A comment on comments

Marketing types, and I’ll generously include myself in this group, like to talk about ‘the conversation’ and ‘the dialogue’ between consumers and brands. I try to read a variety of marketing/branding/PR/Advertising blog and have noticed something: Many of the blogs have very few comments. Here’s a very unscientific survey – I looked at the front page of several blogs, looked at the number of posts and the total number of comments:

PSFK: Posts:36, Comments: 57 (Avg. # comments per post: 1.58)

Brand Autopsy: Posts: 30, Comments: 192 (Avg. # comments per post: 6.4)

Influential Marketing Blog: Posts 10, Comments: 36 (Avg. # comments per post: 3.6)

Murketing: Posts 15, Comments: 7 (Avg. # comments per post: .47)

Grant McCracken: Posts 14, Comments 65 (Avg. # comments per post: 4.64)

Eyecube: Posts 10, Comments 7 (Avg. # comments per post: .7)

Online Marketer Blog: Posts 5, Comments 24 (Avg. # comments per post: 4.8)

Again, this is a rather arbitrary analysis. I think all of the above are super smart people who all have a different approach and style.

Let’s take a look at the Top five blogs on the AdAge Power 150 to see what that looks like under the same litmus test:

Blog comments, the new business card

On Saturday I attended Interesting New York (had I mentioned that before?). It was a terrific experience mainly because of the people involved, from organizers to participants to attendees. Just tons of really smart people. I exchanged very few business cards, but I’ve written many comments to people involved on their blogs – and many have written comments here at Eyecube.

It got me thinking, is blog commenting the new business card?  With a blog comment you leave critical information (name, email address, website) but more importantly you leave your viewpoint.  I think blog comments are far more memorable than a business card as well, or certainly can be.