People don’t always comment
After a few years of having a business blog I have some observations and opinions about comments. The great thing about my blogs, is that people can comment and I can have a conversation with my readers. I have learned though that those conversations are not essential when it comes to accomplishing my goal, which is to meet the people who live inside my computer who are looking for me because they need to buy or sell a home.
I have two closing on Thursday from people that met me through my blog and neither client ever left a comment. One couple has been reading the blog for about a year, the other client saw the blog and recognized pictures of her own neighborhood. She contacted me and it turns out that she lives so close I can almost see her apartment from my back porch. In fact out of the thousands of comments on my business blog I am guessing that less than 50 were from clients.
Not all comments are equal
We all know about comment spam. The people that leave comments just so they can get a link. I usually delete those. There is a kind of comment that can be worse. The comments from other Realtors. Occasionally they add to the conversation but in most cases they too want a link, they are just a little less obvious about it than the spam commenters.
When consumers, my potential clients see a lot of comments from Realtors on my blog they assume that the blog is for Realtors. Sometimes they see an entire conversation among Realtors and they figure it isn’t for them and they stay out of it.
We are being taught some questionable blogging practices
I have read some articles written by coaches experts on blogs, and online social networking encouraging real estate agents to join the blog web sites with all the real estate blogs on them or to hook up with other agents on social networks.
We are also encouraged to comment on each others posts while at the same time we are encouraged to write for consumers so we can win business. In my experience we can’t do both with the same blog, which is why I have more than one blog and why I write on agent genius.
Endless conversations amongst ourselves
I am as social as the next person but from a business point of view I don’t see the value of getting or receiving comments on my business blog from other agents. I love to tweet on twitter but other than my own enjoyment there is no value to being connected with hundred’s of other Realtors. Sure I might get a referral once in a while but that doesn’t pay the bills. The people who pay the bills are on the internet but they live in my community and they belong to various social networks, and none of those networks are centered around Realtors or real estate.
No Comment
Real estate bloggers who have business blogs that they use to meet people the way that I do should consider comments a bonus. They really are not essential to the success of the blog. Some of the articles I have in my blog that have gotten the most traffic and have been responsible for brining in business have no comments on them.
