Blog Commenting Etiquette: Who are you?

Here's another tip on blog commenting etiquette: please leave your name. This is quickly becoming one of my pet blogging peeves. This week alone, three lovely readers left comments and signed the name of their businesses.

People, please, it's very hard to comment back and have a conversation with "Prints and Needles," "Internet Marketing," or "Real Estate Sales Coach". I want to know your names, your real names.

This is Web 2.0, after all. We have this amazing ability to network and meet up through the powerful Web. Why not use it to its fullest? And this goes for Facebook and Twitter and blogging too.

Oh, you guys think you're being clever marketers, I'll bet. Well, no, you're not. I'm just not connecting with you when I have to say, "Oh, thanks for stopping by, Ms. Prints, or Mr. Internet Marketing."

Denise and I leave our names, and for branding purposes, we sign Patsi, AKA The Blog Squad, or Denise, AKA The Blog Squad. That does the marketing thing and is personal. Blog commenting is great, but use it well, don't be silly. There can be a merging of manners AND marketing if you think about it.

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Comments

[Travis Greenlee]

Hey Denise, another great blog post!

You certainly are on the money with this...
Let's all continue to focus on building quality relationships, if so, business will naturally follow.

Keep up the great work my dear :-)

- Travis

[Lin Ennis]

I like the etiquette tips.

Although, sometimes anonymity's a plus. Do you use aliases for other purposes, such as blogs or comments on topics outside your branded expertise?

Lin

[Laura Christianson]

Patsi,

I agree with your advice for commenters to leave their names. I respond to almost every comment I receive on my blogs, either via e-mail or in the comments area of the post. Many of the commenters to my personal blog (exploringadoptionblog.com) leave "names" such as "want2bmom." I understand that they're trying to protect their privacy, but it does create more of a personal connection when I respond to them if I can address them by name. I can't tell you how many great relationships--both business and personal--have been launched via a comment to my blog. If commenters are afraid to leave their name, it makes those relationships much harder to navigate.

Laura Christianson, aka "She" www.HeBlogsSheBlogs.com

[Laurie/HaloSecretarial]

I usually sign my name/business name. Do you this this is ok or should I just use my personal name?

[Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad]

Travis, Lin, Laura, Laurie: Thanks! You all get it! Thanks for stopping by. And I really like it when you also leave something that tells me what business your in, such as Laura Christianson aka "she", and Laurie/HaloSecretarial. That puts context into your brief visits and comments.

What's amazing is that I only posted this 2 hours ago and already there are 4 comments.

Please note: Ms. Blog Manners also says it's a good idea, when there is more than one author on a blog, to check out the author's name in the footer. When you do you will see that it is Patsi and not Denise who wrote this post, Travis. You've forgiven because you're so good looking. ;-0

[Denise aka The Blog Squad]

What's also interesting is how much play this is getting on Twitter. Since we push out our blog posts to our Twitter profiles, a lot of peeps are clicking through from Twitter to read and then are pushing it out to THEIR peeps.

The power of social media is astounding.

[Jeanne May]

Hi Patsi

I couldn't agree more with the need to leave your name... like many others, every now and then I get a comment I would like to follow up but there is no name, no website and an e-mail address which doesn't exist. And what is surprising is that it usually is a great comment... not something you want to be anonymous about! I guess people are still trying to find their way around what to do and what not to do!

Jeanne

[http://magdaleneieboigbe.blogspot.com/]

how do I get people to comment