leave comments that are relevant, interesting and engaging.
2. Add to the discussion. Any comment you add must contribute to the discussion or topic. So do not leave comments like “Good post” or “Keep it up” or “Great stuff! Very interesting!” By including details from the post itself, you’re ensuring that others know you have read the post and have something important and worthwhile to say.
3. Be aware of your comment length and relevancy. When writing a comment, you want to be sure it is more than 140 characters, but less than multiple paragraphs in length. You want your comment to be long enough to establish credibility. To ensure that people don’t skip over your comment because of length, be sure to keep it between one to two paragraphs.
4. Respond to other comments. Writing response comments is a great way to start a conversation with the blog’s other readers. Getting involved with the blog’s community can also help you develop new connections and professional relationships.
5. Comment early. You want to be one of the first people to comment on a blog post, because it helps with your visibility. Other readers might scroll through the first few comments, but few will read all 102 of them.
6. Include a profile picture as avatar. People like to see other people’s faces when they’re having a discussion. By enabling avatars, you automate this process and encourage discussion.
7. Emphasize author comments.  When designing your comments, you should do something to make the author comments stand out from the others on the page. This might be by adding an icon to the comment or changing the background color. This type of styling makes it easier for commenters to see replies directly from the author and can help to increase discussion.
8. Author responses. It is important for authors to respond to blog comments. This is an excellent opportunity to show the commenter and other readers that the company is proactive and serious about blogging. The author should always thank a commenter for taking the time to offer feedback. Responses to blog comments should also be done in a timely manner to help continue the conversation.  Authors can keep readers engaged after they comment by sending a follow-up question.
9. Include tags. Include tags to improve search-ability.
10. Include links. Keep readers engaged by including a link to another relevant post or article.

Need help with your company blog?  Domus has a team of social media experts who can take your blog to the next level.

Joanne Michael is an Executive Vice President at Domus, Inc., a marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, visit http://www.domusinc.com. For new business inquiries, please contact CEO and founder of Domus, Inc. Betty Tuppeny at betty.tuppeny@domusinc.com or 215-772-2805.