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Is the Blog Comment Sexy Again?

Last week, Livefyre raised $15-million in venture capital from a blue-chip group of investors that includes U.S. Venture Partners, Greycroft Partners, Cue Ball, HillsVen Group, and ff Venture Capital. Among other things, the money will be used to let Livefyre continue its “aggressive growth”.

So what’s interesting about a $15-million financing at a time when many startups are attracting lots of venture capital?

For people interested in blogging, the Livefyre deal is interesting because, in some respects, it puts the comment back into the spotlight.

Remember, the blog comment? When blogging hit the mainstream five or six years ago, there was a flurry of comments. This was probably because the ability to react to content was new and exciting.

Since then, however, the blog comment has seemed to fade into the background. Many people find it easier to use Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn to share content, rather than write a comment.

But Livefyre’s financing could suggest the blog comment has more value than we think. Within the company’s product portfolio is Livefyre Comments, which many bloggers have adopted as an alternative to WordPress’s native comment system or third-party services such as Disqus.

Livefyre Comments has gained a lot of traction because it lets commenters highlight their only content, while publishers get a new way to use social media to drive content distribution.

“Livefyre gives brands and publishers the power to bring visitors back to their sites and build communities around their content,” said Livefyre Founder and CEO Jordan Kretchmer. “Dozens of the world’s largest media companies utilize our platform to turn their pages into real-time streams of social content.”

The question is whether $15-million of venture capital for Livefyre suggests comments are poised to stage a renaissance because there are tangible benefits for both publishers and the people who take the time and effort to leave a blog comment.

In other words, Livefyre makes the comment a win-win proposition for everyone involved.

As someone who has blogged for a long time, anything that will encourage people to leave comments is a good thing. A big part of what makes blogging so rewarding is having people engaged and involved with your content, so here’s hoping comments are on the comeback trail.

What do you think? Do blog comments still have value? Can the comment thrive amid so much social competition?

By Mark Evans - February 11th, 2013 - 7 Comments »
Tags: blogging, comments, livefyre
Posted in Social Media

Blogging: Quality vs. Quantity?

A few weeks ago, we had a meeting at corporate HQ about the blog and its editorial focus. This included an interesting discussion about the number of blog posts created each week.

Since the blog was launched in early-2009, we have published five posts a week on a consistent basis.

Given the amount of activity within the social media landscape and the blog’s role as a value-add resource, it has been the right approach to engage with people, while continuing to build our content portfolio.

For many companies, however, five posts a week isn’t possible due to a lack of resources, a lack of things to write about, or a decision to have a less active presence.

Given these contrasting approaches, it naturally raises the question of quality versus quantity. Is it better to blog more to have a steady flow of content, or should the focus be on quality, even if means writing less?

While it be easy to say one approach is better than the other, the reality is there is no definitive way to do corporate blogging.

For some companies, publishing four or five posts a week is a key component of their marketing and communication activities. It provides them with a platform to deliver thought leadership, ideas, commentary and corporate news.

On the other hand, some companies believe that less is better because there is only so much they want to say on a blog. Meanwhile, they might have other marketing and communication activities that consume resources.

Another consideration is the appetite of your target audiences and the reach you’re trying to achieve. If you have an engaged audience that see blogs as a primary or valuable resource, publishing multiple posts a week makes complete sense. If you’re target audiences are not big blog consumers, writing fewer posts makes sense.

At the end of the day, blogging is not a one-size-fits-all proposition.

Regardless of your approach, the key is consistency. If you’re going to blog four or five times a week, do it week in, week out. The same goes if you’re only doing one or two posts a week. As long as your readers know what to expect, either approach will work.

By Mark Evans - September 10th, 2012 - No Comments »
Tags: blogging, blogs, quality vs. quantity
Posted in Social Media

Blogging is Alive, Well and Thriving

Like a boxer that refuses to go down, blogs keep bouncing back even as new social media services such as Pinterest capture the spotlight.

A recent report by NielsenWire, which I somehow missed when it initially appear, suggested there were 173 million blog as of last October, compared with 35.7 million in October, 2006.

So, who’s doing all this blogging? Nielsen discovered the following:

Women make up the majority of bloggers, and half of bloggers are aged 18-34
Bloggers are well-educated: seven out of 10 went to college, a majority of whom are graduates
About 1 in 3 bloggers are moms, and 52% of bloggers are parents with children under 18 years-old.
Bloggers are active across social media: they’re twice as likely to post/comment on video sites such as YouTube, and nearly three times more likely to post in message and forums.

So why are blogs so resilient and, arguably, coming back into favour? One of the biggest reasons may be the growing enthusiasm about content marketing. Blogs are a perfect fit for content marketing because they power original content that sits on a company’s Website, and they can be used to achieve multiple goals and reach a variety of audiences.

In other words, blogs are the work horses of social media.

They may not be particularly sexy or have great curb appeal but they get the job done for companies willing to make a sustained effort to provide some kind of value – be it educational, entertaining and engaging content.

For companies, these should be appealing reasons to have a blog to complement their other social media, marketing and sales activities.

So, why doesn’t every company have a blog?

For one, they are hard to do. It takes time, effort, creativity and resources to produce good blog content, which is easier said than done. Blogs aren’t something you can quickly whip off in 140 characters…or less.

Another thing about blog is there isn’t instant gratification. Sure, comments are great but they can be more difficult to get than a retweet or “Like”. For anyone looking for an easy win, blogs can be frustrating because of the work involved to make them happen.

The upside is blogs can deliver a variety of benefits and dividends depending on what you want to get out of them. Perhaps the most important given the focus on content marketing is blogs can generate content that can be repurposed for lots of different things.

By Mark Evans - April 11th, 2012 - 2 Comments »
Tags: blogging, nielsen, Social Media
Posted in Social Media

Good Blogging is a State of Mind

Darren Rowse had an interesting blog post recently about the lessons he has learned from his five-year-old son about blogging. His son, otherwise known a “X”, is really into art, and often thinks about his next project while doing other activities.

It is a concept that resonated with me because, in many respects, blogging is about the next post. By their very nature, blogs are fluid and dynamic creatures. A good blog (and bloggers) constantly keeps moving forward. As much as a particular post can be fantastic, it is not long before the next post must be produced.

For some people, the steady demands of blogging can be overwhelming, which is why many blogs die on the vine after a few weeks or months. The need to “feed the beast” is a fact of life. By not blogging on a regular basis, a blog can lack the consistency it needs to attract an audience.

So what are the things that can be done to keep the beast happy?

A key is coming up with a non-stop flow of ideas that can be turned into blog posts. As important is the recognition that ideas can come from anywhere. You can be talking to a friend or colleague. Ideas can come from a newspaper article, blog post or newsletter. They can emerge when you’re working out, taking a shower or listening to music.

Given this reality, it is important to “bookmark” these ideas as they materialize. Keep a piece of paper or small notebook in your pocket, or have a text document on your desktop to quickly write down ideas. By being disciplined, you will be surprised by how quickly a notebook or document can start to fill up with ideas.

Not all of these ideas are going to be amazing but there will be enough quality ideas to keep your blog vibrant and consistent. As important, you’ll discover that as you open yourself up to ideas and start capturing them, the ideas will start to flow.

To paraphrase Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” (see the video below), doing well with your blog means being in a “Blogging State of Mind”.

By Mark Evans - January 23rd, 2012 - 3 Comments »
Tags: blogging, blogs, darren rowse, ideas
Posted in Social Media

Five Ways to Maintain Your Blogging Passion

Truth be told, blogging is probably the most challenging part of the social media ecosystem.

Writing a blog requires time, ideas, creative and writing skills. And there the effort required to consistently generate good content is considerable, particularly when the ideas aren’t flowing.

So how do you keep your blogging passion? What keeps the posts coming day after day, week in week out?

1. Be passionate. The easiest way to keep things humming along is being focused on a topic or topics that you’re passionate about. This makes it more fun than work, even though there is a lot of work involved. Have a focus also lets you allocate resources (mostly time) more efficiently than having a scattered approach.

2. Be consistent. Like exercise, blogging is easier when it’s part of the regular routine. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. If you stop working out or blogging on a regular basis, it can be difficult to get going again.

3. Variety if the spice of life. Blog posts that consistently take the same approach, style and length can feel like a product on an assembly line. On the other hand, writing different types of blog posts can be like cooking different meals each day. Sometimes, a post is a lengthy opinion piece, sometimes a post is a short comment on a news event or a post written by someone else, and sometimes a blog post is a video or a photo with a caption.

4. Read other blogs. It is important not to operate in a blogging silo in which all you’re doing is writing about your own thoughts or ideas. By reading other sources, it opens up the world to new ideas, perspectives, companies and people. Inevitably, it leads to some inspiration or even a nugget of an idea.

5. Get out and about. Talking to other people and hearing their ideas and thoughts is a a great way to spark new ideas for blog posts. In these situations, taking some quit notes can generate a flurry of potential blog posts.

More: Paul Jun has a blog post on Problogger talking about the benefits of taking a break from blogging to jump-start your blogging activity.

By Mark Evans - November 3rd, 2011 - 2 Comments »
Tags: blogging, blogs, ideas, tips
Posted in Social Media

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