To follow or not to follow - that is the question. Creating community takes time to learn that social media engagement is a valuable CRM feedback tool, which needs to be handled with care. Join the conversation online and watch out for those spammers!
Comments can bring satisfying link building traffic. It is also the stock in trade of the unwelcome spammer and pingback merchant who have no interest in real engagement, but are simply looking to increase back link traffic.
Like too many businesses who merely view social media as just another online marketing wheeze, the spammers, trollers and tinfoil hatters wilfully misunderstand the web where the longterm goal of organic SEO site conversion is by creating loyal customer relationships and sharing valuable content.
Building a brand identity of personable business presence by creating a backlink policy means implementing 'Do Follow' blogs. It is now considered important to be seen participating in an interactive community, whether by a regular blog, articles, videos, Twitter feeds or Facebook page.
Even more important is response, feedback and comment.
If you are commenting to attract backlinks to your own blog on a 'No Follow' blog, you won't be getting any backlinks. A 'Do Follow' blog tells the search engines to follow the link left with the comment. A 'No Follow' blog is exactly that.
The real big no-no are to leave comments, like auto-comment spam programmes, which are immediately seen as not in sync or engaged with the subject or flow of the thread. Like the unsegmented, mass email marketing blast outs of yesteryear to a company's whole database, scattergun comments are merely viewed as rude and tedious interruptions, which no one links back on and will only damage credibility. It's amazing how many still persist with blackhat tactics and playing the spam farm numbers game.
The key to social media networking online is the quality of comment. The blunt one liner product/service mention is simply crass, but asking questions and adding valuable input is more likely to put you in the conversation and attracting confidence to reply to your comment.
Interacting with online business networks like LinkedIn still demands a nuanced, social approach rather than 'trying to sell'. Remember to aim for blogs in the same interest/ market niche and don't expect immediate buzz or instant traffic flow, although you might.
Your key to the art of the blog - be yourself, be real and be the backlink everyone can't resist to click onto!