Tips for Managing Blog Feedback

Manage Blog Feedback

Manage Blog FeedbackFeedback is a vital part of any blog. Just allowing feedback to accumulate, however, isn’t such a good thing.

Your feedback can easily become a messy jumble of random comments going all over the place as far as topics go – including comments that drift into completely separate and unrelated topics and sub-conversations.

This doesn’t make a good impression on new blog visitors, which just happens to be what you need to keep your blog thriving.

Set Feedback Controls

Most blog hosts allow you to set specific controls on your feedback comments. On WordPress, for example, you can allow visitors leaving feedback to post their own avatar or use a default avatar. You also have additional feedback settings to:

  • Eliminate unacceptable language (helps in controlling objectionable language)
  • Make visitors register in order to leave a comment (discourages off-subject or outright nasty comments without merit)
  • Approve comments first (gives you a chance to make sure comments are relevant)
  • Block posts that appear to be spam (also allows you to block abusive visitors)
  • Receive an email alert when a new comment is posted (if you have a busy blog, this can become annoying, so gauge accordingly)
  • Decide if comments can be allowed on new posts (use this for posts you really don’t want to receive feedback on such as a reminder of blog rules or a short response to recent feedback)

Note: There are plenty of feedback widgets that you can add to your blog to further encourage and manage your feedback.

Delete Older or Outdated Comments

Cool comments on your blog are great, but they won’t have the same impact if you just leave them sit there forever. Make a general rule that you delete comments after a certain length of time has passed. If you want to save some great comments that you really can’t part with, start an archive page and turn the comments you want to save into an archived post. Delete irrelevant comments and obvious spam that wasn’t stopped by your comments settings.

Establish a Response Policy

If you have an especially active blog, it may not be possible for you to respond to every comment. To avoid offending loyal blog visitors or subscribers, establish a clear response policy. You can include this with your blog rules or make it a quick post on your blog. You could, for instance, respond to similar comments collectively in a new blog post. What you don’t want to do is ignore blog comments all together.

Redirect Customer Issues Away from Your Blog

If a subscriber has an issue with your business, refer them to your website or invite them to engage in a discussion with you via your Facebook page. If it is a major issue, invite them to call your business directly or email you. You don’t want to get into a back and forth discussion over a serious customer service issue via your blog comments section.

If you are going to use some of your blog’s feedback comments elsewhere, make sure you copy comments as they appear. If you have to edit for grammar and spelling purposes, that’s fine. If you do paraphrase certain parts, use “[paraphrased words here]” to make it clear that you are inserting your own words. This adds integrity to your blog. Happy blogging!

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Jennifer is a writer at Crowd Content and creates content for several marketing related blogs. To work with Jennifer and other great freelance writers, create a free client account at Crowd Content today!

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