Summary

The article emphasizes the importance of thoughtful and valuable comments on Medium as a means to grow one's audience and enhance personal branding.

Abstract

The author discusses the impact of comments on Medium, noting that while commenting can be an effective growth strategy, the quality of those comments is crucial. Poorly crafted comments can harm one's reputation and be perceived as spam, while well-thought-out comments can foster connections with authors and their audiences, add value to the conversation, and lead to increased followership. The article suggests that comments are a reflection of one's personal brand and should be approached with care, leaving a positive and memorable impression. The author plans to provide further guidance on crafting good comments in a future article and invites readers to share their thoughts on what constitutes a good or bad comment.

Opinions

Comments on Medium can significantly influence audience growth and personal branding.
Generic or low-effort comments, such as "great post," can be detrimental and viewed as spam.
Well-crafted comments that add value can lead to new connections and increased visibility.
Comments should be seen as part of one's professional image, akin to a business card.
The author believes that a well-written comment can prompt readers to explore an author's profile and content.
The article suggests that the quality of comments can affect how notifications from certain profiles are perceived and whether they are ignored.
The author values comments that demonstrate genuine engagement with the content and plans to elaborate on this in future content.
Engaging comments can prompt the author to follow the commenter, as illustrated by personal examples provided in the article.
The author is open to feedback from readers to inform the next part of the article on effective commenting strategies.
The author promotes their newsletter as an additional resource for readers interested in their insights.

Poor comments harms your brand

I hesitated to do this post because I can feel it will attract a bit of heat but as I love my followers and want them to succeed, a dose of truth never hurts.

One way to grow your medium account is to leave replies on various posts. It’s even the most effective way of growing your audience on this platform when you’re starting from scratch with no connection.

But these comments are a two-sided blade. Don’t handle them with care and you’ll slice off the wings of your growth.

There’s a large range of comments : - beautiful, well-crafted, well-argued ones that really want to add value to your article - the nice ones, which are only there to generate traffic to the author’s page - adverts that aren’t even disguised and that strongly invite you to visit the author’s page - comments that have nothing to do with the article (the strangest ones) - comments that have nothing to do with the article but are just like “Follow me and I’ll follow you”. - comments with one or two words: “great post”, “cool idea”, “nice” or some kind of weird emoji - comments full of typo - hate comment - other types of comments, but I’d need an endless article to list them all

An eclectic range of comments, giving rise to a surprise every time you open a notification.

Let’s get back to the purpose of a comment and its objectives: - Connect with the story’s author - Connect to the story author’s audience - Add value to the story, so that those who read it think “ah, he said something interesting, I’ll go and visit his profile”.

And when you’ve already interacted with the author, simply nurture the relationship with him or her.

Now imagine you’re simply leaving a generic word comment on an author who’s not your friend (because you can also leave a comment just to help the algo of your friends post) - What can the author do with that? - If he’s got an audience, he’s probably getting a dozen a day. - He might even wonder if it’s just spam, since he’s receiving several comments of this type.

But worse: - it will identify your profile with the one that posts insipid/spam comments. - Chances are it won’t check the next notification when it sees your profile displayed. - This will also be the reaction of all those who read the comment.

Your posts are part of your branding. Your profile is part of your branding. Your comments are also part of your branding. And like the previous two, they need special care.

It’s a business card you’re going to leave in the four corners of medium, and what do you want to leave behind: a generic business card or one of the most beautiful cards anyone has ever had?

Before you write your comment, remember that it’s a part of you that’s going to be left somewhere on a page.

What do you want to present? The best or the worst? How do you want to be remembered?

If I were to tackle how to leave a good comment, we’d be back to one of those endless articles again, and this morning I don’t have enough time to elaborate.

But the subject is so interesting that I’ll craft something in the next few days.

If you want some examples, here are a few screenshots of comments I’ve received that made me instantly follow their creators.

Instant followed Ross after this one. He took time to read the post. Time to craft something. Gave enough for to be able to know that i’ll like his future post.

When i browsed Feather profile, i was amaze because he had a lot of good content. It’s his comment that made me want to browse it and shot him a follow.

Sejal comment sparked some curiosity in me. It seemed like a determined person and that’s a trait I appreciate in people.

These are just a few examples, but they illustrate a few rules that make for good replies.

As this article draws to a close, I’d like to know what you think? What do you think makes a good comment? What makes you follow an author after reading their comment? What’s a bad comment?

I’m looking forward to reading your feedback and it will help me a lot in crafting the next part of this article.

PS: Before you go. You should know that I have a newsletter. I’ve even had a few people tell me it’s their favorite newsletter (I promise I didn’t threaten anyone.) If you want to know why, all you have to do is add your e-mail address here. You won’t regret it.