Think back to the last time you went to a party where you didn't know many people. Did you have a good time? Make some new connections? If so, then you probably didn't just stand in one spot and expect people to approach you for conversation — you mingled.
Mingling is a simple yet effective art. It's about paying attention, not just getting attention. It's about joining conversations more often than starting them. You approach people who are engaged in a discussion, listen in to see if you have something relevant to add, and speak up at an appropriate moment, while politely introducing yourself. Still, it never fails to amaze us how, in the online world, many people discard their superb party interaction skills in the zeal to gain visibility, traffic, and revenue.
Being a boor is no more successful online than it is at a party.
Being a good online "mingler," however, can help establish you as a leader in your field. The more effectively you engage publicly with other professionals and their communities of readers, the more work will come your way. Good online conversation — through thoughtful comments on blogs and other sites — can be your best professional marketing tool.
Wait, I'm Not an Island?
When you see someone acting boorishly in a blog's comments, it may not be their fault. Many so-called online experts offer spectacularly bad advice about commenting online. They encourage us to design, launch, and focus on our own websites or blogs to the virtual exclusion of anything else that's happening in the online world, including the perspectives or goals of the people we seek to engage.
Forgetting to engage the online community is even more common with a shared blog where there are multiple authors. Somehow, each person thinks that everyone else will put in the effort to drive traffic to the site and that their sole responsibility is to write good stuff.
So...how do you go about mingling online?
Where to Comment? Identify Relevant Thought and Opinion Leaders
In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell makes a persuasive argument that we are all influenced by the people to whom we give our trust and credence.
To gain visibility for your online writing efforts, therefore, you cannot just stick with a strategy of writing great material for your own site. You need to cultivate the interest of other leaders in your field, by contributing to their sites.
The smart way to do this is to first spend some time and effort identifying sites and people who already are thought and opinion leaders in the communities you wish to reach (such as the people who can enhance your reputation or hire you).
You probably already know who most of these influential online writers are. Some are leading scientists, educators, editors, public relations professionals, or other staffers at key organizations such as universities, think tanks, nonprofits, hospitals, and consumer magazines. Others might be fellow science writers working in an area of expertise complementary to yours.
Many of these people write their own blogs or publish in news outlets or other venues that allow online comments — or they're active participants in quality online communities. You can find their online publications by searching Google for their names. If the first few results don't take you to a site where a key person is publishing content that is open to comments, try sorting the search results by date.
Once you've identified a few key influencers or possible clients, start reading their blogs or other online publications regularly. Subscribe to the most relevant sites in a feed reader (Google Reader and MyYahoo are good tools for subscribing to blogs). Then check your feed reader at least once daily for fresh headlines from your target influencers, and leave comments in a timely manner — if you can comment first or near first on a new post, you'll get much more attention from your target and other readers.
What to Comment? Add Value to the Conversation
Whenever you can, leave smart, thoughtful comments that add value to a conversation. The first few times you comment on a particular target site, make it all about them. Aside from leaving the URL for your own site in the comment form, don't even mention your own work or agenda. Instead, pick up on something they said in the post and politely ask them to elaborate. Flattery helps ("I was intrigued that you said..."), but don't be obsequious ("Golly, that's the best blog post I ever read!").
As you establish yourself as a regular reader and commenter, you can begin to mention how your work or expertise is relevant to the target's goals, writing, or work ("I'm glad you mentioned new technologies for analyzing X-ray telescope data. Coincidentally, I'm editing a book with a chapter on that..."). However, never leave a comment that's solely self-serving — and never ask for them to link to you. Instead, prove that you're worth linking to.
And if the target's posts or articles include open questions or requests for help, try to offer that help in your comments.
If you're trying to impress an influencer, don't get into arguments in comments to their site. If other people are arguing about a topic already, best to leave that comment thread alone even if you have something constructive to add. Once an argument breaks out, most people in a constructive frame of mind will tune out quickly, and you'll only be talking to the trolls.
If you want to get more sophisticated, you can try this strategic commenting approach, which integrates posts to your blog with comments to other sites.
Consistent Commenting Drives Traffic to Your Own Site
We recommend that you spend at least half your time online engaging in conversation via comments on other people's blogs. That's a substantial investment, and it may seem counterintuitive to people who are primarily used to seeing value in publishing rather than conversation. But consistent commenting can be well worth a science writer's time.
In the digital world, getting attention (especially inbound links) from popular sites is a great way to increase traffic to your site. Link-driven traffic helps you become more findable in two ways:
1) Immediate, direct links. Most blog comment forms ask you to provide a URL when you comment. Always give the URL for your blog or site — or at the very least for your public LinkedIn profile page. When your comment gets published, it will include a link to the URL you specify. In most cases, Google sees this link. The more inbound links your site gets (including from comments you leave on other blogs), the higher your site will appear in search results.
2) Attention and links from other bloggers. When you start commenting on influential blogs, the authors of those sites, in time, will come to recognize you as a thoughtful commentator. They may eventually link to your site. Then, influential people in your world will "recognize" you. Equally important, Google will see that you have quality inbound links — which boosts your search ranking.
Of course, you'll only get these rewards if you stay engaged with the online conversation. Make commenting on other blogs a regular part of your online efforts. Don't just do it in bursts. The more consistent you are, the more it will pay off in visibility, reputation, and work.
Dave Taylor has been online since 1980 and is the author of the popular tech support blog AskDaveTaylor.com. He's also a movie reviewer with his own film blog at DaveOnFilm.com and you can find him just about everywhere at DaveTaylorOnline.com.
Amy Gahran is a journalist, editor, and media consultant. She blogs at Contentious.com and the Knight Digital Media Center at USC Annenberg. She's also a senior editor at OaklandLocal.com. You can follow her on Twitter at agahran.
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