Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Internet comments are awful. Recently sites [like Popular Science, Bloomberg Business, Reuters, Mic, The Week, re/code, The Verge, and now The Daily Dot] have been giving up on hosting local comments altogether. Blaming trolls and spambots and the shift in engagement to platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, you can almost hear the sighs of relief in their articles discussing these decisions.

This “What can you do? People are awful amirite!” attitude towards comment sections is fatalistic and misguided. If you don’t want comments on your website, that’s fine, don’t have them. But don’t act like comments are some sort of intractable problem that can’t be realistically addressed by mortals. They’re not. There are only a few reasons why most internet comments sections are terrible and real-world solutions to those problems. Be honest: you could fix this, but your priorities are elsewhere....

BuzzFeed gets free content, users get exposure, we get 11 Engagement Photos That Will Make You Happy You’re Single. ... The department devoted to creating this “old school” content is known as BuzzTeam. Their focus is anything shareable — lists, animals, nostalgia. The kind of content that BuzzFeed’s loyal readers have become hyper-familiar with. Many, in fact, have consumed so many such BuzzFeed posts that they’ve become adept at mimicking both their tone and their viral success. Earlier this month, BuzzFeed’s editors took a step toward giving those faithful followers a little more of the spotlight they crave.

 

Shepherd, along with a staff of four, now run BuzzFeed Community, a content-producing vertical of its very own, complete with featured posts by community members and a leaderboard with the latest on who’s posts are getting the most traffic, likes, comments, and badges. It’s a competitive place, and anyone can join and enter the fray....

... It takes investment in content, relationships, and learning to energize your community to become loyal brand advocates and customers. A new community member is not likely to hop right into your community and immediately become a brand advocate. You must earn their trust and nurture relationships over time.

Below are 50 ideas you can try to help energize your community. With every post, tweet, status update and blog post you should be thinking about what positive impact it will have on your community. Are you breathing life into your communities and relationships or are you sucking it away?...

Is your social media community sputtering along? Are your social media campaigns hitting on all cylinders? Are you fueling your social media marketing with the right content? If you are unsure of your social media marketing performance, then it’s time for a branding and community management social media tune-up!...